🌟 Limited offer: your first support ticket is 50% off. Open a ticket now →
Plans What We Do How It Works Blog Support Portal About Contact 1-844-264-0729
Get Started ✦  Open a Ticket

Power BI

Business analytics and interactive dashboards

What is Power BI?

Microsoft Power BI is a business analytics platform for visualizing data, building dashboards, and sharing insights. It connects to hundreds of data sources (Dynamics 365, SQL databases, Excel, Salesforce, Google Analytics, and more) and lets users build interactive reports that update automatically as data changes.

Power BI comes in three main flavors: Power BI Desktop (free authoring tool), Power BI Service (the cloud platform where reports are published and shared), and Power BI Mobile (for consuming reports on phones and tablets). A Premium tier is available for enterprise scenarios requiring dedicated capacity and advanced features.

Power BI is deeply integrated with the Microsoft ecosystem. Dynamics 365 ships with prebuilt Power BI dashboards, and reports can be embedded in Teams, SharePoint, and Microsoft 365 apps. It also integrates with Excel, which many business users already know.

Key capabilities

Interactive dashboards

Drag-and-drop report builder with dozens of visual types and real-time filtering.

500+ data connectors

Connect to SQL, Dynamics 365, Salesforce, SAP, web APIs, CSV, Excel, and more.

DAX language

Powerful calculation language for measures, KPIs, time intelligence, and complex aggregations.

AI-powered insights

Automatic pattern detection, key influencers analysis, and natural-language Q&A over your data.

Embedded analytics

Embed reports in Teams, SharePoint, Dynamics 365, PowerApps, or custom web apps.

Row-level security

Control which rows each user sees based on their identity and role.

Who Power BI is for

Where businesses run into trouble

Power BI is powerful, but there are common pitfalls we see every day.

Data model design mistakes

A poorly designed data model leads to slow reports, incorrect totals, and hard-to-maintain DAX. Most Power BI issues trace back to the model, not the visuals.

Refresh failures and gateway issues

Scheduled refreshes break when credentials expire, source schemas change, or gateways lose connection. Without monitoring, reports silently go stale.

Licensing: Pro vs Premium

Power BI Pro is per user, Premium is per capacity. Figuring out when to shift to Premium and how to size capacity is a common trap.

Governance and sprawl

Without a content strategy, workspaces proliferate, reports duplicate, and the "source of truth" becomes whichever report the CEO looked at last.

Need help with Power BI?

We support it every day. Reach out and we will route you to the right expert.

See Our Support Services →

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between Power BI Pro and Premium?

Power BI Pro ($14/user/month) is required to share reports with others. Power BI Premium comes in two flavors: Per User ($24/user/month) unlocks advanced features for individuals, and Per Capacity (starts $5,000/month) provides dedicated cloud resources for large-scale deployments.

Can Power BI pull data from Dynamics 365?

Yes. There is a native Dynamics 365 connector that works with both Customer Engagement apps (Sales, Customer Service) and Finance & Operations. Dynamics 365 also ships with prebuilt Power BI dashboards you can use out of the box or extend.

Is Power BI free?

Power BI Desktop (the authoring tool) is free. You can also view reports with a free account if you're in a Premium capacity workspace. A Pro license ($14/user/month) is required to publish and share reports with others in most cases.

How does Power BI compare to Tableau?

Power BI and Tableau both serve the same market. Power BI typically wins on price, Microsoft ecosystem integration, and DAX flexibility. Tableau wins on visual design, data exploration flow, and cross-platform consistency. For Microsoft-centric companies, Power BI is usually the better choice.