Conversation about a powerful IT tool for business analytics.
In most organizations, data is a valuable asset, and it is critical for businesses to maximize its potential. In order to make it easier for you to understand how much you need it and understand how it works, we talked to Kateryna Yakubovska, Data & Analytics Solutions Engineer, Span Ukraine, and asked her to share her experience with Microsoft Power BI.
- Kateryna, thank you for agreeing to talk. First, please tell me who Microsoft Power BI was created for?
Actually for everyone. Power BI is the next level of business intelligence. Seriously, the solution is built for companies that need more reporting power and analytical capabilities than what Microsoft Excel offers.
If you are a company whose data is stored in different sources\on different media - welcome! Power BI allows you to combine all this disparate information into a single report.
Your company can be of any size and industry, be it a commercial enterprise, a government agency or a charity. The benefit lies in the automation and dynamism of processes: in a matter of minutes, the user can familiarize himself with the relevant "up for now" report.
Plus, the solution is useful both at the general organizational level and for each department\ group of employees separately.
For example, let's imagine that you are the manager of a small online store and you want to receive a summary report on the company's operational activities. The data you are interested in is contained in various departments - it can be the number of address deliveries, the number of goods remaining in the warehouse, the number of buyers and the number of unprocessed orders, as well as current receipts on the account. So, you will be able to see all this data on a single panel, which will be constantly updated according to the arrival of data in different departments. It's very convenient, isn't it?
- Here we say "users". Who is this? To whom and for what purposes will Microsoft Power BI be useful?
Well, look. We are used to thinking that business intelligence products usually belong to the competence of business analysts and data processing specialists. But Power BI, thanks to its convenience, can be used by completely different employees of the company. You can generate custom dashboards based on what data is relevant to you.
Let's take any company as an example. If it has a full-time specialist in business analytics - great - he uses Power BI to independently create data models and reports, which are later distributed for use in the organization. If the company does not have such a person, then you can apply to Microsoft certified partner companies, such as Span, and we will help you to configure the reporting models.
I mean, Power BI is often used independently by other lines of business. After all, not all enterprises have sufficient scale or the need to support constant data analysis.
As for Ukraine, local small business companies usually turn to the model of self-use of Power BI — for Span, it is a fairly common practice to train employees of companies who want to use the solution on their own. The most popular Power BI is for company leaders and departments such as finance, marketing, sales, hr, information technology, logistics and operations.
- Ok, let's imagine that I am the head of a company and I want to start collecting and analyzing corporate data. What actions does Microsoft Power BI allow me to take?
Convenience is the main thing here. Here are some actions in which Power BI can help you not only as a manager, but also as a business person in general:
- Data processing and loading
- Setting up the data model
- Creation of dynamic monitoring panels and interactive reports
- Queries in common everyday language: This allows users to create search queries using their common everyday phrases, and NLP (Natural Language Processing) technology will help quickly find the answer
- Creating applications based on reports
- Restricted access to data and reports. For example, sales managers in Zhytomyr should see data only for the Zhytomyr region. A sales manager in Kyiv will not be able to see sales results in Odesa. And the head of the sales department will see data for all regional offices.
As for Power BI Desktop, there users can connect to data, transform and model it. It is also possible to create charts and graphs, create reports and dashboards from various visual elements, and share them with other employees.
- Ok, that's clear. And where does Microsoft Power BI get its data from? What data sources can it work with?
Look, there are several possible sources: Data may be stored in files, databases, online services and other data storage platforms. You can also extract data from an Excel file, SharePoint, SQL database or API. In total, this is more than 150 connectors. Their list can be found on the Microsoft website.
- Regarding convenience. On which devices is this solution available?
Reports can be viewed from a computer, tablet or phone. Power BI allows you to customize the view of the report for any mobile device. Everything is done for your convenience and comfort.
- Kateryna, we would like to clarify one more point. There are different Microsoft Power BI products, right? What is the difference between them?
You are right. There are several products.
First, it's Power BI Desktop. It is a free self-service data analysis and reporting tool that you install on your Windows computer. Data professionals and analytical reporting developers work with this solution to create reports available for the Power BI service.
Power BI Service is a secure Microsoft cloud service that enables users to view Power BI dashboards, reports, and apps — content that combines related dashboards and reports — using a web browser or mobile apps for Windows, iOS, and Android.
Report Server is already a local server for reports. That means, you can create reports in Power BI Desktop, and viewers can use the report server in a web browser or mobile device or receive them via email. This product will be useful for a company that has cloud usage restrictions.
There is a mobile application for mobile devices iOS, Android - Power BI Mobile. Everything is clear here.
Power BI Embedded - this one is more complicated, but it allows developers to embed Power BI dashboards and reports into other applications within their organization (requiring users to sign in to a Power BI account), or into applications for customers who don't have a Power BI account.
- Well, it's time to talk about the cost and licensing. Please tell us everything we need to know about the possibilities and features of Microsoft Power BI licensing.
On the website there is a comparison of licenses, which shows that the minimum license required to distribute and view reports is a Power BI Pro license.
This means that the person who will publish and distribute the report must have this license. And at the same time it should be owned by the person who wants to read this widespread report.
As for the Premium license, it is divided into two types - per user and per capacity.
Per user includes all features of Pro + artificial intelligence, XMLA endpoint, Dataflow, Datamart and ALM processes. This license supports a larger data model size, data store, and has an increased number of updates per a day.
Рer capacity includes all Per user capabilities + has local server support for reporting and provides the ability to read reporting without a license and manage deployment in multiple geographic locations. Also, it has an increased size of data model and data store.
- Only one question remains. What are my device requirements if I want to install Power BI Desktop?
It is necessary to take into account the following requirements for your operating system:
Windows 10, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019, Windows 11
Microsoft Power BI Desktop requires Internet Explorer 10 or later.
Microsoft Power BI Desktop is available for 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) platforms.
There is a direct link with instructions for your convenience.
- Kateryna, thank you for the detailed answers. I am sure that this text will help our readers to better understand the product. You and I came up with, in my opinion, an excellent user manual.
Get started with Microsoft Power BI solution, contact Span certified experts mailto:info.ua@span.eu
For more information, please visit Span website: http://www.span.eu
