In this article we will explain what is Microsoft Power BIThe main advantages, all the types of licences available and which one is best suited to each need and type of company.
What is Microsoft Power BI
Power BI is Microsoft's business intelligence tool. It provides in-depth, real-time analysis of business data, turning it into valuable information that helps you make the best business decisions.
Top 10 Benefits of Microsoft Power BI
These are the main reasons why many experts believe Microsoft Power BI the best BI/Big Data tool:
1) Power BI is an intuitive and easy-to-use tool.It allows you to create basic reports and dashboards without technical knowledge, especially in the Desktop version. However, as we go deeper into the tool, if we want to take advantage of its enormous potential, training is necessary to get the most out of it. Next-Step provides training through open classroom courses and tailor-made courses for companies. You can see here our next calls for Power BI classroom courses:
https://next-step.es/formacion-microsoft-power-bi/
2) Integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Excel. This is one of its biggest advantages, as many companies use Excel spreadsheets as a data analysis tool. You can easily export and connect Excel data to Power BI dashboards. Don't miss this video tutorial:
3) Power BI allows multiple complex analyses to be performed in a single panel, with a single, highly engaging visualisation. In addition, dashboards can be published and shared across the organisation, helping to foster a culture of data analytics and business intelligence in the organisation.
4) Microsoft Power BI is constantly being updated, which generates real-time data analysis. This enables organisations to make urgent decisions in the moment. It helps solve problems as they arise and seize opportunities as they arise, thereby generating a competitive advantage.
5) Power BI incorporates Power View and Power Map toolsThe software is designed for visualisation of images and graphics in 3 dimensions and visualisation of data on geographic maps. There is integration with ArcGIS Maps from ESRI, the world's leading geomarketing company, enabling advanced spatial analysis. ArcGIS Maps incorporates layers of socio-demographic information and other variables to provide context to the data and relate location to other critical variables.
6) It is an Artificial Intelligence (Machine Learning) tool.. Power BI not only analyses what has happened in the past and what is currently happening in the company, it also allows you to detect trends and make predictions of what may happen in the future (Forecasting).
7) Power BI has a natural language interface, This means that queries can be made to Power BI in the same way that we ask questions to a person and the tool responds with the requested information, be it a graph, a table or a piece of data.
8) It is an affordable business intelligence tool for any company, regardless of size or resources, because as explained above, there is the Power BI Desktop platform, which is free to use. The Power BI Pro version is a pay-per-licence version, but at a very affordable price per user (9.99 $ per month), compared to other BI tools.
9) Power BI stores information in the Azure cloud. Microsoft Azure (formerly Windows Azure) is a cloud computing platform or cloud service hosted in Microsoft's global network of data centres. This allows access to Power BI data and dashboards from any location and device, with complete security and privacy.
10) Large community of experts and users: There is a large community of Power BI experts and users worldwide, who help to solve all doubts in thousands of articles, forums and blogs. The most important is on the official Microsoft Power BI website:
https://community.powerbi.com/
Power BI Spain User Group is the Official Group for Spain of the Microsoft PowerBI Users Group PUG:
https://www.pbiusergroup.com/home
This community, mainly composed of advanced users and developers, but accessible to any Power BI user, tries to spread the use of the tool, informs about the latest news and teaches how to get the most out of it. Power BI is constantly innovating, incorporating new features and improving functionality to remain the leading tool on the market.
Power BI License Types: Differences between Power BI Desktop, Power BI Pro and Power BI Premium
There are three versions and Microsoft Power BI licence types: Desktop, Pro and Premium. Let's take a look at the characteristics of each of them and which one is best suited to each business model.
– Power BI DesktopIt is the free desktop applicationwhich can be downloaded from Microsoft Store and install it on your computer or tablet. The interface is very intuitive and allows non-technological users to create their own graphical dashboards and reports. It allows uploading data from various sources (local and cloud) and creating very attractive and interactive visualisations that can be published. But it has storage limits and significant functionality limitations compared to the paid versions. It is the best version for freelancers and micro-enterprises.who want to professionally analyse their business data and design their dashboards autonomously, but do not need a lot of storage capacity. Also for area managers of medium and large companies, who want to test the tool, designing their first reports.
– Power BI Pro: This is the version with full functionality, which is hosted at Azure, Microsoft's cloud. Requires individual licence fee. It allows unlimited publishing, sharing and consumption of the created dashboards, charts and reports. But it has limitations in data storage (maximum 10 GB per user). It is therefore a good choice for small and medium sized companies, without high data volumes and where few licenses are needed..
– Power BI Premium has the same functionality as Power BI Pro, but with more data storage capacity (to 100 TB) and maximum performance, as it features dedicated cloud processing and storage resources. There are different versions, which can be scaled as the company's analysis requirements change. In this case, you do not pay per individual licence, but rather pay a monthly fee which allows a large number of its users to use Power BI to view reports. That's why et is the ideal application for large companies where many users need to edit and visualise data and reports..
- Power BI Licences and features:
Power BI Licences
What is Power BI Embedded or Power BI Embedded?
– Power BI EmbeddedPower BI Embedded is Azure's service for developers, which allows you to embed Power BI dashboards, dashboards and interactive reports in your applications (APIS).
This paid service is not charged through end-user licenses, but by time of consumption of the reports. Please contact us if you need more information about this service: https://next-step.es/contacto
Next-Step Consultants is a Microsoft Certified Partner. and experts in Power BI development and implementation. If you need more information about which version of Power BI is the most suitable for your company's needs, help to implement the tool or evolve the reports, contact us and we will advise you without obligation:
We also provide training on Power BI, through open classroom courses and customised courses for companies. You can see here our next calls for Power BI courses in Madrid:
https://next-step.es/formacion-microsoft-power-bi/