Power BI

Power BI is Microsoft’s Business Intelligence solution and one of the most popular tools on the market. It enables users to develop and share interactive dashboards with a large audience. Its main strengths include:

• Integration with the Microsoft ecosystem, using shared credentials and the ability to feed dashboards from Excel files.
• Data governance features, including row-level security (RLS), which ensures that users can only view authorized data based on their role.
• Measures, a key feature that allows for customized and contextual dynamic calculations (such as averages) using the proprietary DAX language.
• A wide variety of visuals with advanced customization options.
• A data analysis tab to explore and understand data before visualizing it.
• A data modeling tab, allowing users to create joins with simple drag-and-drop interactions, a feature often missing from other BI tools.

However, Power BI’s interface can feel overwhelming and requires some persistence to master. The tool is also prone to bugs, particularly related to its relational modeling features.

The solution is not available on Unix-based systems (such as macOS). Power BI can be tested for free on Windows, but a subscription is required to publish and view reports. Additionally, optimizing dashboards requires proficiency in two proprietary languages: DAX for measures and M (or Power Query) for data transformations.

Theodo’s point of view

We recommend trying Power BI for its versatile use cases, strong integration with the Microsoft ecosystem, high level of customization, and the availability of experts on the market.