Microsoft Power BI
Using data intelligently
With Microsoft Power BI to success
Are you looking for a solution to analyze company data efficiently and keep an eye on important key figures at all times?
Microsoft Power BI supports you in this task and enables you to recognize changes quickly and react in a targeted manner. With Power BI, you can analyze large amounts of data from a wide variety of sources to make far-sighted and well-founded decisions. Create your own insightful dashboards and reports to maintain an overview of relevant key figures or adapt them flexibly to your changing needs.
Power BI offers you all the tools you need to get the most out of your data.
What is Microsoft Power BI? A definition
Microsoft Power BI is one of the leading self-service business intelligence tools that supports you in analyzing data in order to gain useful insights. A unique selling point is the versatile connection to a wide variety of data sources, allowing Power BI to be optimally integrated into your existing systems. As a self-service BI, it empowers users to create and customize reports and dashboards themselves in order to be even more agile and flexible. Thanks to integration with other Microsoft applications, your team can consult on existing reports in real time on Microsoft Teams or export data and visualizations to Excel or PowerPoint for further processing. Depending on the governance model, data, models and evaluations can be created and distributed completely decentrally or made available centrally and standardized via an enterprise-capable infrastructure. As part of the Microsoft Fabric suite, Power BI can also be used for extensive data management projects.
Key features of Power BI
Self Service BI
Familiar Microsoft structure and intuitive operation. There are few BI tools that are as beginner- and user-friendly as Power BI. This means that even users without much experience can quickly start building and adapting dashboards in order to be able to react even more agilely to changing requirements.
Versatile data integration
By integrating a wide variety of data sources into Power BI, you can bring your data together in one central location to gain in-depth insights. From existing Excel spreadsheets and Azure storage to cloud-based and on-premises databases, Power BI adapts to your existing systems.
Data modeling
Data modeling is an important step in data preparation, which takes place before the analysis itself. For this purpose, various data records are structured and linked together in Power BI in order to guarantee uniform work with this data. This removes redundancies and makes analysis in various dashboards and reports easier in the long term.
Interactive data visualization
Insightful visualizations are necessary so that you can actually draw useful information for your company from your data. Power BI supports you in visualization with a variety of charts and filter options that allow you to create interactive dashboards in no time at all.
Versatile data sharing
Power BI offers a wide range of options for sharing analyses and insights on different channels. The close integration with Microsoft Teams allows your team to work even more closely on actual projects and thus customize dashboards and reports interactively. Thanks to various access rights, releases can be created specifically to ensure the secure handling of confidential information.
Seamless integration
Power BI can access many sources, e.g. local files such as Excel or CSV, databases such as Snowflake or MongoDB, standard applications, services, APIs, events or various cloud services in AWS and Azure.
The direct integration into Microsoft Office and Teams enables work in your daily environment and sharing in collaborative processes.
Frequently asked questions
Microsoft Power BI
Yes, in addition to the desktop app and the cloud-based service, Power BI also has apps for iOS and Android devices. These can be easily downloaded from the respective app store so that you always have your dashboards and reports with you.
Yes, Power BI is also a suitable solution for large volumes of data, depending on the available hardware or the cloud environment used and the internet connection. With a direct database query via Direct Query, only the results of the queries need to be loaded into Power BI.
The fast integration of existing data sources and the intuitive user interface enable a quick and low-threshold introduction to Power BI, especially in comparison to other BI tools.
The actual costs depend on the license and the number of users, but are competitive compared to other BI tools, especially with regard to the initial costs. A local version with a large part of the functionality is often already included in company-wide Office365 licenses.
A look inside the tool
Dashboard creation: made easy
With the help of the clear user interface, data sources can be linked together and visualized in interactive diagrams in no time at all. Simply by drag & drop!
Data modeling: intuitive & effortless
With Power BI, you can easily visualize and manage the relationships between your data sources in order to optimally link them for analyses.
Data visualization: Efficient & at a glance
Power BI offers a variety of charts and visualizations so that you can effectively read information from your data.
What makes Microsoft Power BI
ATTRACTIVE FOR OUR CUSTOMERS?
- Quick, intuitive introduction to the technology
- Support for a variety of data sources
- Extensive visualization options and a marketplace for even more individualization
- Low initial costs compared to other BI tools
- Fast path from the task to the result
- Tight integration with other Microsoft tools
- Support for cloud and on-premises solutions
- Support through integrated artificial intelligence
Support for on-premises solutions
In addition to pure cloud architectures, Power BI can also be used to map on-premises solutions and a hybrid architecture. This is particularly relevant for companies that have to process information locally due to data protection regulations or already have their own server architecture.
The Power BI Report Server is used on these servers, which handles data management and continuous reporting in a similar way to the cloud-based Power BI service. To do this, reports and dashboards are first created in the Power BI desktop application, which are then published on the Power BI report server. From there, they are then accessible to all end users and are regularly updated with new data - completely on-premises.
As with the cloud-based Power BI service, the reports from the Power BI report server can be viewed from anywhere via Microsoft Office and the mobile applications.
One of the biggest differences between cloud and on-premises solutions lies in the management of the infrastructure. Both the Windows server infrastructure and the report server databases need to be managed and monitored. Our experienced BI experts will be happy to take on this task for you to ensure the secure and reliable operation of your systems even after the initial setup.
Some AI functions are also only available to a limited extent compared to the cloud, which means that automatic data models cannot be created, for example. In addition, collaborative work in real time can only be used to its full extent in the Power BI service.
Diagram of a Power BI Report Server. Based on the Microsoft white paper "Planning a Power BI Enterprise Deployment"
Diagram of a Power BI Report Server. Based on the Microsoft white paper "Planning a Power BI Enterprise Deployment"
We offer these services
IT operations for your Power BI data world
Our range of services goes beyond pure Power BI implementation. We act as a strategic technology partner that provides holistic support for your data analysis. In addition to providing ongoing support for your Power BI environment, we ensure that your solution remains stable, secure and always adapted to your current business requirements.
We take care of your technological BI infrastructure, regardless of whether you operate your systems in the cloud or on-premises. Thanks to our comprehensive and flexible service portfolio - consisting of monitoring, flexible maintenance and proactive optimization, for example - we enable you to concentrate fully on your core business processes.
Our aim is to provide you with a Power BI solution that not only works, but really drives your business forward.
Data as a strategic success factor
Our Power BI expertise for you
Microsoft Power BI is (once again) one of the of the key technologies for data-driven decision-making. This is also confirmed by the current Gartner Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms 2024, which once again places Microsoft in a clear BI "pole position". You too can benefit from our many years of Power BI experience and over 50 successful projects. Our consultants are not only technology experts, but also work with you to develop customized business intelligence solutions to support your company in transforming your data into strategic decision-making tools. We support you in every phase of your business intelligence project - from the initial concept and strategic implementation through to ongoing support and optimization.
Our expertise with Microsoft BI software:
Mastering with ISR Power BI
We make you fit for your data analysis!
Would you like to create impressive reports and dashboards tailored to your needs in no time at all? With Power BI, you can do it effortlessly! Whether it's setting up your platform, precisely defining key figures or choosing the right visualizations - write to us and we'll help you make full use of the possibilities of self-service BI and be successful on your own!
Christoph Schmid
Senior Manager
Analytics & Insights
christoph.schmid@isr.de
+49(0)151 422 05 418