Microsoft BI and Tableau Buyer's Guide and Reviews July 2021

Microsoft BI
and
Tableau
Buyer's Guide and Reviews
July 2021
Microsoft BI and Tableau
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2
Contents
Advice From Real Users 4-9
Top Review by Topic of Microsoft BI and Tableau 10-11
Overview 12
Reviews From Real Users 13-22
Reviews By Users Who Have Researched Both Solutions 23-33
Vendor Directory 34
Top Reporting Tools Vendors 35-36
Top 5 Solutions by Ranking Factor 37
About This Report and IT Central Station 38
© 2021 IT Central Station

To read more reviews please visit https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/comparisons/microsoft-bi_vs_tableau?tid=pdf_comp_18609-20794
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Advice From Real Users
Microsoft BI
PROS
"The interface is very easy to use." [Full Review]
sharepoi927
843
"I like the downloadable visualizations a lot." "I think that they give the user a very nice starting point in creating awesome
dashboards, with the right way to tell their data story." [Full Review]
Alberto
Guisande
"In contrast to what we were using before I think that Power BI has given us more extensive results." [Full Review]
Dimitris
Iracleous
"Microsoft BI is scalable." [Full Review]
reviewer159
7356
"I liked that Microsoft Power BI handles a large amount of data." "I can handle hundreds of rows from Postgres in a few minutes." "I
also like how it detects the relationship between the tables without explicitly saying that." "It just detects the relationship
automatically." "That made it easier to work with the data." [Full Review]
Hanine
Allaya
"In my experience the scalability is good." "You are able to increase users and add more data." [Full Review]
reviewer158
6415
"The scalability is good." "We have 20 people in my organization using this solution and plan to increase usage." [Full Review]
reviewer159
0450

4
Microsoft BI
CONS
"The on-premises version lacks some technical features that are available with the Cloud version." [Full Review]
sharepoi927
843
"Some kind of expression wizard, where the user can build a complex expression without any knowledge of DAX, can be a good
addition to the product." [Full Review]
Alberto
Guisande
"I would like to see integration with Excel." [Full Review]
Dimitris
Iracleous
"I would like to see better, undisturbed stability without any interruptions." [Full Review]
reviewer159
7356
"It's not really complicated, but I didn't find the things I was looking for." "The ones I used to work with within Dash are more open,
and there are more choices." "But with Power BI, there are only limited types of plots that I can use.For example, when I wanted to
put the plots in Power BI, there was no extendable space." "You have a limited page where you can place a maximum of three plots
Hanine in that, and you can't do more than that on a single page." "You have to create a new page, a different page for that." "That made it
Allaya
a bit annoying, and the ... [Full Review]
"When there are large amounts of data being processed there are additional tools needed to handle it." [Full Review]
reviewer158
6415
"In an upcoming release, the solution could be simplified and have a more complete product package rather than a suite of
products that we have to put together." [Full Review]
reviewer159
0450

5
Microsoft BI
PRICING AND LICENSING ADVICE
"The cost of the solution is more flexible for us because the desktop is free and we pay as we use it in the cloud." [Full Review]
Dimitris
Iracleous
"I used a two months free trial to see if it had what I needed." [Full Review]
Hanine
Allaya
"The solution is priced well for what they offer." "However, the premium version is very expensive." [Full Review]
reviewer158
6415
"Power BI is cheaper for smaller groups when comparing to competitors." "It requires a monthly per-user subscription." [Full Review]
reviewer159
0450
"Microsoft BI is not expensive." "Compared to the price of other BI products, the price is very fair." [Full Review]
reviewer1517
100
"This solution came free, it was offered by Microsoft with our E3 license." [Full Review]
reviewer1571
454
"Licensing is on a monthly basis, but I am not sure." [Full Review]
reviewer157
2033

6
Tableau
PROS
"Easy to create graphs and visualizations." [Full Review]
reviewer138
7728
"The stability seems to be very reliable." [Full Review]
reviewer159
5463
"I have found the solution easy to use and the interface is very good." [Full Review]
Mahesh-K
"It's intuitive and highly mature" [Full Review]
NanthaKum
ar
"While using this solution I have found the valuable features to be ease of use and the visualization." "It is a complete solution." [Full
Review]
reviewer159
0450
"Provides a very good sound analysis quotient." [Full Review]
reviewer158
5917
"It is definitely easy to use." "It is intuitive, and more or less, everything can be done from the front end." "As such, there is no
concept of metadata." "You can just take data from a database and start building your own stuff, such as OLAP data warehouse."
"You don't need extensive metadata modeling like Oracle BI." [Full Review]
reviewer158
5887

7
Tableau
CONS
"Lacks customization in some areas." [Full Review]
reviewer138
7728
"There should be more widgets that would help less trained individuals create charts with less difficulty." [Full Review]
reviewer159
5463
"The setup was easy but we are having some problems with the configuration that is taking a long time." "We have done some initial
tests and some of the delays could be from bandwidth issues." "However, the whole installation process should be simplified." [Full
Review]
Mahesh-K
"The customization in the front end is a bit difficult." [Full Review]
NanthaKum
ar
"The data preparation could integrate better with Tableau." [Full Review]
reviewer159
0450
"Could have more integrations with different platforms." [Full Review]
reviewer158
5917
"It should have more integration with different tools and technologies." "Its licensing cost should also be improved." [Full Review]
reviewer158
5887

8
Tableau
PRICING AND LICENSING ADVICE
"This solution is a bit expensive." "The pricing options have become more difficult over the years." "I think they are bordering on
pricing themselves out of the market." "They need different pricing options for various-sized businesses." "Where my organization is
a large organization, we are happy to pay a higher price because we can leverage the products very extensively." "For smaller
reviewer159 enterprises, different pricing options would be good." [Full Review]
0450
"Its licensing cost should be improved." [Full Review]
reviewer158
5887
"There is a license for this solution and we pay on an annual basis." [Full Review]
reviewer146
3265
"It is expensive when you compare it with Power BI." "It should be cheaper." [Full Review]
reviewer157
2033
"Its price is a concern." "It is more expensive than Power BI." "My guess would be that it is $1000 or less per year.We might go for
Power BI in the future because of its umbrella with Microsoft licensing." "It is much cheaper for us to use Power BI, and some folks
will go in that direction because they don't want to pay the higher license." [Full Review]
Theresa
McLaughlin
"The pricing is $70 per month." "You have to pay about $800 or something in that ballpark annually for one license." [Full Review]
Tariq Raza
(MS
Certified)
"Tableau has core-based and user-based licensing, and it is tied to scalability." "The core-based licensing is about you buying a
certain number of cores, and there is no restriction on the number of users who can use Tableau." "The restriction is only on the
number of cores." "In user-based subscription licensing, there is a restriction on the number of users." "Big companies and
Jerry Paul government organizations with a lot of users typically go for core-based licensing.User-based subscription licensing is a more
common model." "It has user roles such as cr... [Full Review]

9
Top Reviews by Topic

Microsoft BI Tableau
VALUABLE
FEATURES Tariq Raza (MS Certified) YAWANTWI-ADJEI
Tariq: I’m going to go cover my TOP 5 Features for Tableau is easy to use. That's the first and most
getting you started on your own visualisations so important thing. I not only provide consulting but I
you can be up and running and leveraging Power also train people to use it, so with its ease-of-use
BI within your own business in no time at all. it's not as difficult for me to train executives and
Power BI Desktop Sure you probably want to build management staff, because they don't have the IT
some beautiful and interactive reports and background, unlike when I'm using Python. They
dashboards to share all those insights from your don't know anything about programming, so
data with your business, but perhaps lacking the Python is more difficult. Tableau is also, right from
experience that report designers, data queries the outset, a self-service product. It's easy for
specialists or Excel Power Users have? Well now anyone to understand and use. Some of the
all your end users c... [Full Review] organiz... [Full Review]
reviewer1389651 Sai Krishna J
What Power BI is, is a whole collection of I believe the most valuable feature of Tableau is
templates of small amounts of data that can be the flexibility it offers with regard to the types of
used to do something for a real world project, that visualizations the user can create. A lot of other
can be easily set up and become the business products in this space offer limited chart types and
intelligence environment or a data warehouse for work in a way that provide little room for
a large amount of data, for a real world customer. customization, if any. But Tableau allows the user
That's what is remarkable. And that's what it takes. to work with its predefined templates such that the
It makes use of the ordinary things, and they'll end result can be a visualization that is highly
sound familiar. Excel, Access, or SQL Server as the customized - in terms of the design, colors, sizes,
database, and the deployment techniques like shapes and the overall visual appeal. This is... [Full
Azure for it t... [Full Review] Review]
RicardoPedro Jerry Paul
The tool is very flexible so it allows for creativity. Our customers love the visual capabilities on top
Power BI allows you to incorporate Microsoft Visio of it and the ability to explain and get the required
diagrams and other graphics from Microsoft tools. data. There is no other product like Tableau in the
You can also integrate third-party visual graphics business intelligence and analytics space. [Full
created from other tools, such as R or Python. It is Review]
useful to be able to obtain additional charts or
different types of graphics developed by a third-
party tool. This gives you more options for your
end solutions. However, for some third-party tools
and graphics such as Zoom charts, you have...
[Full Review]

10
Top Reviews by Topic

Microsoft BI Tableau
ROOM FOR
IMPROVEMENT Tariq Raza (MS Certified) YAWANTWI-ADJEI
me to throw some light on the disadvantages of I attended a Tableau conference recently, and a
Power BI. Power BI is good with handling simple quick improvement came to mind. When I am
relationships between tables in a data model. But, training people how to use it, I've come across
if there are complex relationships between tables, situations where I've found it difficult to explain
that is, if they have more than one links between relationships. For example, when you want to
tables, Power BI might not handle them well. You blend data or when you want to show
need to create a data model carefully by having relationships, like when linking multiple tables;
more unique fields so that Power BI does not well, if you're an IT guy, that's easy. But if you are
confuse the relationships when it comes to not an IT guy, you don't know anything about
complex relationships. In most cases, you might entity relationships, and it becomes a bit difficult
not feel the need to... [Full Review] for others to follow along... [Full Review]
reviewer1389651 Sai Krishna J
When it comes to improvement, I would say there I would like to see the inclusion of a template to
could be more tutorials for students in universities create a speedometer chart. I can understand that
who are just learning it. And it wouldn't have to be Tableau doesn’t have it as one of its default chart
just for students in universities. It might also be for types because it’s not a good way to represent
the people who use it in the real world. The the data. Indeed that’s true, but speedometers are
evidence that I see when I look into it is there's a quite popular and once we had a client who was
lot of user group type of connections to the Power insistent on having highly-customizable
BI world. And many, many bloggers telling their speedometers and I had to spend a good amount
stories and promoting themselves or small of time to create them via multiple workarounds. In
businesses promoting themselves to do it for you my experience, I've seen many customers who do
us... [Full Review] not want to consi... [Full Review]
RicardoPedro Jerry Paul
I think that the product would benefit by Tableau is an end-to-end analytics platform, and it
increasing the range of visuals and graphics is doing a pretty good job in terms of connecting
readily available, as opposed to using a third party to the data and analyzing it. It can, however, do
included as part of the product. One way they better in terms of data management and the ETL
could do that is for Microsoft to buy some of those features, which are not on the advanced analytics
third party companies, as they are specialists in or machine learning side. Tableau Prep is where
visual creation, and they are making money from users would want to see more advancements.
that. However, I understand that perhaps They can improve Tableau Prep, which is an
Microsoft maybe doesn't want to invest in that side analytic platform tool for data cleansing. People
of the business. Perhaps it is a financial decision. I who work with data spend most of their time
would say that i... [Full Review] curating the data. Clea... [Full Review]

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Overview
SOLUTION Microsoft BI Tableau
OVERVIEW Microsoft BI is a business intelligence solution that Tableau helps people and organizations become
turns data into insightful and useful business more data-driven as the trusted leader in analytics.
information that is relevant to all levels of the
business. The Tableau platform provides the breadth and
depth of capabilities to serve the needs of even
Microsoft BI combines familiar Microsoft tools - the largest global enterprises in a seamless,
Office, SharePoint, and SQL server, with extra integrated experience. Tableau is designed to fit,
features for end-users, such as Power View and not dictate your data strategy, and adapts to your
Power Pivot. This powerful product gives environment with unmatched flexibility and choice,
businesses a competitive advantage by allowing while meeting the toughest governance and
end-users to better analyze their data, collaborate security requirements.
and better present their data.
People love using Tableau because it...
SAMPLE Konica Minolta, Klout, Mahindra Satyam, The Accenture, Adobe, Amazon.com, Bank of America,
CUSTOMERS
Weather Channel, Argus, Credit Suisse, NCR, and Charles Schwab Corp, Citigroup, Coca-Cola
Sysmex. Company, Cornell University, Dell, Deloitte, Duke
University, eBay, Exxon Mobil, Fannie Mae, Ferrari,
French Red Cross...
TOP Tableau vs. Microsoft BI Microsoft BI vs. Tableau

COMPARISONS Compared 14% of the time Compared 10% of the time
Oracle OBIEE vs. Microsoft BI SAS Visual Analytics vs. Tableau

Compared 12% of the time Compared 9% of the time
QlikView vs. Microsoft BI Oracle OBIEE vs. Tableau

Compared 6% of the time Compared 8% of the time
TOP INDUSTRIES, Financial Services Firm ... 10% Energy/Utilities Company ... 8%
BASED ON Computer Software Company ... 11% Healthcare Company ... 8%
REVIEWERS*
Manufacturing Company ... 12% University ... 9%
Energy/Utilities Company ... 15% Financial Services Firm ... 14%
TOP INDUSTRIES, Financial Services Firm ... 6% Media Company ... 6%
BASED ON Government ... 6% Financial Services Firm ... 9%
COMPANIES
READING REVIEWS* Comms Service Provider ... 18% Comms Service Provider ... 15%
Computer Software Company ... 26% Computer Software Company ... 27%
COMPANY SIZE, 201-1000 Employees ... 14% 201-1000 Employees ... 20%
BASED ON 1-200 Employees ... 40% 1-200 Employees ... 27%
REVIEWERS*
1001+ Employees ... 46% 1001+ Employees ... 53%
COMPANY SIZE, 1-200 Employees ... 18% 1-200 Employees ... 21%
BASED ON 201-1000 Employees ... 23% 201-1000 Employees ... 17%
COMPANIES
READING REVIEWS* 1001+ Employees ... 59% 1001+ Employees ... 61%
* Data is based on the aggregate profiles of IT Central Station Users researching this solution.

12
Microsoft BI review by a real user
A complete ecosystem with an builtin ETL tool, good integrations with

python and R, and support of DAX and Power Query (M languages)
Operations & BI Analyst at American Hospital

Dubai
Tariq Raza (MS

Certified)
WHAT IS OUR PRIMARY USE CASE?
Tariq: I am currently using it for my professional and training use. I am using the Power BI Premium per user recent scheme
announced by Microsoft. In my current company, we are using Tableau.
WHAT IS MOST VALUABLE?
Tariq: I’m going to go cover my TOP 5 Features for getting you started on your own visualisations so you can be up and running
and leveraging Power BI within your own business in no time at all. Power BI Desktop Sure you probably want to build some
beautiful and interactive reports and dashboards to share all those insights from your data with your business, but perhaps lacking
the experience that report designers, data queries specialists or Excel Power Users have? Well now all your end users can easily
access data and build their own reports using a simple yet powerful interface, Power BI Desktop. Power BI Desktop is a free
download which provides an excellent canvas for creating your own masterpiece’s or perhaps just a simple report or dashboard
tile. Power BI Desktop with its monthly release cycle is constantly evolving with newly added features or enhancements that can
‘bring data alive’ often in just a few minutes or hours. Visibility Data is arguably one of most precious resource that businesses are
generating today. The key aim to be able to manipulate and easily combine this valuable data with other datasets, and then have
a simple way to gain a deeper understanding of their business. With data often residing across multiple systems and formats, a
valuable resource that businesses need is to be able to collate the various datasets and generate different ways to visual and
understand it. In order to identify trends and relationships which were not previously visible and help make those important
DECISIONS that business need to make every day based on the right facts. With a deeper understanding that comes from
interpreting data in a visual form, the data world has become even more important for a business to be able to leverage and gain
the competitive edge it needs; so it’s no wonder that Microsoft’s BI can provide so much value with the data-shaping and
modelling capabilities to unlock hidden insights. Custom Visualisations Every business has its own culture and way of doing
things, sometimes the ‘standard way’ of doing something just doesn’t cut it and a need to customise it to make it work is needed.
The same goes for visualisations that come as standard with Power BI tool, which for some may not provide the depth or
complexity of visualisation that is needed in order to ‘bring data alive’. However by accessing the growing library of custom
visualisations or even creating ones that meet a specific need is perhaps a way to find a competitive edge. Import Excel Data One
of the recent improvements that was added was the ability to import data from Excel. It has a wizard for making it very straight
forward so your Excel ‘Power User’s’ now have even greater functionality to make sense of the data. Power Q&A Have you
wanted to be able to ask questions in your own language and have it answered? Now Power BI makes that very easy with the
13
Dashboard Power Q&A and the underlying data models. You just start typing in your question and the data model provides the
context and answer which can then be manipulated to suit your own visualisation needs.
WHAT NEEDS IMPROVEMENT?
me to throw some light on the disadvantages of Power BI.
Power BI is good with handling simple relationships between tables in a data model. But, if there are complex relationships
between tables, that is, if they have more than one links between tables, Power BI might not handle them well. You need to create
a data model carefully by having more unique fields so that Power BI does not confuse the relationships when it comes to
complex relationships.
In most cases, you might not feel the need to configure and optimize visualizations in Power BI. But even if you do, Power BI does
not provide many options to configure your visualizations as per your requirements. Thus, users have limited options for what they
can change in visuals.
The user interface of Power BI is often found crowded and bulky by the users. It is in the sense that there are many icons of
options that block the view of dashboard or report. Most users wish that the user interface or the report canvas was clearer with
fewer icons and options. Also, creating scrolling dashboards is a native feature.
As we know, the expression language used to deal with data in Power BI is DAX. However, you can perform a lot of actions using
the DAX formula in Power BI, it is still not the easiest language to work with. Sometimes the formulas you create work well in
Power BI, sometimes they don’t. You can concatenate up to two elements but concatenating more than two elements needs
nesting statements.
Power BI has a limit of ingesting data at a time which is approximately 2 GBs of data. If you wish to import and use data of even
greater volumes, you need to extend your free version to a paid version of Power BI. Also, users have reported that Power BI
takes a little more than usual time or even hangs while processing millions of rows and columns of data.
Usually, Power BI is the easiest to use BI tool if you are using it simply to import data and create reports. But Power BI is an entire
suite having a lot of other interrelated tools. When the purpose of your use is more than just creating reports in Power BI Desktop,
you need to learn and master several other tools like Gateways, Power BI Report Server, Power BI Services, etc.
FOR HOW LONG HAVE I USED THE SOLUTION?
Tariq: I have been using this solution for more than three years.
WHAT DO I THINK ABOUT THE STABILITY OF THE SOLUTION?
Tariq:
I am currently using it for my personal training, and I didn't find any stability issues, but when it comes to big data, there may be
some sort of issues where the system might hang.
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Continued from previous page
WHAT DO I THINK ABOUT THE SCALABILITY OF THE SOLUTION?
Tariq:
In terms of adding more users, there shouldn't be any issues or limitations. Currently, I am using it for my personal use.
For very big companies with large-scale data and many rules, there would be speed issues with Power BI. Therefore, I don't
recommend Power BI at this level. For such organizations, Tableau is the best solution. I have tried Tableau in many companies
with many nodes, and I found no speed issues with Tableau. So, I won't recommend Power BI for organizations where 2,000 or
4,000 computers are connected, and there are multiple branches with data coming from different countries.
HOW ARE CUSTOMER SERVICE AND TECHNICAL SUPPORT?
Tariq:
I contacted them for an installation issue related to the RPA Power Automate Desktop. I had downloaded this software, and I was
trying to use it with Office, but there were some installation issues. I contacted Microsoft's technical team, and they logged in to
my computer and fixed the issue.
Their support is very nice. They called me and then remotely connected to my computer through Teams. They gave me very good
support, and I am perfectly satisfied with them.
WHICH SOLUTION DID I USE PREVIOUSLY AND WHY DID I SWITCH?
Tariq: I can mentions main difference between Power BI and tableau which is as under. Advantages of Tableau Here, are
pros/benefits of using Tableau BI: •Less cost of training •Very fast and easy to create visualizations •Good customer support •Data
Interpreter Story-telling ability •Tableau offers a feature of visualization •It helps you to combine shape & clean the data for
analysis. •It helps you to handle a large amount of data. •Uses scripting languages like R & Python to avoid performance for
complex table calculations. •Allows users to create reports, dashboards, and stories using Tableau Desktop. Advantages of Power
BI Here, are pros/benefits of Power BI •Offers pre-built dashboards and reports for SaaS Solutions •Provide real-time dashboard
updates. •Secure and reliable connection to your data sources in the cloud or on-premises •Power BI offers quick deployment,
hybrid configuration, and a secure environment. •Data exploration using natural language query. •Feature for dashboard
visualization •New features frequently added that are great for excel users. •Extensive database connectivity capabilities Q&A
feature publish to the web. •integration with both Python and R coding to use visualizations. •Power Query provides many options
related to wrangling and clean the data. •Post publishing the data into Power BI web service can schedule refresh without manual
intervention. •Power BI backed by the superpower of with artificial intelligence and machine learning. Disadvantages of Power BI
Here, are cons/drawbacks of Power BI •Dashboards and reports only shared with users having the same email domains. •Power Bl
will never mix imported data, which is accessed from real-time connections. •Power BI can't accept file size larger than 1 GB.
•Dashboard never accept or pass user, account, or other entity parameters. Disadvantages of Tableau Here, are cons/drawbacks
of Tableau •Relatively high cost •No change management or versioning •It is expensive, BI, when compared to other tools.
•Importing custom visualization is a bit difficult. •Not offers easy methods for embedding reports to other applications. •Tableau is
suitable only for a large organization which can pay for licensing cost. •The tableau does not offer support for artificial intelligence
15
and machine learning. •There is integration with other Microsoft products like Power Apps , Dynamics 365, Office 365, and
Microsoft Flow, which uses Single Sign-On (SSO).
HOW WAS THE INITIAL SETUP?
Tariq:
Its initial setup is very simple. There is no issue at all. If you have everything set up on your computer, it takes only 10 minutes.
In terms of maintenance, Power BI does not require any maintenance, but the database behind Power BI requires some sort of
maintenance. Power BI is like a tap. It is just providing what is in the tank. For clean water, you just need to clean the tank at the
back. To get good visualizations, you need to clean your database, tabling structure, and data modeling. If you are doing all data
modeling in Power BI, then data modeling requires some sort of maintenance.
WHAT'S MY EXPERIENCE WITH PRICING, SETUP COST, AND LICENSING?
Tariq: Power BI comes in three levels – Desktop, Pro, and Premium. The Desktop level is free for individual users. Pro – The Pro
plan costs $9.99 per user, per month and includes a mobile app, the ability to publish and share reports, a 1 GB model size limit,
eight data refreshes daily, the ability to connect to over 100 data sources, embedded APIs and controls, AI visuals, data security
and encryption, metrics for content creation and publishing and up to 10 GB per user maximum storage. Pro is available for free for
companies that have the Microsoft 365 E5 solution. Premium (per user) – Microsoft launched this new pricing strategy that costs
$20 per user, per month. It includes all of the features of the Pro plan, plus paginated reports, a 100 GB model size limit, 48 data
refreshes daily, advanced AI features, XMLA endpoint read/write connectivity, data flows, the ability to analyze data stored in
Azure Data Lake Storage, application lifecycle management and up to 100 TB of maximum storage. Premium (per capacity) – This
plan starts at $4,995 per month per dedicated cloud compute and storage resource. It includes all of the features of the Premium
per user plan, plus on-premise reporting, a 400 GB model limit, multi-location deployment management, Bring Your Own Key
(BYOK) and autoscale add-on.
WHICH OTHER SOLUTIONS DID I EVALUATE?
Tariq: No, I am diehard fan and accredited professional of Microsoft technologies, so I have no other thought.
WHAT OTHER ADVICE DO I HAVE?
Tariq: I will suggest below guidelines to Power BI users. Limit the number of visuals in dashboards and reports According to
Microsoft's Optimization guide for Power BI, placing many visuals in a single report slows report performance. Limit widget visuals
to eight per report page and grids to one per page. Limit pages 30 points (cards: 1, gauges: 2, charts: 3, maps: 3, grids: 5). Limit
tiles to 10 per dashboard. To improve Power BI report performance, remove unnecessary interactions between visuals By default,
all visuals on a report page can interact with one another. For optimal report performance, interactivity should be minimized.
Reduce the number of queries fired at the back end and improve report performance by disabling unnecessary interactivity.
Enable Row-Level Security (RLS) Row Level Security restricts user access to certain rows in a database depending on the
characteristics (role) of the user executing a query. With RLS, Power BI only imports data the user is authorized to view. Combining
16
Power BI roles with roles in the back end can result in substantial performance gains. Test all roles before rolling out to
production. Use Microsoft AppSource certified custom visuals Power BI certified visuals are AppSource visuals that have passed
rigorous quality testing. Microsoft verifies that certified custom visuals have robust, high-performance code. Certified custom
visuals are the only custom visuals that can be viewed in Export to PowerPoint mode and email subscriptions. Use preview feature
of hierarchy slicers instead of custom visual If you need to show hierarchy in slicers, enable the preview feature provided by the
Power BI desktop instead of using of a custom visual. Provide data categorization for Power BI reports (HBI, MBI, LBI) High
Business Impact (HBI) data requires users to get a policy exception to share the data externally. Low Business Impact (LBI) and
Medium Business Impact (MBI) data do not require exceptions. By using Power BI data sensitivity labels, you raise user awareness
about required security and how reports should be shared inside and outside the organization. Use on-premises data gateway
instead of Personal Gateway Personal Gateway takes data and imports it into Power BI. Enterprise Gateway (on-premises data
gateway) imports nothing, which is more efficient when working with large databases. Use different Power BI gateways for Live
Connection and Scheduled Data Refresh If the same gateway is used for Scheduled Data Refresh and Live Connection, Live
Connection performance will slow down when Scheduled Data Refresh is active. Avoid this issue by creating separate gateways
for Live Connection and Scheduled Data Refresh. Test custom visual performance on reports to ensure fast report load time; use
an alternative visual if the chosen visual performs poorly Uncertified custom visuals are generally not tested by the Power BI team.
Custom visuals can perform poorly when handling large datasets or complex aggregations. If a custom visual performs poorly,
consider replacing it with a different visual. Limit complicated complex measures and aggregations in data models Push calculated
columns and measures to the source where possible. The closer they are to the source, the higher the likelihood of improved
performance. Create calculated measures instead of calculated columns. Use star schema to design data models. Use slicers
sparingly Slicers are a great way of allowing users to navigate data, but they come at a performance cost. Each slicer generates
two queries: one gets the data, and the other fetches selection details. Creating too many slicers negatively impacts performance.
To evaluate which slicers are infrequently used, use the Filter pane and remove unnecessary slicers. Ensure the Power BI report
and data source are in the same region With the tenant and data source in the same region, you can reduce network latency. The
results are faster data transfer and faster query execution. Import only necessary fields and tables instead of entire datasets
Ensure the model is as narrow and lean as possible. Power BI works on columnar indexes; longer and leaner tables are preferred.
Ensure the cache update frequency aligns with the data source refresh frequency Cache update frequency should be set at
similar intervals to data source refresh frequency. By default, the Power BI cache update frequency is set to one hour. If, for
example, your data set refreshes only once per day, you should update the cache frequency accordingly. Use white or light
background colors For users distributing printed reports, white or light backgrounds are printer friendly. Shorten numbers Don’t
exceed three or four numerals when displaying numbers. Display measures to one or two numerals left of the decimal point and
scale for thousands or millions. Use Report Tooltip pages to provide more context for the highlighted measure Report tooltips are
a great way of sharing additional information on the metric. Use limited visuals in Report Tooltip. Ensure you select Tooltip field
carefully (categorical or measure). Use templates (.PBIT files) to speed up and standardize report development instead of starting
with an empty .PBIX Templates can be saved with custom color palettes and themes pre-incorporated. Templates ensure
corporate branding is pre-applied to all pages. Templates ensure connections to commonly used data sources are already in
place. Templates create commonly used DAX measures. Source: LinkedIn Use names that are meaningful to your business users
or intended audience Power BI provides the ability to give aliases to report objects. Avoid ambiguity when naming columns and
measures. Consider hiding unused columns in the data model. Source: LinkedIn Reduce queries Reduce the number of queries
sent by Power BI using the settings for Slicers and Filters.
WHICH DEPLOYMENT MODEL ARE YOU USING FOR THIS SOLUTION?
On-premises

17
Tableau review by a real user
Lets me train new users quickly, easily, and intuitively
Data Visualization Specialist at Data Catalyst
YAWANTWI-ADJEI
In my consulting firm, I use Tableau for data visualization and data analysis. Alongside Tableau, I also use Python and, on
occasion, SPSS.
The EU had recommended Tableau for use in some of the statistics offices in Africa, including government institutes in Ghana, and
just last week I was using it to do a program for the Ministry of Monitoring and Evaluation. There, I used Tableau to convey selling
points to buy Tableau, which is one example of the consulting work I do for clients.
I also train others in visual analysis with the use of Tableau. This September, I trained 265 medical statisticians. Last week, I trained
13 staff from the Ministry of Monitoring and Evaluation. And soon, I'll be training another group of 20 people on Tableau.
HOW HAS IT HELPED MY ORGANIZATION?
Tableau is a good product for people like me who provide data analysis training because it makes my job far easier. It's a good
product and very easy to use, making the introduction of key technologies extremely simple. For instance, when you get data, and
go in to analyze it, people ask, "This is numeric?" People start thinking about, "How do I get all these tools?" Tableau takes the
data and automatically breaks it down into two dimensions and measures. That makes it easy for me when I'm doing training.So
what I would say to trainees is, "Don't worry about all these data types, when you are designing your questionnaire, because in
Tableau it breaks them into two. And the measures are the ones that you are going to actually work on. You normally break them
down by the dimensions." And that makes it simple for people to understand. Otherwise people don't know where to start when it
comes to data analytics.Tableau makes life very easy for not only myself but also for others, because you can quickly get into data
analytics and visualization with it.
18
Tableau is easy to use. That's the first and most important thing. I not only provide consulting but I also train people to use it, so
with its ease-of-use it's not as difficult for me to train executives and management staff, because they don't have the IT
background, unlike when I'm using Python. They don't know anything about programming, so Python is more difficult.
Tableau is also, right from the outset, a self-service product. It's easy for anyone to understand and use. Some of the organizations
that I introduce to Tableau are using the full-blown version, i.e. the commercial version, and they can very quickly start analyzing
data with the use of the Ask Data feature, where you can simply drag and drop while querying for data with natural language
processing. You type in English and it will pick the data and analyze it for you.Those features are built into Tableau which makes
getting started with data analysis very easy. And it's also got some pretty good built-in visualization tools. I would say Tableau is
one of the best when it comes to self-service functionality.
I attended a Tableau conference recently, and a quick improvement came to mind. When I am training people how to use it, I've
come across situations where I've found it difficult to explain relationships. For example, when you want to blend data or when you
want to show relationships, like when linking multiple tables; well, if you're an IT guy, that's easy. But if you are not an IT guy, you
don't know anything about entity relationships, and it becomes a bit difficult for others to follow along.
It takes me a long time to get people to understand, even up to the point where I feel that this is the lowest level that I can go in
terms of explaining it. I realized that many people don't really have any experience or knowledge about relationships between
objects, and it makes it hard for me to get my teaching across.
So I was suspecting, and I think I made this recommendation, that Tableau could find an easier way to introduce relationships. For
now, if you want to build relationships in Tableau, or even in Excel, you have things like Access modules and Sheets. But how do I
know that I need to use one object with another for the relationship. And if you then put in a table, what do you do after that? You
have to double click, but people don't know that you have to double click.I was hoping that there's a way that they can make that
process a bit easier, though I don't know how they will do it. Perhaps when you load Tableau and connect to a data source, there
would be a prompt that asks you if you want to link two tables together. So if you want to link two tables together, maybe you do
A, B, C, D.That might help with the self-service idea. If you're talking about self-service, then it should be easy for people who do
not have the time, or who do not have that IT background, to pick the data and use it correctly.
In addition, and more generally, what I would like to see more support for is predictive analytics. When you're doing descriptive
analysis, Tableau is excellent, and it's easy to do. But when you are trying to predict something, like in Tableau's forecasting
feature, it seems to require date fields, or it won't work.
But I can forecast something without relying on date fields; maybe I want to predict that a branch has to close if it doesn't want to
make something soon. I don't need dates to do that. For this reason, I'm using Alteryx for predictive modeling instead of Tableau.
Overall, the only major frustration that I have had so far is with Tableau Public. I first used Tableau Public when I was building
capacity, and when there was a later release to download and you wanted to upgrade, all your work would have to be manually
re-entered. I don't know how they can solve that. I was expecting that they might make a release on this upgrade, and then I can
hit upgrade and it will install over what ever I have already. Otherwise, for now I think they are doing well and I know they're still
adding a lot of features. But it does sometimes make our work difficult, for those of us who are building capacity, and who are
regularly changing people around. It means you have to keep learning all the time.
19
Another small detail for improvement is that when you draw bar charts, the default color could be something more neutral like
gray. Instead, the default is blue, and I don't exactly get why this is the case.
I've been using Tableau for the past three years now.
I contacted support when I had a problem with data entry in 2018 or 2019. I spoke to a man based in Ireland and he was super.
I had originally put the problem I had on the Tableau community support forum, but I didn't get the right answer. I've forgotten the
exact problem but it involved connecting to a data set from an Excel file. Instead of the data field displaying the data for you, what
I got instead was an error or no response. It kept happening like that so I sent a message to support, who gave me some steps to
follow. I followed them but it still did not work. However, I realized that any time I do it and it shows up and I click data, it then
suddenly goes off. I'm still wondering why that happened. I think it depends on the size of the file or some other reason. I have not
tried it again because I'm a bit busy now but it's something that I want to go back to because support didn't give me a satisfactory
answer.They told me, "Do this." I said, "I tried it. It did not work." They asked me again to do something and I tried it, and it still did
not work. But then I tried on my own, and this time when the problem came up I clicked the data interface twice to reload it. On the
second time I clicked, it worked, but I don't think that is the right way to handle it.
I used Power BI before discovering Tableau in 2016/2017.
At first I did not like Tableau, because Tableau initially put me off considering that I have a problem with how Françafrique
countries, like in West Africa, are controlled by France to not buy anything from Anglophone countries. I've worked in 15 African
countries. And for instance, in Ghana, we are bordered by Françafrique countries but they haven't bought things from here
because France tells them, "Don't buy." Which to me is wrong. Why should you sit in Paris and dictate to Africans?I also decided
that, "Okay. I'm not going to go into any French country and work." So, for my consultancy, apart from mainly Côte d'Ivoire, I also
said, "Look. It is the attitude towards Anglophone and West African countries, I'm not going to help anybody." Because my contract
with the World Bank was to build capacity. So I decided I'm not going to go there.
So, when I saw Tableau first, the word itself made me think that this might be the same kind of product, and I would not even look
at it, because I was against it. I kept on using my Power BI until a colleague, another consultant who we met from South Africa,
said to me while I was demonstrating Power BI, "I think you can use Tableau." I said, "What is Tableau? I don't want it." He said,
"Oh I don't know much about Tableau, but somebody told me it's easier to use than Power BI." He said, "Why don't you look at
that?"
We were working on the same project and I told him, "No, I'm not interested, I will not look at it. It's a strange product, I don't want
to look at a different product." And the guy insisted, "Oh please, you must take a look at it." Because we were looking at the
project like we're a team, I said, "Okay, I'll look at it."So that evening I downloaded it and I realized that all the things that I'm doing
in Power BI, that requires some level of IT background, well, I don't need that in Tableau. So then I decided, okay, let me really
look at it. Who is behind Tableau? I asked where is the name Tableau from? Where did you get that name from? Okay. So that was
the time I changed my mind towards Tableau, and to be honest with you I've not regretted anything for doing it. I'm quite happy
about it.
20
Setup is not that difficult for me. However, I remember in Gambia, there was some initial difficulty when I was teaching how to set
up the organigram for the National Social Staff System.
In the National Social Staff System, you have about 11 ministries involved and the coordinator, and it's the coordinating agencies in
Bureau of Statistics. So I needed to set up the system so that all the other ministries can enter their data. And when you enter the
data, the other ministry, let's say, Ministry A can also enter data. And Ministry B cannot see what Ministry A is doing.Now, when I
was doing it, it was not difficult at all, but because I had to handle other systems and leave, I tried to explain it to them but they
found it a bit hard to grasp. So where you have multiple alliances and you set them up like organizations, it can get a bit complex.
Because there's differences within the same organization under different departments. It's not a big problem when you buy
Tableau for one single organization, but when you set things up for multiple organizations like the National Social Staff System, it
can get problematic.
The national system is made up of different entities: Ministry of Health, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Finance, etc. They are
different ministries and they don't necessarily need access to all of each other's data. But if you buy Tableau for each of them then
that is fine but if it comes to a situation where they all come under one number and you're setting up, you don't want one ministry
to see what the other is entering.
So there was definitely a bit of a problem there. But I can't blame Tableau because no matter what it is, sometimes you need a
certain level of IT skills to get certain things done.
At $70 per month, I think the price is a bit scary. I have a small consulting firm in Ghana, working in about 15 different African
countries, and when it comes to our part of the world, $70 a month is a lot of money for software.
In fact, where Tableau was approved for use in Gambia, I had the EU pay for three years. But I know it's expiring soon, and I don't
think they will have the money to renew. I don't know how they're going to do it. When you come to Africa, especially when you're
on the net, we don't use it so much, so I don't know if there is something that they can do about pricing for people in the African
continent.
Yet recently, I trained 265 medical statisticians on how to visualize their data, using Tableau Public. They were so happy. And they
thought, "Oh, this is very easy for us to do." But when they asked me about the price and I told them, they said, "$70? But we can't
pay."
So that for me is a problem here. And, mostly, it's a problem for everybody. There are some companies that can easily afford it, but
the majority of companies cannot.
21
I have occasionally used IBM SPSS for similar work that I perform in Tableau, but I only use it when the client absolutely requires it.
I wouldn't tell people to go with Tableau just because it's the tool that I use. I would instead emphasize its remarkable ease-of-use
and the way Tableau really listens to their users and comes up with frequent upgrades.
I would rate Tableau a nine out of ten.
On-premises

22
Researched Tableau But Chose Microsoft

Review by a real user:
Associate Director at a tech services

company with 51-200 employees
reviewer1586415
Microsoft BI can be used for business data visualization.
When there are large amounts of data being processed there are additional tools needed to handle it.
In an upcoming release, there could be an associative experience, such as in Qlik.
I have been using this solution for approximately four years.
The stability is good but as you add more data the stability decreases.
23
In my experience the scalability is good. You are able to increase users and add more data.
The initial setup can be easy if you have a small amount of data being used. I have found Qlik is better if you have large amounts
of data.
WHAT ABOUT THE IMPLEMENTATION TEAM?
We have a team of approximately 20 people that handle BI operations.
The solution is priced well for what they offer. However, the premium version is very expensive.
I have evaluated Tableau and Qlik.
I would recommend this solution to those that have smaller businesses where they have lower user numbers and not a lot of data
points. If they have a larger business I would choose an alternative, such as Qlik.
I rate Microsoft BI a seven out of ten.
24
Hybrid Cloud

25
Researched Tableau But Chose Microsoft

BI technical analyst at a government with 11-

50 employees
reviewer1590450
This solution can be used for enterprise reporting, ad hoc visualization, and statistical analysis.
In an upcoming release, the solution could be simplified and have a more complete product package rather than a suite of
products that we have to put together.
I have been using this solution for approximately one year.
In my experience, I have found this solution scalable.
26
The scalability is good. We have 20 people in my organization using this solution and plan to increase usage.
The technical support has been good and the responses have been fast.
I have used other business intelligence solutions previously and I switched because this solution was cheaper and is on a Microsft
platform.
The initial setup is more complicated than other solutions. Microsoft typically has more involved installations.
WHAT ABOUT THE IMPLEMENTATION TEAM?
I did the implementation myself. We have three administrators doing the deployment and maintains of the solution.
Power BI is cheaper for smaller groups when comparing to competitors. It requires a monthly per-user subscription.
27
I have evaluated Tableau.
I would recommend this solution to others.
I rate Microsoft BI a seven out of ten.
Public Cloud

28
Researched Microsoft But Chose Tableau

Sr. Manager at a non-profit with 201-500

employees
Mahesh-K
I have found the solution easy to use and the interface is very good.
I have been using Tableau for two weeks.
The solution is stable compared to others solutions.
The setup was easy but we are having some problems with the configuration that is taking a long time. We have done some initial
tests and some of the delays could be from bandwidth issues. However, the whole installation process should be simplified.
29
We have evaluated Domo, Microsoft BI, and Qlik, and we have found Tableau is much better.
I would recommend this solution to others.
I rate Tableau a seven out of ten.

30
Researched Microsoft But Chose Tableau

Senior Capacity Planner at a financial

services firm with 10,001+ employees
Theresa
McLaughlin
We do tons of data analysis for the organization to try to plan for resources that are needed in the infrastructure, specifically
servers, storage, and that kind of stuff.
There are about 30,000 devices that we have to manage. We need to make sure that we have what we need for our internal
customers, which is a really tough task unless you can analyze data every single day. We look for all sorts of anomalies about how
the devices are functioning or how they are growing in consumption. We pull up about 1.1 billion rows of information every single
day about what they're doing, and then we've got to take that mountain of data and pick out what we are concerned
about. Tableau is key in providing that information to our internal customers and just analyzing different sets of data, such as the
asset data and the consumption data. It is just data analysis all day long. That's basically what we do.
The data visualization piece is most valuable. We do ad-hoc analysis or one-time shot things, but there are things that we have to
track every single day. When our management and our customers want to see how things are changing, the dashboarding
provides that information. Tableau is key in providing that data on a refresh basis. We use a data blending tool that pumps the
data into Tableau, and we just schedule it to run every single day. So, the automation of the data and being able to present it to
people who are interested are the most valuable features.
Its price is a concern. It is more expensive than Power BI. The other thing that I never liked about Tableau is its ability to handle
large sets of data. To present the data in the dashboards, we have to stage it up exactly like it is going to come into the
dashboard. We use another tool called Alteryx that does that for us. So, we manipulate the data, get it staged, and then push it
into Tableau. Tableau is terrible at handling large data sets, and we knew right away that we couldn't use Tableau to do data
manipulation.
31
I have been using this solution for ten years.
It is a stable and mature product.
It is able to scale to the user base that we have, but pulling large sets of data into the dashboard can be problematic. You have to
reduce the data to only what you're going to present, and that's it. Otherwise, it is unusable in my opinion.
We've got hundreds of users on the product. When I came to this organization about five years ago, Tableau was fairly new, but it
grew very quickly. Initially, only I and a couple of other people were using it, but now the user base has grown significantly.
Their support is good. They provide good training and all sorts of stuff.
We have a whole group that manages that. We don't get involved in it. We just ask for it to be installed and available, and they
support it.
32
Its price is a concern. It is more expensive than Power BI. My guess would be that it is $1000 or less per year.
We might go for Power BI in the future because of its umbrella with Microsoft licensing. It is much cheaper for us to use Power BI,
and some folks will go in that direction because they don't want to pay the higher license.
I would recommend getting Tableau to help with the training because there is a learning curve with it. Make sure the training
piece is in place, and your account rep provides resources to get people started because it does take a little bit of training to get
proficient at it.
I would rate Tableau an eight out of ten. It is not perfect, but it does the job for us.

33
Vendor Directory
Adaptive Insights Adaptive Insights Microsoft Microsoft BI
Anvizent Anvizent Microsoft Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services
Board International Board Mirketa eCourier
Broadcom CA Deliver OpenText OpenText Magellan BI & Reporting
Broadcom CA Report Facility Oracle Oracle OBIEE
Chartio Chartio Oracle Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer
Domo Domo Panorama Software Panorama Necto
Entrinsik Entrinsik Informer Plotly Plotly
FORCS OZ Report Procurify Procurify
GNU GNU Enterprise Profitbase Profitbase InFront
Google Google Data Studio Qlik QlikView
GrapeCity ComponentOne ActiveReports Redwood Software Redwood Reporting - Report2Web
Hitachi Pentaho Business Analytics Rstudio RStudio Connect
IBM IBM Cognos SAP SAP Crystal Reports
icCube icCube SAP SAP Roambi [EOL]
InetSoft InetSoft Style Report Sisense Sisense
InetSoft InetSoft Style Intelligence Syncfusion Syncfusion Report Platform
Infogram Infogram Tableau Tableau
Infor Birst Targit Targit Decision Suite
INX Software INX +BI TIBCO TIBCO Jaspersoft
Klipfolio Klipfolio Windward Studios Windward Core
Knowage Knowage XLCubed XLCubed
Logi Analytics JReport Yellowfin Yellowfin
Longview Longview Analytics Zendesk Zendesk Explore
ManageEngine ManageEngine Exchange Reporter Plus Zoho Zoho Analytics
34
Top Reporting Tools Vendors

Over professionals have used IT Central Station research. Here are the top vendors based on product reviews, ratings, and comparisons.
All reviews and ratings are from real users, validated by our triple authentication process.
Chart Key
Views Comparisons Reviews Words/Review Average Rating
Number of views Number of times compared Total number of reviews on Average words per review Average rating based on
to another product IT Central Station on IT Central Station reviews
Bar length
The total ranking of a product, represented by the bar length, is based on a weighted aggregate score. The score is calculated as follows:
For each ranking factor of Reviews, Views, and Comparisons, the product with the highest count in each ranking factor gets a maximum 18
points. Every other product gets assigned points based on its total in proportion to the #1 product in that ranking factor. For example, if a product
has 80% of the number of reviews compared to the product with the most reviews then the product's points for reviews would be 18 * 80% = 14.4.
Both Rating and Words/Review are awarded on a fixed linear scale. For Rating, the maximum score is 28 points awarded linearly between 6-10
(e.g. 6 or below=0 points; 7.5=10.5 points; 9.0=21 points; 10=28 points). For Words/Review, the maximum score is 18 points awarded linearly
between 0-900 words (e.g. 600 words = 12 points; 750 words = 15 points; 900 or more words = 18 points). If a product has fewer than ten reviews,
the point contribution for Rating and Words/Review is reduced: 1/3 reduction in points for products with 5-9 reviews, two-thirds reduction for
products with fewer than five reviews.
Reviews that are more than 24 months old, as well as those written by resellers, are completely excluded from the ranking algorithm.
All products with 50+ points are designated as a Leader in their category.
1 Microsoft BI
46,822 views 37,516 comparisons 75 reviews 565 words/review 8.1 average rating
2 Tableau
3 Oracle OBIEE

35
4 Domo
7,352 views 4,849 comparisons 8 reviews 1,498 words/review 9.0 average rating
5 Windward Core
6,617 views 640 comparisons 6 reviews 1,397 words/review 9.5 average rating
6 IBM Cognos
7 QlikView
8 Board
9 Pentaho Business Analytics
10 SAP Crystal Reports

36
Top 5 Solutions by Ranking Factor

Views
VIEWS
1 Microsoft BI 46,822
2 Tableau 45,887
3 Oracle OBIEE 20,433
4 IBM Cognos 14,973
5 QlikView 10,166
Reviews
REVIEWS
1 Microsoft BI 75
2 Tableau 45
3 Oracle OBIEE 16
4 Domo 8
5 QlikView 7
Words / Review
WORDS /
REVIEW
1 Domo 1,498
2 Windward Core 1,397
3 SAP Crystal Reports 920
4 Board 745
5 Tableau 624

37
About this report

This report is comprised of a list of enterprise level vendors. We have also included several real user reviews posted on ITCentralStation.com.
The reviewers of these products have been validated as real users based on their LinkedIn profiles to ensure that they provide reliable opinions
and not those of product vendors.
About IT Central Station

The Internet has completely changed the way we make buying decisions. We now use ratings and review sites to see what other real users think
before we buy electronics, book a hotel, visit a doctor or choose a restaurant. But in the world of enterprise technology, most of the information
online and in your inbox comes from vendors but what you really want is objective information from other users.
We created IT Central Station to provide technology professionals like you with a community platform to share information about enterprise
software, applications, hardware and services.
We commit to offering user-contributed information that is valuable, objective and relevant. We protect your privacy by providing an environment
where you can post anonymously and freely express your views. As a result, the community becomes a valuable resource, ensuring you get
access to the right information and connect to the right people, whenever you need it.
IT Central Station helps tech professionals by providing:
• A list of enterprise level vendors

• A sample of real user reviews from tech professionals
• Speciﬁc information to help you choose the best vendor for your needs
Use IT Central Station to:
• Read and post reviews of vendors and products

• Request or share information about functionality, quality, and pricing
• Contact real users with relevant product experience
• Get immediate answers to questions
• Validate vendor claims
• Exchange tips for getting the best deals with vendors
IT Central Station
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Microsoft BI and Tableau Buyer's Guide and Reviews July 2021

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Microsoft BI

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Advice From Real Users 4-9

Top Review by Topic of Microsoft BI and Tableau 10-11

Reviews From Real Users 13-22

Reviews By Users Who Have Researched Both Solutions 23-33

Top Reporting Tools Vendors 35-36

Top 5 Solutions by Ranking Factor 37

About This Report and IT Central Station 38

© 2021 IT Central Station

Advice From Real Users

"The interface is very easy to use." [Full Review]

"Microsoft BI is scalable." [Full Review]

© 2021 IT Central Station

Advice From Real Users

"I would like to see integration with Excel." [Full Review]

© 2021 IT Central Station

Advice From Real Users

PRICING AND LICENSING ADVICE

"Licensing is on a monthly basis, but I am not sure." [Full Review]

© 2021 IT Central Station

Advice From Real Users

"Easy to create graphs and visualizations." [Full Review]

"The stability seems to be very reliable." [Full Review]

"It's intuitive and highly mature" [Full Review]

"Provides a very good sound analysis quotient." [Full Review]

© 2021 IT Central Station

Advice From Real Users

"Lacks customization in some areas." [Full Review]

"The customization in the front end is a bit difficult." [Full Review]

"Could have more integrations with different platforms." [Full Review]

© 2021 IT Central Station

Advice From Real Users

PRICING AND LICENSING ADVICE

"Its licensing cost should be improved." [Full Review]

© 2021 IT Central Station

Top Reviews by Topic

reviewer1389651 Sai Krishna J

RicardoPedro Jerry Paul

© 2021 IT Central Station

Top Reviews by Topic

reviewer1389651 Sai Krishna J

RicardoPedro Jerry Paul

© 2021 IT Central Station

TOP Tableau vs. Microsoft BI Microsoft BI vs. Tableau

Oracle OBIEE vs. Microsoft BI SAS Visual Analytics vs. Tableau

QlikView vs. Microsoft BI Oracle OBIEE vs. Tableau

© 2021 IT Central Station

Microsoft BI review by a real user

A complete ecosystem with an builtin ETL tool, good integrations with

Operations & BI Analyst at American Hospital

Tariq Raza (MS

WHAT IS OUR PRIMARY USE CASE?

WHAT IS MOST VALUABLE?

WHAT NEEDS IMPROVEMENT?

me to throw some light on the disadvantages of Power BI.

FOR HOW LONG HAVE I USED THE SOLUTION?