Power Bi Frequenty Asked Questions (FAQs)

Got a question about Power Bi or just want to know a little more about it. Below you'll find the most common questions we get asked about Microsoft Power Bi.

What is Power Bi?

Power Bi is the name Microsoft give to its business analytics and reporting tool. Power BI allows you to connect and extract data from various sources such as SQL, Excel etc... and combine it into a single model. The management report and dashboards produced via Power BI are extremely powerful and visualy stunning.

Is Power Bi free?

You can download Power Bi desktop for free. This will allow you build and design reports for your own personal consumptions. However, if you want to publish these for other to view then you need to purchase the Power Bi service.

Do reports I build with Power Bi automatically update?

Yes once your reports are published to the Power BI service you can, depending on the license you have, schedule your reports to refresh up to 48 times a day

How long does it take to build a Power BI report?

You can very quickly get your data displayed in a basic report in a few hours. We however say that to get a report that you would want to be giving to management or to use to make strategic decisions then you need to allocate a one or two days to produce a 1-page report.

How do I access Power BI Reports?

You can get to the Power BI reports in a variety of ways. You can go directly to the Power BI service online, open up a report directly from Power BI on the desktop, use a Power BI app, go directly to the reports URL, embed it into SharePoint, access it via MS Teams or embed them in PowerPoint templates.

Can people outside my company access my Power BI Reports?

Yes, you can publish reports that can be accessed outside your company. These can be done without any security in place for free or you use options like Power BI embedded to place the Power Bi code into your own applications/websites.

Can Power Bi pull data from none Microsoft systems?

Yes - Power BI contains connections to hundreds of none Microsoft systems allowing users to produce reports using data stored in those databases. Even if you find a system that doesn't have a Power BI connector there are often third party solutions or API connections available that allow to integrate with them.

Can you help us build Power Bi Reports?

Yes - we would love to develop Power Bi reports for you - why not contact us to discuss this further.