Additional Info
What does Power BI do?
Microsoft Power BI is used to manage reports and surface insights based on a company’s data. Power BI can correlate to a wide range of data sets, and “tidies up” the info it’s sustained so that it can be better digested and understood. The reports and visuals produced from this data can then be shared with other users.
Power BI helps users comprehend not only what’s happened in the past and what’s happening in the present, but also what might happen in the future. Power BI is instilled with machine learning capabilities, meaning it can spot patterns in data and use those patterns to make informed predictions and run “what if” scenarios. These estimations allow users to produce forecasts and prepare themselves to meet future demand and other key metrics.
Why do people use Power BI?
For businesses who need more reporting power and analytical muscle than that offered by Excel, Power BI is the next level in business intelligence. With Power BI, businesses can collect, scrutinize, and visualize data from across the company, giving them more comprehensive insight into their operations and performance, and allowing them to make more informed decisions based on real data.
Key advantages of using Power BI :
- Businesses can input large quantities of data into Power BI that many other platforms would struggle to process
- Built-in machine learning traits can analyze data and help users spot valuable trends and make educated predictions
- Information can be visualized by applying powerful templates to allow businesses to better make sense of their data
- Power BI is cloud-based, so users get cutting edge intelligence abilities and powerful algorithms that are updated regularly
- Powerful personalization capacities allow users to create dashboards so they can access the data they need quickly
- Alarms can be set up on KPIs to keep users up to date on essential metrics and measurements.
- Power BI has an intuitive interface that makes it much more user-friendly and easy to navigate than complex spreadsheets
- The platform combines with other popular business management tools like SharePoint, Office 365, and Dynamics 365, as well as other non-Microsoft products like Spark, Hadoop, Google Analytics, SAP, Salesforce, and MailChimp
- With data security a huge talking point for modern businesses, Power BI ensures data is safe, offering granular controls on accessibility both internally and externally
Who can use Power BI?
- Though business intelligence products tend to be essentially the remit of business analysts and data scientists, thanks to its user-friendly nature, Power BI can be used by a range of people within a business.
- How you use it depends on what your purpose is; Power BI can generate custom dashboards depending on what data is relevant, and what information you need access to.
- It’s primarily used by business intelligence professionals, who practice it to generate data models and reports which are then shared throughout their organization. Not all businesses will have the scale or the necessity to support a full-time data whiz, however, so Power BI is often done as a self-service tool by various parts of the business to check up on improvement and turn up insight into their team’s accomplishment.
- Power BI operates with whatever data you tell it to, so you can report on notably anything. It’s often most familiar with departments like finance, marketing, sales, human resources, it, and operations.
- In terms of the product’s popularity, Microsoft doesn’t typically publish user numbers, but in 2016 the number was around five million.
What components make Power BI?
The Power BI product is made up of several apps, each with its features and uses. These include :
Power Query : a data connection tool that allows you to transform, combine, and enhance data from several sources
Power Pivot : a data modeling tool for conceiving data models
Power View : a data visualization tool that produces interactive charts, graphs, maps, and other visuals
Power Map : a different visualization tool for creating immersive 3D visuals
Power Q&A : a question and answer engine that allows you to ask questions about your data in plain language
Power BI Desktop :
Also known as Power BI Free, Power BI Desktop is a free desktop application you can install right on your computer. Power BI Desktop works together with the Power BI service by providing advanced data exploration, shaping, modeling, and report creation with highly interactive visualizations. You can keep your work to a file, and publish your data and reports right to your Power BI site to share with others. Power BI Free is involved in all Office 365 Plans, and you can sign up for Power BI Free any time you like.So what do you get with Power BI Desktop free? Just like paid versions of Power BI, Desktop enables you to connect data sources to Power BI, with no limits or restrictions other than the total amount of data you can input, and how much you can upload at a particular time. Desktop users get 10GB of total storage in the Power BI cloud and can upload data 1GB at a time.
The desktop will cleanse and organize data, and you can create as many visualizations as you want; Desktop gives you full access to Power BI’s library of visualization templates. You can also transport data and reports to Excel. Using Power BI Desktop, you can renew your reports up to eight times every day, either on the hour, or the half-hour. The “catch” with Power BI Desktop is that you cannot share anything with your peers. You can issue reports to the web, but these reports will then be made public, which isn’t ideal when you’re dealing with proprietary business data.
Power BI Service :
Power BI Service is the full version of Power BI and is hosted on Azure, Microsoft’s cloud platform. There are two ways to authorize Power BI Service; Power BI Pro and Power BI Premium.
Power BI Pro :
Power BI Pro isn’t hugely different from Power BI Desktop. They have the corresponding visualization options, the same limits on storage and file upload size, and the same report refresh allowance. The key difference is that with Pro, you can share your data, reports, and dashboards with others privately—granted they also have a Power BI Pro license.
There are a few additional extras that come with the Pro license too.
Power BI Premium :
Power BI Premium is an alternative way to get entrance to Power BI. Rather than buying licenses for individual users like you would with Power BI Pro, with Premium, you pay for the volume of space and processing capacity you want to carve out for your business. There are six capacity models, each one with changing amounts of memory so users can choose the amount they need to run their Power BI platform. Premium is designed for enterprise-level businesses that generate huge amounts of data, and require extensive access to the app. Shelling out for Premium means you get a dedicated piece of capacity to process your BI workloads, with all the necessary infrastructure supplied and supported by Microsoft.
Premium isn’t a license as such; instead, you’re paying for the exclusive use of a predetermined amount of computing power. For those users who require to create and publish reports, share their dashboards, and collaborate with other users in-app workspaces, a Power BI license is required in addition to Power BI Premium. For those who just want to access and consume Power BI content, though, no additional license is required; Power BI Premium will cover read-only use. There are a few other features independent of Premium too, such as the ability to store BI assets on-premises using Power BI Report Server (more on Report Server later), up to 100 TB of data storage, and a 50GB cap on dataset size.
Power BI Report Server :
Power BI Report Server is an on-premises server product that vessels with Power BI Premium. Report Server permits users to take advantage of Power BI on-premise. For some businesses, uploading their data to the cloud isn’t an easy option. This could be because data regulation laws are applying to their particular industry, or maybe they don’t have the necessary infrastructure or connectivity where they are to be able to reliably access SaaS platforms. Power BI Report Server can be disposed behind a firewall and is harmonious with Power BI in the cloud so that businesses possess the freedom to move a cloud-based version of Power BI when they’re ready.
Report Server packs similar functionality to Power BI Service, though it’s largely focused on report generation, and several key features are exclusive to its cloud-based sibling. Report Server users need to use the Power BI Desktop app, and cannot work in a web browser. They also don’t get admittance to dashboards, real-time streaming, content packs, app workspaces, natural language queries, the ability to analyze data in Excel, email subscriptions, or data alerts. It also has a sparser update cycle, with new features and fixes turned out to Report Server every four months, rather than once a month.
Power BI Embedded :
Power BI Embedded enables Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and developers to embed the functionality and capabilities of Power BI into their apps on a pay-as-you-go, “white-label” basis. So, rather than building their reporting features, they can simply add Power BI into their products, and Power BI will take care of all the reporting and data analysis needed. End-users of the app won’t even know that the app’s analytics are powered by Power BI; it will just look like part of the app.
Power BI Mobile :
Power BI Mobile is Power BI’s native mobile app and is available for Windows, iOS, and Android devices.
Through the app, users can get reliable access to real-time dashboards and reports, whether that data is stored in the cloud, or on-premise in SQL Server. Mobile users can also create and share reports, submit natural language queries, and set up push notifications to get personal data alerts sent to their devices.
Power BI market information :
According to Datanyze, Power BI commands around 12% of the market share for business intelligence products, falling just behind Tableau and FactSet.It has been identified as a leader in the analytics and BI market by Gartner for the past 11 continuous years and is often touted as the platform with the most perfect vision in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant reports. In Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platforms report, Gartner suggested Power BI’s significant user base growth in the past year, attributing high levels of customer adoption to Microsoft’s “clear and visionary product roadmap that includes vertical industry content.” Power BI users cited the product’s reasonable licensing cost, ease of use and visual appeal, customer experience, and product vision as many of its strengths.
What kind of job is possible working with Power BI?
With businesses now fully acknowledging the value of a great data analysis strategy, demand for business intelligence professionals is on the rise. Here are a few of the exciting, profitable roles on offer working with Power BI.
Business Intelligence Architect :
BI Architects control databases, data warehouses, and other storage infrastructure, and develop data structures to help platforms organize and use data more efficiently. By managing and analyzing a company’s data, the BI Architect can develop new strategies to help them make better, more effective decisions and support more successful outcomes.
versions of Power BI are ready :
There are some of the versions of Power BI to pick from, depending on your budget, your needs, and how you want to deploy it. These versions differ from light use to comprehensive features, free to premium, so users can select the one that best meets their requirements. You can opt for a Windows desktop application described as Power BI Desktop, an online SaaS (Software as a Service) service called the Power BI service, a mobile Power BI app available on iOS and Android phones and tablets, or an on-premise variant called Power BI Report Server. There’s also a white-label service for software developers.
Here’s a quick summary of the different versions, before we drill down further into each one :
Power BI Desktop :Free, designed for small to midsize businesses
Power BI Service
Power BI Pro : Paid per-user license, required to get access to advanced features and the ability to share reports
Power BI Premium : Licenses by scale, meant for large businesses and enterprises
Power BI Mobile : Device-based app that can be used on phones and tablets
Power BI Embedded : A white-label variant of Power BI which Independent Software Vendors can embed in their apps, rather than build their analytical features
Power BI Report Server : An on-premise variant of the Power BI Desktop app for businesses that need to keep their data and reports on their servers
Benefits of Power BI online Course Certification :
No memory or speed constraints : Moving your existing BI system to a secure cloud environment with Power BI incorporated removes memory and speed constraints, ensuring data can be retrieved and analyzed fast
Advanced-Data Services are supported : Advanced cloud services like Cortana and Bot framework can be smoothly connected with Microsoft Power BI. As a result, results for the vocal data query supplied in natural language are provided.
There is no need for expert technical assistance : Without the requirement for professional technical help, Power BI allows for quick inquiry and analysis. It features a robust natural language interface and intuitive graphical design tools.