Power BI is an interactive
data visualization software product developed by
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
with a primary focus on
business intelligence
Business intelligence (BI) comprises the strategies and technologies used by enterprises for the data analysis and management of business information. Common functions of business intelligence technologies include reporting, online analytical p ...
. It is part of the
Microsoft Power Platform
Microsoft Power Platform is a line of business intelligence, app development, and app connectivity software applications. Microsoft developed the Power Fx low-code programming language for expressing logic across the Power Platform. It also p ...
.
Power BI is a collection of software services, apps, and connectors that work together to turn unrelated sources of data into coherent, visually immersive, and interactive insights. Data may be input by reading directly from a
database
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases s ...
, webpage, or structured files such as spreadsheets,
CSV,
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable ...
, and
JSON.
General
Power BI provides
cloud
In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may ...
-based BI (business intelligence) services, known as "Power BI Services", along with a desktop-based interface, called "Power BI Desktop". It offers
data warehouse
In computing, a data warehouse (DW or DWH), also known as an enterprise data warehouse (EDW), is a system used for reporting and data analysis and is considered a core component of business intelligence. DWs are central repositories of integra ...
capabilities including
data preparation
Data preparation is the act of manipulating (or pre-processing) raw data (which may come from disparate data sources) into a form that can readily and accurately be analysed, e.g. for business purposes.
Data preparation is the first step in data ...
,
data discovery, and interactive dashboards.
In March 2016, Microsoft released an additional service called Power BI Embedded on its
Azure cloud platform. One main differentiator of the product is the ability to load custom visualizations.
History
This application was originally conceived by Thierry D'Hers and Amir Netz of the
SQL Server Reporting Services
SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) is a server-based report generating software system from Microsoft. It is part of a suite of Microsoft SQL Server services, including SSAS ( SQL Server Analysis Services) and SSIS ( SQL Server Integration Servic ...
Team at Microsoft. It was originally designed by Ron George in the summer of 2010 and named Project Crescent. Project Crescent was initially available for public download on 11 July 2011, bundled with SQL Server Codename Denali. Later renamed Power BI it was then unveiled by Microsoft in September 2013 as Power BI for
Office 365
Microsoft 365 is a product family of productivity software, collaboration and cloud-based services owned by Microsoft. It encompasses online services such as Outlook.com, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, programs formerly marketed under the name ...
. The first release of Power BI was based on the
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet developed by Microsoft for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. It features calculation or computation capabilities, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for App ...
-based add-ins:
Power Query
Power Query is an ETL tool created by Microsoft for data extraction, loading and transformation, and is used to retrieve data from sources, process it, and load them into one or more target systems. Power Query is available in several variation ...
,
Power Pivot
Power Pivot, formerly known as PowerPivot (without spacing), is a feature of Microsoft Excel, a computer software spreadsheet. It is available as an add-in in Excel 2010, 2013 in separate downloads, and as an add-in included with the Excel 2016 ...
and Power View. With time, Microsoft also added many additional features like Question and Answers, enterprise-level data connectivity, and security options via Power BI Gateways.
Power BI was first released to the general public on 24 July 2015. It has several versions for Desktop, Web, and Mobile App, etc.
On 14 April 2015, Microsoft announced that they had acquired the Canadian company Datazen, to "complement Power BI, our cloud-based business analytics service, rounding out our mobile capabilities for customers who need a mobile BI solution implemented on-premises and optimized for SQL Server."
Most of the 'visuals' in Power BI started life as Datazen visuals.
In February 2019, Gartner.com, a software reviewing company, confirmed Microsoft as Leader in the "2019 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Analytics and Business Intelligence Platform" as a result of the capabilities of Power BI platform.
This represented the 12th consecutive year of recognition of Microsoft as Leading vendor in this Magic Quadrant category (beginning 3 years before this tool was even created).
Key components
Key components of the Power BI ecosystem comprise:
; Power BI Desktop: The Windows desktop-based application for PCs and desktops, primarily for designing and publishing reports to the Service.
; Power BI Service : The
SaaS-based (software as a service) online service. This was formerly known as Power BI for Office 365, now referred to as PowerBI.com, or simply Power BI.
; Power BI Mobile Apps : The Power BI Mobile apps for Android and iOS devices, as well as for Windows phones and tablets.
; Power BI Gateway : Gateways are used to sync external data in and out of Power BI and are required for automated refreshes. In Enterprise mode, can also be used by
Power Automate
Microsoft Power Automate, formerly known as Microsoft Flow until November 2019, is an iPaaS platform by Microsoft for automation of recurring tasks. It is part of the Microsoft Power Platform line of products together with products such as Power ...
(previously called Flows) and PowerApps in Office 365.
; Power BI Embedded : Power BI
REST API can be used to build dashboards and reports into the custom applications that serves Power BI users, as well as non-Power BI users.
; Power BI Report Server : An
on-premises
On-premises software (abbreviated to on-prem, and incorrectly referred to as on-premise) is installed and runs on computers on the premises of the person or organization using the software, rather than at a remote facility such as a server farm ...
Power BI reporting solution for companies that won't or can't store data in the cloud-based Power BI Service.
; Power BI Premium : Capacity-based offering that includes flexibility to publish reports broadly across an enterprise, without requiring recipients to be licensed individually per user. Greater scale and performance than shared capacity in the Power BI Service
; Power BI Visuals Marketplace:A marketplace of custom visuals and
R-powered visuals. You can give life to your business data and take insight from this result.
;Power BI Dataflow: A Power Query implementation in the cloud that can be used for data transformations to make a common Power BI Dataset that can be made available for several report developers through Microsoft's Common Data Service. It can be used as an alternative to for example doing transformations in
SSAS, and may ensure that several report developers use data that has been transformed in a similar way.
;Power BI Dataset: A Power BI Dataset can work as a collection of data for use in Power BI reports, and can either be connected to or imported into a Power BI Report. A Dataset can be connected to and get its source data through one or more Dataflows.
Licenses
Power BI has many different licenses depending on use. Some common user licenses are ''Free'', ''Pro'' and ''Premium''. Free users must be part of an organisation with a Power BI license. They can consume reports, and can also build, but not publish. In practice, creators need at least a Pro in order to publish reports. Premium users can publish like Pro, but also have more features available for developing. ''Premium per user'' is a special license which can be a more affordable alternative to Premium licenses for organisations with few users. ''Premium capacity'' refers to the license of the workspace, not the licenses of its users or creators. Also, access to several features, functionalities, and kinds of content that are exclusively accessible through Premium is made possible with a Power BI Premium per user license.
Paginated reports
Paginated report
Business reporting or enterprise reporting refers to both "the public reporting of operating and financial data by a business enterprise," and "the regular provision of information to decision-makers within an organization to support them in their ...
s for Power BI, which can be built with
Power BI Report Builder
SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) is a server-based report generating software system from Microsoft. It is part of a suite of Microsoft SQL Server services, including SSAS ( SQL Server Analysis Services) and SSIS ( SQL Server Integration Servic ...
, are a special type of SSRS reports with
pagination
Pagination, also known as paging, is the process of dividing a document into discrete pages, either electronic pages or printed pages.
In reference to books produced without a computer, pagination can mean the consecutive page numbering to ind ...
formatting which can give better control of the layout of reports which need to be printed to paper or pdf. This is in contrast to regular Power BI reports which instead are optimized for presentation or interactivity and exploration on a screen. Paginated reports can currently as of 2022 not be made with the regular ''Power BI Desktop'' report builder software. Instead, the standalone ''Power BI Report Builder'' has to be used, which can be viewed as a descendant of the
SQL Server Reporting Services
SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) is a server-based report generating software system from Microsoft. It is part of a suite of Microsoft SQL Server services, including SSAS ( SQL Server Analysis Services) and SSIS ( SQL Server Integration Servic ...
(SSRS) ''Microsoft Report Builder'' for
Microsoft SQL Server
Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database management system developed by Microsoft. As a database server, it is a software product with the primary function of storing and retrieving data as requested by other software applications—which ...
introduced in 2004. It is also similar to the ''Report Designer'' in
SQL Server Data Tools.
Power BI Paginated reports are saved in the
Report Definition Language
Report Definition Language (RDL) is a standard proposed by Microsoft for defining reports.
RDL is an XML application primarily used with Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services. RDL is usually written using Visual Studio, although there are also ...
(.rdl file format), as opposed to the .pbix file of regular Power BI reports. The RDL format is based on XML, and was proposed by Microsoft as a benchmark for defining reports with SSRS
Some example use cases where currently as of 2022 paginated reports may be more suitable than regular Power BI reports may include printing of invoices or other repeated printouts of reports with similar layout but different content, or for printing reports where text would otherwise overflow due to being cut off by scrollbars.
See also
*
Power Pivot
Power Pivot, formerly known as PowerPivot (without spacing), is a feature of Microsoft Excel, a computer software spreadsheet. It is available as an add-in in Excel 2010, 2013 in separate downloads, and as an add-in included with the Excel 2016 ...
*
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet developed by Microsoft for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. It features calculation or computation capabilities, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro programming language called Visual Basic for App ...
*
SQL Server Reporting Services
SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) is a server-based report generating software system from Microsoft. It is part of a suite of Microsoft SQL Server services, including SSAS ( SQL Server Analysis Services) and SSIS ( SQL Server Integration Servic ...
(SSRS)
*
Power BI Report Builder
SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) is a server-based report generating software system from Microsoft. It is part of a suite of Microsoft SQL Server services, including SSAS ( SQL Server Analysis Services) and SSIS ( SQL Server Integration Servic ...
, a variant of SSRS
References
Further reading
*
External links
*
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Microsoft software
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Business intelligence
Data visualization software
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