Microsoft Power BI is a software tool for business intelligence and analytics. The platform allows users to aggregate and share data with reports, visualizations, and other analytics tools. Microsoft Power BI is user-friendly, with intuitive tools for people across all levels of technical know-how. It integrates with Microsoft Excel and other products in the Microsoft suite. Organizations commonly use Microsoft Power BI to gather and analyze their business data in order to uncover insights that help them make data-driven business decisions. This may include reviewing metrics to assess progress on business goals, making predictions, and exploring potential scenarios to come up with business strategies. Within Microsoft Power BI, users can connect data sets from separate sources and perform advanced data analysis. Microsoft Power BI includes tools for building charts, graphs, and other data visualizations that you can easily share with multiple team members across an organization.

Microsoft Power BI is a popular choice for business intelligence tools because it is easy to learn, even for non-technical employees. Power BI is described as a self-service tool, meaning that users don’t need advanced skills in data analytics or engineering in order to use Power BI. Data science professionals, department managers, and administrators alike may leverage Microsoft Power BI to create data models, share reports, and measure departments’ or individual employees’ success against business goals. There are many free and paid resources to help you learn how to use Microsoft Power BI, from books and blog posts to online courses and webinars. A Microsoft Power BI course can teach you how to connect data sources such as Excel and organize the data in Power BI, form data models, create data visualizations and reports, and use data analysis expressions (DAX) to build formulas for data analytics.

Tableau and Power BI are both popular software tools for data analysis and business intelligence. Some users prefer Power BI because it is somewhat easier to learn than Tableau and comes at a more cost-effective price point. Those who already know how to use Microsoft Excel may find it faster to pick up Power BI, as the interface has a lot in common with Excel. Others prefer Tableau because it offers more robust data analytics features for advanced needs, more customization options, and is easier to scale as an organization grows. While Tableau comes at a steeper price and slightly steeper learning curve, it offers more control over tailored data models and analytics. For organizations requiring basic business analytics, Power BI is usually a good option. Tableau may be a better choice for those who want to do more custom analytics with their data.