What is Power BI?

Power BI, or Microsoft Power Business Intelligence, is an analytical tool consisting of various business intelligence class applications and services. Primarily a cloud-based system, it helps companies in multiple industries collect, process and analyse data from different sources through a user-friendly interface. Power BI is currently the most well-known tool for business analytics.

How is Microsoft's Power BI system structured?

Within the Power BI suite, there are three main components.

1. Power BI Desktop, a free application installed on a Windows PC, is designed to create reports.

2. Power BI Online allows you to view and interact with reports anywhere and anytime conveniently. It is a version of the programme for phones and tablets.

3. Power BI Service, on the other hand, is Microsoft's secure, hosted cloud service that allows dashboards, reports and Power BI applications to be viewed using a web browser or mobile apps for Windows, iOS and Android. Reports or elements of reports can then be shared with other users in the organisation.

What is Power BI used for?

Data is the lifeblood of modern businesses. More information being generated than ever before is meaningless if it is not processed correctly. Business intelligence software such as Microsoft Power BI comes to the aid of organisations that want to make decisions based on accurate data.

The use of Power BI brings with it several benefits. Among the most important of these is the ability to import vast amounts of data that most other platforms available cannot handle. The system's built-in machine learning functions built into the system enable data to be analysed efficiently, making it easier to spot significant trends and make accurate predictions.

Power BI also teaches good data visualisation practices. The analyses created with its help are highly interactive and easy to understand. It is also easy to share prepared reports by publishing and sharing them. Power BI is equipped with an intuitive interface, making it a much more user-friendly tool and easier to navigate than complex spreadsheets or ERP systems. Thanks to its attractive data visualisation, data can be analysed, and conclusions are drawn much more quickly.

Power BI guarantees data security by controlling access both internally and externally. Significantly, the analytical platform from Microsoft is constantly being developed. As a result, system users have access to state-of-the-art business intelligence solutions. At the same time, Power BI is an affordable tool - organisations can flexibly adapt the system according to their needs and the size of the data collected.

Microsoft Power BI - integrations

One of the main advantages of Power BI is its ability to integrate freely with popular applications used in various aspects of an organisation's business. These include SharePoint, Office 365 and Dynamics 365, and other products outside the Microsoft ecosystem, including Azure SQL, Stream Analytics, Salesforce, GitHub, Google Analytics, Spark, Hadoop or MailChimp. In addition, the programme allows you to automatically pull data from specific sources, which significantly speeds up the creation of reports.

What can you do in Power BI?

What functionalities does Microsoft Power BI offer? The business analysis tool allows you to pull data from multiple systems simultaneously. A key feature of Power BI is the option to process data from various sources: spreadsheets, accounting software, ERP, sales software, CRM or project management systems. In addition, the system allows seamless connection to data warehouses within the Microsoft ecosystem or to local SQL databases. With the help of Power BI, it is possible to create dashboards, which allow for the ongoing monitoring of essential indicators from the perspective of a given organisation (the so-called KPIs). However, this is not the end of the story, as the capabilities of Power BI are constantly being expanded to best meet the needs and expectations of companies.

How to implement Power BI?

The modern analytical tool from Microsoft is a vast improvement for companies wishing to manage the data they collect efficiently. However, to be fit for its purpose, it should be perfectly tailored to the needs and expectations of a given organisation. At EBIS, we implement the Power BI application based on an individual implementation offer prepared for a given client.

Are you planning to introduce Power BI in your company? Then, feel free to contact us - we will non-committally present the possibilities of the system and our competence in its scope.

EBIS - Microsoft Gold Partner

EBIS belongs to the group of Microsoft partners with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner status. With this prestigious distinction, we have full access to Microsoft resources and technologies and technical, marketing and business support. In addition, our consultants have extensive business analytics skills and are committed to implementing BI solutions.

We also provide training, which includes advice on how to make the most of the services offered by the Power Bi system and assistance in preparing the first reports, tables and charts.