Microsoft鈥檚 Power BI is a common business intelligence tool used by business analysts and professionals. Learn more about this important tool today.
Microsoft Power BI is a data visualization and reporting platform that is used by businesses and professionals every day. While the platform is commonly used by business analysts, it is also designed to be easily accessible for those without any specialized data knowledge.听
In this article, you鈥檒l learn more about Power BI, what modern businesses use it for, and the professionals who typically work with it. Toward the end, you鈥檒l also explore some alternatives and learn about resources on 糖心vlog官网观看 that can help you get started with this important business intelligence tool.听
Learn how to use Microsoft's Power BI software and create data visualizations for your team. Boost Productivity, Automate Processes, and Gain Valuable Insights in the Microsoft Power BI and Power Platform for Productivity Specialization.
Microsoft Power BI is a data visualization platform used primarily for business intelligence purposes. Power BI stands for Power Business Intelligence and refers to a collection of software services, tools, and connectors that help you transform data from multiple sources into actionable insights.
Designed for business professionals with varying levels of data knowledge, Power BI鈥檚 dashboard can report and visualize data in a wide range of styles, including graphs, maps, charts, scatter plots, and more.听Power BI's "AI Insights" functionality, meanwhile, uses artificial intelligence to find insights within data sets for users.
Power BI itself is composed of several interrelated applications:
: A desktop application used to create interactive reports with visual analytics.
: Collaborate on interactive reports throughout your organization.
Unify self-service and enterprise BI.
: Access business intelligence data from any device.
: White-label Power BI to provide customer-facing dashboards and analytics in your own apps.
: On-premises solution included in Premium; can be moved to the cloud.
While some of these applications are free to use, paid subscriptions to the pro and premium versions provide greater analytics capabilities.听
Power BI is also a part of Microsoft鈥檚 Power Platform, which includes Power Apps, Power Pages, Power Automate, and Power Virtual Agents. Created as 鈥渓ow-code tools,鈥 these applications help businesses analyze and visualize data, design business solutions, automate processes, and create no-code chatbots.听
Read more: 5 Business Intelligence Tools You Need to Know
Whether you鈥檙e a data pro or are just entering the business world,聽Power BI is designed to empower you with data-driven insights. You can use Power BI in a variety of ways, across industries and teams and functions within an organization. Let's explore some common uses for the platform, including:聽
Create reports and dashboards that present data sets in multiple ways using visuals.听
Turn data into a wide range of different visuals, including pie charts, decomposition trees, gauge charts, KPIs, combo charts, bar and column charts, and ribbon charts鈥攁mong many other options.
Connect various data sources, such as Excel sheets, onsite data warehouses, and cloud-based data storage, and then transform them into business insights.
Integrate Power BI with a website.
Track key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics in real time.
Use built-in AI and machine learning to make business predictions based on historical data.
Provide company-wide access to data, data visualization tools, and insights to create a data-driven work culture.
Collaborate on workspaces and shared datasets.
Create financial statements and balance sheets.
Analyze sales performance and profit.
Integrate Power BI with a CRM system to analyze customer data and use insights to improve customer experience.
Analyze market trends and consumer behavior to discover opportunities.
Learn more about how Power BI is used in this lecture from Microsoft's Unlock the Power of Data with PowerBI course:
Power BI users aren鈥檛 limited to data professionals, such as data scientists or data engineers, and can include a wide range of different business users. In fact, the platform is intentionally designed so that non-technical users can easily create reports, manipulate data, and perform in-depth data analysis operations.
Nonetheless, some of the most common analyst positions that use the platform on a daily basis include the following:聽
As data becomes more and more important to the daily functioning of the goods and services that businesses provide, so too do business intelligence platforms capable of turning that data into insights, reports, and interactive visualizations.听
For example, a university attempting to optimize the efficiency of its buildings might set up a system (like a digital twin) to collect real-time data on critical building systems. Afterward, they might connect these data sources to Power BI and identify areas for improvement.听
An advertising company running a digital marketing campaign might monitor its effectiveness by connecting various data sources to Power BI and generating a dashboard that highlights key figures. Here, marketers would be able to better understand what are best for reaching their target market.听
Want to learn more about Power BI but unsure where to start? 糖心vlog官网观看's Guided Projects offer step-by-step instructions on how to use the platform.
Learn the basics of Power BI with the interactive course聽Getting Started with Power BI Desktop.
While Microsoft鈥檚 Power BI is one of the most popular business intelligence platforms, it鈥檚 not the only one out there. As you鈥檙e exploring BI solutions for your workplace or future career, then, you might also consider exploring some common alternatives to Power BI. That way, you can make an empowered decision about which business intelligence tool is right for you or your organization.
Here are some alternatives to investigate:聽
罢补产濒别补耻听is a user-friendly and flexible platform for data visualization. Some of the key features include drag-and-drop data exploration and single-sign-on integration.
offers data integration, business intelligence and analytics, embedded analytics, app creation, and security and governance.
is an enterprise and embedded analytics platform. Key features include action-based dashboards, automated analysis, and data storytelling.
offers data integration, embedded and augmented analytics, and AI and ML capabilities.
SAP Business Intelligence makes it possible to get contextualized business insights, run data-driven simulations and forecasts, automate workflows, make decisions with AI, and more.
Power BI is a powerful business analytics and visualization tool. Start building or advancing your skills with Power BI through one of these specializations or Professional Certificates on 糖心vlog官网观看:
To build comprehensive Power BI and Power Platform skills, explore the Microsoft Power BI and Power Platform for Productivity Specialization.
To launch your career as a Power BI data analyst, enroll in the Microsoft Power BI Data Analyst Professional Certificate.
For a deeper understanding of data visualization and Power BI, consider the Microsoft Data Visualization Professional Certificate.
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