This article briefs on why you should choose Power BI, a business analytics solution to visualize data and share insights. The tool helps to tell your data story your way. Moreover, Power BI is a solution completely built on the Azure Cloud. The service was introduced way back in 2011 under a limited preview option. Then, it was released to the general public in 2015.
Everyone in your organization needs to be empowered to work with data, to build a data culture. So, simplify complex data analytics and bring your data to life with Power BI. Also, this tool helps organizations to create a data culture where employees can make decisions based on facts, not opinions. And, the whole experience of BI becomes a collaborative process.
Power BI offers excellent capabilities in visual analytics as a part of BI solutions. Here are 15 reasons why you should choose Power BI for your business analytics needs.
15 Reasons to choose Power BI
1) Ease of usability
Power BI is a user-friendly software to connect with multiple data sources and build data dashboards at ease. The software is suitable for naïve, intermediate, and advanced users. So, users irrespective of their experience levels can take advantage of Power BI. If you are a Microsoft user, then getting started with Power BI would be a no-brainer.
2) Wide range of support
Microsoft Power BI supports different data sources, irrespective of the data location and data structure. For example, some of the databases supported in Power BI are Excel, Azure Analysis Services, Microsoft SQL Server, Google Analytics, Amazon Redshift, Google BigQuery, Azure SQL Database, MySQL, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, SharePoint Lists, Oracle, Salesforce, MailChimp.
3) Collaboration
Multiple users can work on the same data dashboards and reports simultaneously. Moreover, the cloud advantage gives the power of collaboration in Power BI. Choose Power BI and you can share the reports and insights among the stakeholders. And, they can also view the reports in a web browser without having to install the Power BI software.
4) Learn easily with multiple resources
Power BI has always been one of the easiest tools for beginners to learn. Also, Microsoft provides various learning resources to master the software. The Power BI documentation gives expert information to consumers, report designers, admins, and developers. Furthermore, it helps users to get started with Power BI and jump-start analytics with Power BI. Also, there are video tutorials on Power BI’s YouTube channel, where you can learn Power BI step-by-step.
5) Get connected with the Power BI Community
Got any queries? You can get the answers from the different Power BI communities. The Microsoft Power BI Community portal is the major network where you can get your issues addressed. Here, you can also help others with their questions, and request for new features. Also, there are Power BI User Groups where users can connect with other Power BI users locally. This network also hosts regular meetings where people share knowledge and discuss on the latest Power BI features.
6) FREE trial & Pocket-friendly pricing
Power BI comes with an attractive pricing from $9.99 per user/month. The data storage capacity starts all the way from 10 GB per user to 100 TB. Also, there is an additional advantage for Office 365 Enterprise E5 users. And, those users can enjoy the Power BI Pro license, which is included in the E5 subscription. Choose Power BI and enjoy a 60-day free trial. Besides, you could also request an extension to the free trial.
7) Self-service data analytics and visualization
Power BI enables a data-driven culture among your organization to spread business intelligence. So, you can empower even entry-level employees to make confident decisions with Power BI. Get self-service analytics at enterprise scale, at no additional costs and reduced security risks.
The self-service data visualization feature is an important feature of Power BI. Leverage the ability to query by asking natural language questions and by extending your Excel data models to your Power BI reports. Similarly, empower colleagues of varying ability and experience levels—even Excel novices—to understand your insights and discover their own.
8) Real-time analytics
Power BI offers the power of live dashboards where you can stream analytics in real-time. Likewise, you can publish real-time content that users can access in the office or on the go. Know what’s happening now, not just in the past. You can get access to real-time analytics, right from industrial sensors to social media sources. Then, you can make timely decisions.
9) Power BI is a part of the Microsoft Power Platform
Go from data to insights, and insights to action with the Microsoft Power Platform—combining Power BI with Power Apps and Power Automate to easily build business applications and automate workflows. Therefore, Power Platform is the complete network to analyze data, build solutions, automate processes, and create virtual agents. Teams without any app-development experience can create apps, gain business insights, and save money. Also, you can connect the Power Platform to Office 365, Dynamics 365, Azure, and hundreds of other apps—and build end-to-end business solutions.
10) Easily integrate with the all-time favorite – Excel
Power BI is fully integrated with Microsoft Excel. So, you can get up to speed quickly and work seamlessly with your existing solutions. Combine Excel with Power BI to get broad data analytics and visualization capabilities. This integration provides an easy method to gather and analyze key business data in new ways—quickly and efficiently.
11) The big support to Big Data
Power BI enables a fast, and secure method to extract critical insights, as your data volumes and complexity grows exponentially. So, your organization can take timely actions to maintain a competitive advantage. It can perform petabyte-scale analytics with Power BI Aggregations and Azure SQL Data Warehouse. And, you can analyze trillions of data rows and gain insights on the fly with instant response times.
12) Data Speed with Azure and Power BI together
Power BI, backed by Azure, enables companies to analyze and extract insights from large datasets with instant response times. Additionally, it easily integrates with artificial intelligence and machine learning models to fuel the data analysis. So, you can see your data in new ways and make informed decisions with Power BI.
13) Quick analytics and predictions from Microsoft’s industry-leading AI & ML
Leverage the latest advances in Microsoft AI to help non-data scientists prepare data, build machine learning models, and find insights quickly from both structured and unstructured data. Power BI also supports natural language Q&As to get quick data patterns and insights.
You can get capabilities such as image recognition and text analytics directly in Power BI. Also, you can create machine learning models directly in Power BI using automated machine learning. The seamless integration of Azure Machine Learning within Power BI ensures you discover actionable insights. Power BI makes it simple to incorporate the insights from models hosted on Azure Machine Learning, using straightforward point-and-click gestures.
14) Embed Power BI visuals anywhere
Embed stunning, interactive data visualizations in applications, websites, portals, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, and more, to showcase your business data in context. You can easily embed interactive reports and dashboards using Power BI REST APIs and the Power BI SDK. Therefore, the users can enjoy consistent, high-fidelity experiences across devices.
Power BI Embedded for application developers enables you to embed cutting-edge dashboards, reports, and data visualizations in custom applications and portals. You don’t have to waste your time and build your own analytics solution from the ground up.
15) Use Azure Cognitive Services capabilities in Power BI
Azure Cognitive Services are pre-trained machine learning models to extract insights from data. These services are integrated into Power BI to provide powerful ways to extract information from a variety sources like documents, images, and social media feeds. These algorithms can identify named entities such as organizations, people, and locations. They can recognize objects in images, detect language, identify key phrases, and determine positive or negative sentiment.
We know that it is important to assess any tool before purchasing long-term license. Microsoft offers a 60-day free trial, so make sure you take the advantage of it! Download the Power BI Desktop here. Try out different visualizations and asses your comfort level with the user interface using a standard dataset to see if they meet expectations. Make sure the tool connects to the sources you are using the most. It is also important to note that Power BI for Mac is not yet available. Choose Power BI today!
Would you love to discuss more on how Microsoft Power BI can be useful for your organization? Are you looking for a platform and team of experts to kickstart your data and analytics efforts? Choose Power BI and we are here to help! Getting traction adopting new technologies can be a roadblock for success. This is true in the case of a self-service only world. If you want to discuss a proof-of-concept, pilot, project, or any other effort, Deevita’s team of data experts are ready to help. Reach out to us at info@deevita.com