Power BI is a visualisation tool from Microsoft that is one of the most used tools for creating visualisation reports today. A big advantage is the affordability of the tool, as the desktop version of the application is available for free and the licence per user is around 10 euros per month. It is thanks to its easy access that more or less anyone can use it.
Compared to the similar tool Google Data Studio, Power BI is more complex to use, so it can be described as a more advanced tool with more options in terms of creating visualisations and reports for your clients.
Digital architects offer comprehensive functional reports to help you with your business issues and problems that you are currently solving. With us, you will find problem solving at the top of your mind and an effective and beneficial report from which you will gain valuable information to help your business grow and evolve.
The pros and cons of Power BI
So what’s the beauty of it?
- The desktop version of the application is available for free. So anyone with a capable computer at hand can use it.
- The paid version, which is still very affordable, also allows for sharing and public publishing features. This bonus makes it very easy to communicate and share reports with the client.
- Power BI is much faster than other tools and is able to handle much larger data sets.
- It can be linked to various databases and data sources, meaning that everything from Bigquery to Google Analytics can be used.
- The tool brings the ability to transform data directly in Power BI and is generally tailored to work with larger data. Thus, one can partially prepare their data in Power BI.
- It offers more options, i.e. features, interactive charts, more choice of graphical representation of data, a wider Power BI community, tools created by the community through which one can gain a lot of inspiration and more.
Any cons?
- Power BI is more complicated than other tools, involves more processes and setup.
- Necessity to use Windows operating system, as there is no desktop version available for iOS systems.
- You must also have the tool downloaded as a desktop app, as data manipulation outside of the desktop app is very limited.
What is Power BI good for?
With Power BI we can visualise everything our client wants, or there are no limits in visualisations. However, in the case of creating reports, it is not always about the technical specification of the matter, but rather about our own creativity. We want our results to be meaningful, clear, correct, but also beautiful ?
Most often we visualise our customers’ marketing goals, specifically their sales, orders, campaign performance and more. Of course, we are fully capable of and always enjoy creating more advanced visualisations, such as RFM analysis, which we generally don’t get to very often due to lack of time.
We often use templates that we can get from the community behind Power BI. It is this large community that often makes our work easier and more enjoyable, and from which we can draw a lot of inspiration.
How does our work process work?
It all starts with a discussion with the client about what exactly they need, what their ideas are and any recommendations we are happy to provide. This step is very important to us and our client, as we don’t want to waste our time or our client’s time and our goal is to make the work efficient and effective.
The next step is to collect the necessary and relevant data, which we usually get directly from the client from tools like Google Analytics or measurement and we implement the data collection for the client.
The third step is the processing of the first visualisation, or the first outline of the visualisation. We then discuss this outline in great detail with the client to iron out any kinks and adapt the report to the client’s requirements and ideas. It is based on all the comments that we create a final report that perfectly matches the client’s brief.
Who is the tool suitable for?
Power BI can be considered a tool that is suitable for everyone, if only because of its low cost. For small businesses, we would recommend Google Data Studio, which is sufficient and for which we also offer training sessions where you and your employees can learn how to use the tool in detail. For medium and large businesses we already see prosperity in Power BI, which will give you nice and clear visualisations and make it easy to find all the important data. At the same time, if your company uses Microsoft, adapting with Power BI will be much easier and more convenient. We are also preparing training on Power BI for you, if you would be interested in this service of ours, do not hesitate to contact us.
