You’ll often find us talking about platforms like Tableau and Alteryx, as those are some of the most common tools our Business Intelligence/Data Science team uses for our clients.
However, they are certainly not the only tools available for data management. We also have expertise using Microsoft’s platform, Power BI, for data prep, integration, modeling, and visualization. I want to share with you the strengths of the Power BI platform and how I use it to empower our clients.
Microsoft Analytics
Microsoft Analytics is a big bucket of applications, services, and platforms that are differentiated from other platforms and technologies by the sheer scalability of offerings and integration capabilities they offer.
It includes Microsoft Office apps like Excel; server-based tools like Reporting Services, Analysis Services and/or Integration Services; shared services and platforms like Power Apps and Power Automate; fully cloud-based Microsoft Azure tools like Databricks, Data Factory, Azure Data Warehouse; and more.
Microsoft Analytics also includes one of my favorite business analytics platforms: Power BI.
Power BI
Power BI is business intelligence and analytics tool that allows for self-service analytics at an enterprise scale. I use it in a few different areas of our expertise here at Continuus: data prep, integration, modeling, and visualization.
Some of the most notable perks of Power BI include:
- Low cost
- Flexibility
- Simplicity – it is fully managed, no servers or upgrades necessary, and uses the existing MS architecture
- Data prep and integration, modeling, and visualization capabilities in a single package
Additionally, with Data Flows, Power BI can act as a repository for pre-integrated and transformed data from external systems that can be used as building blocks for users to create their own custom datasets or models. Essentially, they act like tables in a data warehouse.
Because of its strong integration with Excel, data models or data flows created in Power BI can also be consumed directly in Excel for detailed analysis or spreadsheet-minded consumers.
Overall, Microsoft’s Power BI is an excellent platform for scalable and strongly integrated business intelligence and data analytics practices. To learn more about our Power BI expertise and how we can help your organization use it to create and support a data-driven culture, contact us today!
