3 Reasons Why Microsoft Power BI Can Transform Your Reporting

By Samantha Boden

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have instant reporting numbers?  To open a report and have your financial details summarized with up to the minute reporting?  If you have then you are in luck with Microsoft Power Business Intelligence (BI).  This is a product that is available for free personal use or a paid subscription for additional features. 

I’m sure that you have heard about this product and have some confusion about what it does.  There are often misconceptions surrounding Power BI.  That is meant to replace your reporting solution.  Power BI comes off as mysterious and very foreign to what you may be used to.  This product is meant to augment and enhance your reporting, not to replace it.  It does this with four features:

1. No specialized technical support required: Users do not have to contact IT to edit and change reports.  After your IT sets up your access into your database, you can then connect and edit your reports on a whim. 
2. Personalized dashboards: You can personalize the data to your needs. If you need a dashboard that shows you revenue over the last 5 years, you can do that.  If you need a list of your most profitable customers, Power Bi can do this also.
3. Interactive: How would you like to select and have your data automatically recalculate without rerunning a report?  This is possible with Power BI.  The product is interactive to a point that you can select different features on the graphs and diagrams to filter the information displayed on screen.  You can customize selections and see the data in real time.