Microsoft Power BI overview
Data visualization enables the transformation of abstract measurable data into a visual representation in the form of tables, charts, graphs, and matrices (Bhargava et al. 1; Qin et al. 2). Microsoft Power BI is an intriguing data visualization tool (Bansal and Upadhyay 14; Hadhoud and Walid 5). Power BI consists of various components that are available on the market separately and can be purchased and used independently, such as Power BI Desktop, Power BI Embedded, Power BI Gateway, and Power BI Mobile Apps.
When it was first sold
In 2010, Microsoft came up with the concept for this tool. In July 2011, it was made publicly available for download under the name “Project Crescent.” It took three months for the Office 365 add-in to be published under the new Power BI brand (Senter 44). After that, Power Pivot, Power Query, and Power View were thereafter exclusively accessible as Microsoft Excel add-ins (Becker and Gould 185). Power BI Gateway was integrated with various features, such as enterprise-level data connectors and security settings. Power BI was then released for sale with all its current full-fledged features for the first time on July 24, 2015. Today, Power BI remains a popular data visualization tool.
Main customers
Firms in the professional services sector are the largest customer group (16.3%), followed by the manufacturing sector (13.2%), the financial services sector (8.6%), and the healthcare sector (7.1%). Others include the retail sector (6.3%), the oil and gas sector (5.5%), and the education sector (5.2%) (Microsoft Power BI). The top 5 companies that use Microsoft are Walmart, Apple, McKesson, Berkshire Hathaway, and GEICO (Microsoft Power BI). Hence, Power BI has an extended customer segment.
Key strengths of Power BI
Power makes creating straightforward dashboards and dynamic reports a breeze. Power BI is known for its customizable dashboards, which can be tailored to a company’s unique needs (Becker and Gould 185). There are also interactive and intuitive visualizations included in the bundle. Drag-and-drop capabilities may also be used to quickly create bespoke reports (Microsoft Power BI). It also provides access to data that is updated in real-time. Therefore, the dashboard shows and updates a user’s visualizations as new data is streamed in.
Weakness of Power BI
Power BI is not designed for analyzing complicated table-to-table connections. Power BI might not be able to handle intricate table connections. Second, while Power BI allows you to modify your visualizations, it does not give users many options (Becker and Gould 185). This limits its utility.
Top five most interesting features of non-tableau data visualization
Power BI contains an interactive Power BI desktop that enables users to access data easily and produce reports. The software is simple to learn and utilize (Lyon 167). The second interesting feature is the Pivot Point. In-memory data models are created by importing and combining diverse datasets from various sources. As a result, by combining data from different sources, functional users can quickly increase the total value.
Another significant feature is query power. This component seeks data from various corporate data sources or on the internet and then inserts it into an Excel table in a fluid manner (Mahajan and Gokhal 200). In addition, Power View is necessary for interacting with and seeing data (Lyon 167). It is constructed in this way to emphasize and cross-filter the data (Khalid and Zeebaree 65). Finally, depending on the complexity of the data, the Power Bi tool gives a default standard that is generally insufficient for enterprises. As a result, it provides bespoke, visualized dashboards.
Does non-Tableau data visualization have any uses that Tableau does not?
Power BI does not have any uses that Tableau does not have. Comparing the two, it appears that both can display data visualizations from multiple reports (Akhtar 29). However, Power BI only has an edge when it comes to ease of use and real-time access to data (Becker and Gould 185). When it comes to speed and the capacity to deal with complex data, Tableau is the clear winner.