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Microsoft BI (MSBI)

Microsoft BI (MSBI)

Overview

What is Microsoft BI (MSBI)?

Microsoft BI is a business intelligence product used for data analysis and generating reports on server-based data. It features unlimited data analysis capacity with its reporting engine, SQL Server Reporting Services alongside ETL, master data management, and data cleansing.

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Learn from top reviewers

Good tool for analyzing your office working data with real time sharing.

Rating: 10 out of 10
April 11, 2025
Vetted ReviewVerified User
It was short tenure that i used on trial basis. I used for managing & tracking my client job openings, individual performance of my team member, tracking all the rejection...
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Von Varun Pasan
Account Manager - Human Resources
Sr. Account Manager
Pinnacle Technology
Microsoft BI (MSBI)1 year of experience

MSBI : a new boom in the digital world!

Rating: 9 out of 10
January 4, 2024
Vetted ReviewVerified User
I use MSBI specifically for data generation and data analytics. It has helped me to create a data way more simpler and easy to understand. It improved the frequent usage of da...
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Verified user
Administrator
Microsoft BI (MSBI)2 years of experience

Multiple tools in single package.

Rating: 8 out of 10
September 28, 2022
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
In my organization, we are using MSBI to create, maintain and deploy reposts. We use all three component of MSBI like SSIS, SSRS, SSAS. We use ETL packages to maintain Datawar...
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Lakhan Suri
Engineer - Information Technology
SQL AND BI Developer
Carmen Solutions
Microsoft BI (MSBI)4 years of experience

In the world of data visualization, this is one of the best virtualization tools

Rating: 9 out of 10
November 13, 2021
Vetted ReviewVerified User
With Microsoft BI (MSBI), we can create our own data sets, goals, and records with no difficulty. We have a wide range of options and features to choose from when it comes to ...
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Aononna Tazin
Consultant - Information Technology
Customer Relationship Management Specialist
Green Light Ltd
Microsoft BI (MSBI)1 year of experience

"Easy To Use BI Platform With Effective Reporting"

Rating: 9 out of 10
November 1, 2021
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
I can connect to Oracle, Snowflake, SQL Server, Excel, CSV, text files, and create custom visualizations with Microsoft Power BI Desktop. Our team can generate reports and ana...
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Nilufa Hossain
Team Lead - Research & Development
IT Specialist
Lamda I-TECH
Microsoft BI (MSBI)1 year of experience
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

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Pricing

View all pricing

Power BI Pro

$9.99

Cloud
per user/per month

Power BI Premium

4,995

Cloud
per month

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://powerbi.microsoft.com/pricing

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Features

BI Standard Reporting

Standard reporting means pre-built or canned reports available to users without having to create them.

9.5
Avg 8.2

Ad-hoc Reporting

Ad-Hoc Reports are reports built by the user to meet highly specific requirements.

9.5
Avg 8.0

Report Output and Scheduling

Ability to schedule and manager report output.

9.6
Avg 8.3

Data Discovery and Visualization

Data Discovery and Visualization is the analysis of multiple data sources in a search for patterns and outliers and the ability to represent the data visually.

9.6
Avg 7.9

Access Control and Security

Access control means being able to determine who has access to which data.

9.6
Avg 8.5

Mobile Capabilities

Support for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

8.7
Avg 7.9

Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding

APIs are a set of routines, protocols, and tools for used for embedding one application in another

9.5
Avg 7.8
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Product Details

What is Microsoft BI (MSBI)?

Microsoft BI (MSBI) benefits from the ubiquity of SQL server and the set of tools built around the database, including an ETL layer, master data management, data cleansing, report and reporting.

The reporting engine is SQL Server Reporting Services which does not have the visualization capabilities of visualization tools like Tableau or Qlik. Excel has historically been the platform visualization tool. Power BI for Office 365 has done much to improve the discovery and visualization capabilities of Excel.

Microsoft now offers Power BI cloud as the visualization platform with geospatial 3D, natural-language query generation, and self-service ETL along with charting and other data visualizations that can be uploaded and shared through the Power BI service.

The Power BI platform also provides live access to on-premises Microsoft SQL Server instances, and self-service access to third-party cloud sources including Salesforce, Marketo, Zendesk, and GitHub. Mobility is supported through a native iPad app, an iPhone app.

This new platform is viewed by Microsoft as a visualization layer sitting on top of their earlier generation of installed SQL-based technology.

Microsoft BI (MSBI) Competitors

Microsoft BI (MSBI) Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

Microsoft BI is a business intelligence product used for data analysis and generating reports on server-based data. It features unlimited data analysis capacity with its reporting engine, SQL Server Reporting Services alongside ETL, master data management, and data cleansing.

Oracle Analytics Server and Spoom are common alternatives for Microsoft BI (MSBI).

Reviewers rate Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile highest, with a score of 10.

The most common users of Microsoft BI (MSBI) are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews From Top Reviewers

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Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
(1-5 of 73)

Microsoft BI is a great product. Highly Recommend.

Rating: 9 out of 10
Incentivized
January 28, 2020
Verified User
Director in Information Technology
Hospitality Company, 10,001+ employees
Vetted Review
Verified User
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
15 years of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We have a BI team that manages the applications and the resources and connects the multitude of data sources into its data warehouse for analytics and reporting. We create multiple dashboards for different departments as they need. One business need we use it for is wait times in clinics. We can determine what days of the year are the busiest to ensure we don't incur any staffing issues and then use the data to promote wait times on market billboards externally for potential patients.
Pros
  • Able to connect to multiple data sources.
  • Canned reports are great and custom reports are better.
Cons
  • Can be costly to implement. Not cost effective for SMB. No mid-market tier pricing.
  • Knowledge in programming a plus.
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft BI is great for data warehousing and consolidation.

Microsoft BI is the perfect Dash-boarding product

Rating: 9 out of 10
Incentivized
February 03, 2017
RB
Razvan Bulgariu
Senior Portfolio Planner
OMV (Oil & Energy, 10,001+ employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
2 years of experience
View profile
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Currently, Microsoft BI is used across entire organization for production performance and other performance KPIs.
Pros
  • Drill down function from higher level to more granular levels work perfectly, other products do not provide this functionality
  • User-friendly graphics
  • Data access is almost instant
Cons
  • Charts configuration are not so easy
  • Database table connections are not so straight forward
  • Requires too much hardware power
Likelihood to Recommend
Online dash-boarding fits perfectly after it is deployed. It's not so perfect if you need to connect often to various data sources. It's quite tedious (you need to have good IT skills).

Microsoft BI - A good all around suite of products for the traditional data environment

Rating: 8 out of 10
September 14, 2014
MS
Mashhood Syed
Business Intelligence Specialist
Kaiser Foundation Health Plan (Transportation/Trucking/Railroad, 501-1000 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
1 year of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
The reports I put together in SSRS were used by multiple departments totaling over 50 business users. SSIS was used by 3 individuals in the IT department including myself. I deployed reports to the SSRS Report Server which were viewed in a browser on the company's intranet. The reports could be viewed, downloaded in multiple formats (PDF, XLS, CSV, TIFF), subscribed to via email, scheduled to be received on a interval of the user's choosing.

The business problems that it addresses are:
1. How do our customers feel about us (based on customer satisfaction surveys)
2. How well are we managing our operations?
3. How well are we utilizing our resources?
4. How well are the salespeople doing (based on daily rankings)
5. How profitable were we last week, month, quarter, year...
The list goes on...
Pros
  • The interfaces of the products are familiar to most people that currently use Microsoft products so its comfortable in that respect
  • Creating a report is easy to do with drag/drop functionality. You also have alot of dropdowns. You can use formulas the same way you do in Excel. They have "expressions" which are like formulas with a mix of SQL.
  • Publishing a report to the server is simple as well. You go to the server and upload the file from your file directory.
  • Setting up subscriptions is simple as well. Anyone can do it with minimal knowledge. Its sort of like creating a recurring calendar event.
  • The hierarchy within SSRS is intuitive. A Project is the top level item. You can add as many reports as you want to a project. Similar to any other IDE where you keep all your files in one project (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JSP, Servlet) except in the case of SSRS its all reports.
  • Whether you choose to use 2008 or 2012 the interface is layed pretty much the same. So if you start of in 2008 and then upgrade, you dont have to re-learn anything. Their are slight differences in the two versions but it wont hinder your ability to build a report.
Cons
  • Its not a web based application yet. So you have to install the client application on your local machine. In addition, you pretty much have to install a the full SSMS package. Its a heavy weighted suite of products
  • Compared to Tableau you are limited in your dashboard building ability. In SSRS you have to build a master report along with a subreport where these two items have to have a key that links them together. From there you can break up the screen into multiple quadratics with your visualization.
  • If someone wants to view the report on their iPad, you have to make sure that the subscription for their report is in PDF or CSV format. If its in Excel and they dont have Excel on their iPad, they cant view it. If its in CSV, I believe the report will open up in the iPads native spreadsheet app.
  • When you are stuck while building a report, the forums for Microsoft pretty much suck. Their technical articles suck also. Microsoft support is pretty much non-existent.
Likelihood to Recommend
I think that Microsoft BI products are suited well for companies that have traditional data needs. To be more specific, if your data is organized nicely into a RDBMS (SQL Server, Oracle) and you want a way to distribute it easily across your organization, then SSRS can get the job done very well for you. The best situation is where you are purely a Microsoft shop. In that instance, all these products work seamlessly with SQL Server. If you have really specific needs like real time visualization, dashboarding, ability to blend data from multiple data sources then Microsoft BI may not be the right product for you as of yet.

Microsoft BI is Worth a Look for Business Intelligence

Rating: 7 out of 10
Incentivized
July 12, 2016
MJ
Micah Jones
Chief Information Officer
Phoenix Ortho (Computer Software, 11-50 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
1 year of experience
View profile
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
I use it to analyze data from our CRM.
Pros
  • Connections to third parties is really nicely done.
  • Graphically it is a clean experience with nice color screens
  • Integration with Microsoft products is tight.
Cons
  • They need a lot more tutorials. Using the application is not very intuitive so better training would help greatly.
Likelihood to Recommend
If you are a Microsoft partner this is a no-brainer as it is likely free to you. Besides that I don't see a reason to get one of the more expensive options over this. It seems to do everything as the other solutions I have tried.

Great BI tool

Rating: 8 out of 10
Incentivized
February 05, 2019
Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology
Computer Networking Company, 51-200 employees
Vetted Review
Verified User
Microsoft BI (MSBI)
3 years of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We have been using a number of Microsoft products in our company and decided to go with the Microsoft BI platform due to its easy integration with Microsoft Office suite. We wanted to incorporate a business intelligence tool into our enterprise to get a full 360 view of our mission-critical data. Microsoft BI helped fill that role.
Pros
  • Report generation from our back end data warehouse has become way more streamlined using this tool.
  • By using the Power Pivot and Power View it has enabled us to access and mash up data from a variety of sources. Plus it can easily be shared with other users through simple Office applications.
Cons
  • The implementation time for Microsoft BI can be fairly lengthy. It's definitely longer than some of the other products we evaluated.
  • The upfront investment in terms of capital and time is fairly large with this tool. It requires a compliant Microsoft SQL server in the back end to leverage most of its functionality.
Likelihood to Recommend
It's a great tool that offers full benefits of self-service BI with very little need for interaction with the IT department. The Power BI Desktop and Mobile application, in particular, has added a lot of value for our business objectives.
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