What is Power BI?

Are your sales people on target? How much inventory will you need in the next quarter to meet demand? In which region does your marketing budget yield the most? The more data, the better you can answer these kinds of questions. Anyone who has to work with numbers will quickly use Excel. But this application is unsuitable for using data from different sources. And anyone who has worked on the same Excel sheet with more than two people knows that this does not work well. To analyze large amounts of data, you need Business Intelligence (BI). This was created to bring together figures from a multitude of sources and to provide an overview. Until a few years ago, BI was expensive and complex. Microsoft has changed that with Power BI. Any organization can work with and benefit from it.

Visualize your data

Power BI translates gray number clouds into a colourful overview. When building a dashboard, you have a wide choice of pie charts, diagrams and other options. Because the data comes directly from Dynamics and other sources, the data is updated in real-time. If you have any questions, the answer can be found with a mouse click.

Who can work with Power BI?

Power BI is a self-service BI tool. In theory anyone can work with it. In practice it depends on what you want to do.

• An expert links desired data sources once.
• Specialists bring data together in dashboards.
• Anyone can work with the dashboards.

What is a Power BI dashboard?

Power BI works with dashboards. You then translate all data into useful information within one screen. On a dashboard you can see the KPIs that you have set, visualize figures and forecasts are projected. What that looks like exactly depends on your wishes. You build dashboards according to your own insight. The real power of the dashboard lies not only in the real-time display of relevant information, but in the possibility to zoom in. Are the sales figures of a product disappointing? Click on the numbers and you will see the underlying data. This way you can immediately zoom in on what is going on and why it is happening.

Microsoft Power BI vs. Microsoft Excel

Because the two applications have a similar purpose, it's almost impossible to talk about Power BI without mentioning Excel. Excel has the advantage that it is practically standard on every device. But Power BI is more powerful.

• Power BI can use larger data sets than Excel;
• Power BI can be linked to more data sources than Excel;
• Power BI can process data much faster than Excel;
• Power BI has visualizations that allow you to compare data more clearly than in Excel;
• Power BI is made to work with data, Excel is not;

Power BI is much better suited than Excel for analyzing data sets and for collaboration. On the other hand, you can easily and quickly organize, transform and calculate data in Excel. That doesn't work against Power BI. You can easily export data from Power BI to Excel, and then import it back into Power BI.

Azure, Dynamics and Power BI

Both Dynamics and Power BI are part of the Microsoft Platform. That is modular. That has two advantages. On the one hand, you only need to purchase those parts that your organization needs. On the other hand, you can easily integrate new parts into the bigger picture. Power BI can be linked to Dynamics practically out-of-the-box. Where necessary, we will link it for you. That makes it a very practical tool to do more with your data. At least as handy: the Microsoft Platform is based on Microsoft's Azure cloud environment. With Power BI you not only integrate your on-premise information, but also data from the cloud.

Microsoft has a Power BI app for Android, iOS and Windows. With this app you can gain insight into your company data everywhere. You can comment on figures on the go and share it directly with colleagues who see it appear on their dashboard (or in their own app). The app supports push notifications so you can receive alerts if you want to be immediately informed about a development.