The right information to the right person, regardless of platform

Excel & Power BI

Business Intelligence (BI) is about giving the right person the right information at the right time. That is called decision support and includes reports, visualizations and key figures that support the organization for both small and large decisions.

The Excel specialist works with decision support in both Excel and Power BI. ERIVAN BI Services develop a solution based on the customer's needs, regardless of whether it is a simpler tool to be used by a few people or an Enterprise solution for the entire organization.

Contact us and we will tell you more about the possibilities with decision support with Excel and Power BI.

Decision support with Power BI

Power BI is a cloud-based decision support service from Microsoft focusing on visual, interactive and powerful reports and dashboards. With Power BI, your business can easily get started with decision support without too much investment in time and money. The solution can then be scaled up gradually when your needs change.

In Power BI there is good support for sharing and collaborating on the reports you create. To do this, you only need a browser or a mobile app. In addition to being a cloud service, Power BI also differs from Excel with functions such as dashboards, automatic scheduled data updates / refresh, authorization control, report subscriptions via e-mail, notifications at exceeded limit values ​​and customized visualizations.

Below you see an example of what a report in Power BI might look like.

Power BI

Learn more about Power BI at www.powerbi.com.

Here's how we can help you with Power BI

We can help you set up a solution in Power BI from idea to finished solution, or support your business with point efforts if needed. Services that the Excel specialist offers within Power BI include following:

• Advice on how to best get started with Power BI.

• Support and maintenance of existing Power BI solutions.

• Access to data and analysis of data sources. We help you connect Power BI to your business system, Excel files, payroll systems and other types of sources.

Development of data warehouses. Today, it is common to create a solution based on Microsoft Azure. If you do not have one today, we will help you set this up.

Development of reports and dashboards in Power BI and publication of reports in the Power BI service, on Sharepoint Online or embedded in a web page.

Training of your employees so that you can develop and maintain your BI solution in Power BI.

licensing

You can work for free with Power BI by using Power BI Desktop, but to be able to work with Power BI fully and get complete data update and collaboration functions, Power BI Pro is needed. If you want to know which version suits your needs, you can read more about Microsoft's license models for Power BI here or contact us and we will help you.

Decision support in Excel

Excel is a common data source for Power BI, but is also in itself the most used tool for processing and analyzing different types of data and creating decision data. The range of functions in Excel continues to grow. The tools below are all part of Excel, each with a dedicated task to solve.

Get and transform data with Power Query

Power Query is a really good tool for importing external data from a number of different data sources, e.g. databases, files or websites. The Power Query also defines how data is to be transformed and logical rules for "washing" data. Together, this forms the basis for a good data structure and quality. Power Query is built into later versions of Excel and has been named "get and Transform Data" (found under the "Data" tab).

Data modeling with Power Pivot

Power Pivot can be compared to a special kind of database inside Excel for very efficient storage of data such as. comes from a Power Query import. Compared to storing data in an Excel sheet, Power Pivot can handle an unlimited number of rows where data is compressed down to about one tenth of the size while the performance is superior. It is also possible to define KPIs and hierarchies and build advanced calculations with the query language DAX (Data Analysis Expressions).

Reports are created as you are used to in Excel, ie. through pivot tables, pivot diagrams, slicers and timelines. The difference is that the reports are linked to the Power Pivot data model instead of, for example, a table on an Excel sheet.

Visualize with 3D map

With the 3D map, you can visualize and animate data in geographic reports. The reports are illustrated with a map view with the possibility of creating scenes of how the development has been over time. In later versions of Excel, this is a built-in function that you will find under the tab "Insert" and the group "Tours".

Excel or Power BI - what should I choose?

The answer to that question is both. Excel and Power BI have strong integrations with each other and you do not necessarily have to choose one over the other. You often have several user needs for a company and you can then make the choice according to the prevailing situation.

Excel is an advantage in the following cases:

You want to use Excel's built-in functions and formulas in your reports.

You are a few users who do not need access control / access control, alternatively can solve this in another way by e.g. Teams or other authority structure.

You do not need to work on reports together to a greater extent.

You want to use Excel to access the reports.

Power BI is an advantage in the following cases:

You want to access reports and be able to do analyzes anytime and anywhere, from tablet, mobile or computer.

You want automated processes and minimize manual administrative work.

You are several users where you want to share and distribute reports between you.

You need access control where some users can only see "their" data in the reports.

You want to be able to receive push notifications regularly or when data exceeds certain limits.