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| Power BI Pros and Cons |
Welcome to
the second part of the PowerBI insight series. In the previous article, we talked about affordability,
Table relationships, Custom visualization, and configuration of visuals. You can
read the first blog post here. Let us get
right to this post on another set of pros
and cons of PowerBI.
Pros: Excel Integration
PowerBI is
not built for data analysts. It is a reliable business intelligence platform,
more so if you are the right user for it. It's very useful in teams who are not data
specialists but need to analyze data to effectively perform their job. Many organizations use Microsoft Excel for
storing data. Some even run end to end
project operations via excel. These organizations will find PowerBI adaptation quite
easy as it is a short learning curve.
PowerBI
lets users upload and view the data in excel. Users may also select/filter/slice
and dice data in the PowerBI report and transfer it to excel. PowerBI’s s excel integration
capability is truly a seamless user experience when it comes to transferring data
to excel and helps users in viewing and working with raw data behind the PowerBI
visualization.
Cons: The complexity of the components
One of the
drawbacks of PowerBI understanding and adapting to its components. Microsoft
has created a complex array of components such as PowerBI Desktop, Power BI
Gateway, Power BI Services, etc. This may sometime overwhelm the users, as they may not understand which component
they may need. In addition to this, there are no moving parts, which means you
may have to spend a lot of time and energy in figuring out the function of each
one. Not to mention the hassle of
troubleshooting when you don’t even know where the problem is.
Pro: Data Connectivity
Perhaps the most used feature of Power BI would be its ability to connect data from
different sources. To be precise, using Power BI the users can import data from a wide range of sources such as SQL Server, Azure, Cloud-based sources, etc. Users can also import data from different data
files such as XML, JSON, Excel, etc.
Another interesting data source that can be used is online services
such as google analytics, Facebook, etc. In addition to all these variables, Power
BI can also access BIG data sources directly. This feature enables Power BI to accumulate the
data from different places in the organization for deriving holistic insights.
Cons: Quality of Data
Unfortunately,
Power BI assumes the data you are uploading is already cleansed and of high quality.
It does not have any data cleansing solution. This can be troublesome if you
need your data to be cleaned as you may have to find another solution to tackle
this problem.
Well that
sums up the second article in this series. In the last article, we will cover the rest
of the pros and cons of Power BI and summarize our findings. Meanwhile, if you are looking for specific
information on how Power BI can benefit your business, feel free to contact
us here.
Srivatsan Aravamudan
Solution Consultant
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