Microsoft Power BI
Effective use of Microsoft's BI system for project managers based on Power BI
- Have you implemented Microsoft Power BI and want to get the most out of it?
- Have you discovered that Power BI is included in your Microsoft toolset and want to get working with it?
- Do you lack the technical knowledge to effectively configure the environment?
- Or maybe you already know everything and have a vision to cover all areas of your organisation with reporting?
If you answered yes to any of the above questions, then take a look at our Body Leasing offer and comprehensive support in the cost-effective use of the Power BI system.
Power BI – Body Leasing
By hiring experienced consultants, you can ensure that your project is started from scratch or that the work you have started is brought to completion. When time is of the essence, you don’t have to worry about recruitment, training or certification. With our team, time is on your side. Astrafox’s consultants are qualified, certified Power BI experts with extensive business experience on the tool. In addition to their technical skills, they also have:
- Expertise in a range of industries, including FMCG, finance, automotive or pharmaceuticals.
- Operational knowledge of BI tools, such as migrating from another BI platform to Power BI.
- Expertise in working with public sector bodies.
We offer a flexible and secure working model. We hold a certification that Astrafox’s information security management system is compliant with ISO/IEC 2701:2013.
Working effectively with Power BI
Our clients' experiences
Three factors are crucial when implementing a new analytics solution. Besides the two obvious ones, price and quality, our customers’ experience shows that the third pillar of project stability is a trusted technology partner.
Different organisations have come to us at different stages of their adventure with new technologies. When looking for help to get a project up and running, the reason for previous failures was usually a lack of proper preparation in the early stages of the work. With the right knowledge and tools, we help our clients estimate costs, secure and develop the right skills, and support the all-important change management within the organisation.
The 3 most important services in Power BI
Power BI Data Visualisation Workshop
Almost anyone who compares Excel and Power BI will notice an obvious difference in the approach to analysing data. Power BI offers a wide range of visualisations. These are the essence of knowledge transfer between the analyst and the business audience. Learning the principles of effective visual communication from a Power BI perspective is paramount, even if you have previously created interactive dashboard-style reports in Excel. After all, the purpose of creating a dashboard is not only to make it technically flawless but also to convey clear and understandable information.
At Astrafox, we believe that a good trainer is one who has hands-on experience with the tool. This is why all our trainers split their time between training and project work. As a result, your dedicated consultant may be someone who has already trained your team and got to know the people and the business context of the work they do.
Power BI consultancy
If your team has the right skills but needs help putting them into practice, then working with our consultants on ongoing projects is a suitable form of support. The scope of the consultancy is flexible and tailored to your needs. This might be, for example:
- Full report preparation with a workshop where we will provide report creation skills and documentation.
- If the report is produced by your team, consultation sessions every few days to review the work done and advise on further steps.
- A conceptual workshop focusing on visual communication and the selection of appropriate forms of visualisation for the data presented, taking into account the specificity of the indicators required.
- Dedicated Q & A sessions.
Technical training for Power BI analysts
One of the most common mistakes at this stage is to judge the competence of report writers on the basis of their previous work in Excel. A great deal of experience also implies a certain set of habits, and it is worthwhile to guide them accordingly. Therefore, an important step in the early stages of the work is to train your analysts properly.
Our experience, and that of our customers, is that basic training for analysts with a strong Excel background helps them to separate their existing habits from the new technology. As a result, on a day-to-day basis, they use their existing knowledge more effectively where appropriate and avoid ingraining working patterns that are sub-optimal for the new solution.
Why Power BI?
Power BI is a tool that is at the forefront of reporting and data visualisation systems. One of the reasons for its growing popularity is that organisations managing data using Microsoft technologies (e.g. Azure or SQL Server) see it as the natural next step in extracting business-relevant information and presenting it to a wide audience.
Of course, the prospect of working with tools from a single source and their technical aspects are not the only reasons for the growing interest in a particular product. What is also important is the attitude of those creating reports to the applications they will use in the future. Analysts with extensive experience of working with Excel often start their search for a Business Intelligence tool from the vendor whose solutions are closest to them in terms of competence.
Power BI offers a wide range of data visualisations that can be combined in interactive dashboards. Reports are created using data from almost any source. Two components, also known from Excel, are responsible for combining, modelling and transforming the data: Power Query and Power Pivot. Power BI is increasingly integrated with existing Microsoft tools, including those in the Azure environment. Among the major new developments in the area of data modelling support, the most notable is the implementation of the ability to build Power BI Datamarts in the Azure Synapse service.