Two of the tech industry’s essential front runners providing business intelligence solutions are Microsoft’s Power BI and Tableau. These leaders of data visualization help businesses narrow down and analyze their data with powerful built-in tools and clear visualizations. Each platform has distinctive strengths and weaknesses that should be considered before deciding on a business intelligence software. Affirma is a top Business Intelligence Consultant: http://www.affirmaconsulting.com/our-services/business-intelligence-consulting/

1. Power BI vs Tableau

2. Outline
• What is BI?
• Overview of BI lifecycle
• Tableau: products, features and pricing
• Power BI: products, features and pricing
• Comparing Power BI and Tableau
• Which one is better for your company?

3. What is Business Intelligence?
• Raw Data  Useful Information
• Uses a set of tools and skill sets to help business owners make informative
decisions

4. Common Business Areas
• Customer Profiling
• Product Profitability
• Marketing
• Inventory and Distribution Analysis
• Key performance indicators

5. Data  Information
• Data from multiple sources are organized and loaded onto a common storage (using
ETL)
• Reporting tools are then used to build reports based on user needs.

6. Reporting Tools
• 100’s of reporting tools available for building visualizations
• Two main tools for discussion:
• Tableau
• Power BI desktop

7. Tableau
• Visualization tool designed to support faster solutions
• Build reports in a matter of minutes using drag and drop
• No programming language knowledge needed
• Create customized dashboards to fit the need of the business.
• Create a story using a sequence of worksheets.

8. Tableau products
• Tableau Desktop
• Tableau Server
• Tableau Online
• Tableau Public
• Tableau Reader

9. Tableau Desktop
• The tool used to create visualization and analyze the data
• Create workbooks, dashboards and stories
• Two editions:
• Personal Edition:
• limited data sources: can only connect to flat files
• no ability to connect to Tableau Server
• Professional Edition:
• full enterprise capabilities
• Publish visualizations onto Tableau online or Tableau public.

10. Tableau Server
• An online solution for sharing, distributing and collaborating on content created in
tableau.
• Interactive dashboards on web browsers or tablets
• Subscribe to a dashboard and automatically receive updates
• Priced per user or server core
• Requires planning
• Optimal hardware and IT resources
• Security
• Ability to create user filter based on necessary field
• Behind firewall, hence provides the most security

11. Tableau Online
• Cloud based visualization
• Priced per user per year
• Hosted version of Tableau Server
• Automatically schedule refreshes and add data models
• Visualizations created on Tableau Desktop can be published onto Online within seconds
• No setup, no hardware, no management necessary

12. Tableau Public
• Allows to view visualization free
• Visualization will be public
• Free tool
Tableau Reader
• Free tool
• Desktop application viewing visualization
• No ability to edit visualization / Read-only

13. Data Connection
• Two kinds of connection to source data:
• Live Data Connection
• Used for real-time analytics
• Performance is based on database performance
• Extraction
• Data is brought in memory
• Performance is not based on database performance
• Used for interactive analysis

14. Dashboards
• Each tableau visualization is created on a
worksheet.
• Multiple worksheets can be combined to create
a dashboard
• Dashboards provide an over view of the
business system at a glance.
• Show multiple dimensions of the data
summarized in one page
• Efficient and quick to respond to critical issues
and/or opportunities.

15. Stories
• Data-driven storytelling
• Sheets that contain a sequence of worksheets or
dashboards to convey information
• Story points are connected to underlying data

16. Example


17. Pricing
• Tableau Desktop Personal Edition: $999 per user
• Tableau Desktop Professional Edition: $1,999 per user
• Tableau Online: $500 per user, per year
• Tableau Public: Free
• Tableau Server: two options:
• enterprise option: no restriction on number of users/ restriction on hardware
• named user: no hardware restriction / restriction on user / pay per user
• Free Trial Available
*****please contact Tableau for more pricing information (check Tableau website) *****

18. Power BI
• Microsoft product
• Cloud-based business analytics service
• Share reports and dashboards across a wide range of browsers, and devices such as tablets
and mobile phones.
• Integration with familiar Microsoft products: Excel, PowerPivot, etc.

19. • Easy connection to multiple data sources: Excel spreadsheets, cloud
services, on premise databases, etc.
• Uses DAX formulas to create calculated columns, as well as Quick
Calculations such as % of grand total
• The Power BI team releases 20+ features every month: free to
incorporate.

20. Features
• Real-time dashboards; helping business
owners solve problems as they occur
• Power BI Embedded: azure service that
enables applications to interact with Power
BI
• Q&A feature: allowing users to ask
questions using natural language to get
answers in graphical form.
• Content Packs: for sharing dashboards
with team

21. Power BI products
• Power BI Desktop
• Power BI Mobile
• Power BI Publisher for Excel

22. Power BI Desktop
• Application where all visualizations are created
• Transform and clean data with Query Editor
• 3 views:
• Reports
• Data
• Relationships

23. Query Editor
• Load data from multiple sources
• Transform data to meet analysis needs
• Create new columns of calculated results
• Remembers all applied steps

24. Power BI Mobile
• Allows to view dashboards and reports anywhere.
• Interact with data easily in a touch-optimized experience with Power BI native windows, iOS
and Android apps.
• Data-driven alerts

25. Power BI publisher for Excel
• Add-in for Excel
• Allows to pin pivot tables, charts and ranges in excel onto Power BI.
• A new tile will be created on a Power BI dashboard when snapshots have been pinned
• Note: new tile is a snapshot (not dynamic) – no automatic update
• Allows for manual update

26. Publish to Web
• Easily embed interactive visualizations online such as blogposts, websites
• Creates an embed code (iframe to use in web page)
• Creates link(to share via email)
• Allows for narrating stories over the web and to use visualizations in blogs
• Automatic data refreshes (unless disabled)
• Can not publish to web with reports shared with you (security)

27. Data Connections
Two kinds of connection to source data
• Direct Query
• Live connection to data source
• Performance will be based on data source
• No need for data to be refreshed on schedule
• Import
• Brings data in memory
• Refresh needed to view changes that occurred in the underlying data.

28. Content Pack Libraries
• Requires Power BI Professional version
• Integrates with existing office 365 Active Directory Configuration
• Centralized repository for sharing dashboards with team
• Makes it easier for members to browse and discover dashboards
• No need to email dashboard to team mates
• Just notify of new content pack
• Report developer can change security settings

29. Pricing
• Power BI – free version
• Limited data capacity limit (1GB/user)
• Data refresh- daily vs multiple times a day with Power BI PRO
• Limited data sources – cannot connect to on-premise database server
• Power BI PRO - $9.99 per user per month
• Data Capacity limit : 10GB/user
• Data refresh- up to 8 times per day
***** Please contact Microsoft for more information on pricing *****

30. Tableau Power BI
• Supports SSBI (Self Service BI)
• Can connect to multiple data sources
• View visualizations on different devices
• No technical knowledge required hence less training cost
• Customizing user-specific dashboards
• Licensing is based on a Per Processor Model
• Story-telling feature
• Ability to customize tool-tip content per user needs
• Easier grouping ability: creating a new field with groups
• “What-if” Analysis using parameters
• Data interpreter
• Supports SSBI
• Can connect to multiple data sources
• View visualizations on different devices
• High level of DAX knowledge hence more training cost
• Licensing is based on a Per User Model
• Plotting limitations of 2500 marks (takes away plotted points)
• Q&A Feature
• Ability to customize tool-tip content
• Allows for sharing of content through ‘content-packs’
• Applied steps visible (easy to undo)

31. Which tool is better?
 Depends on budget and visualization needs
• Power BI pros
• Affordable
• Attached to a major brand: tight integration with familiar tools such as
Excel, Azure, etc.
• New features added frequently
• Great for excel users
• Extensive database connectivity capabilities
• Q&A feature
• Publish to Web
• Power BI Cons
• Most advanced calculations require DAX knowledge
• More training cost
• No solution for data quality

32. • Tableau pros
• Excellent user interface
• Less training cost
• very fast and easy to create visualizations
• Good customer support
• Data Interpreter
• Story-telling ability
• Tableau Cons
• Relatively high cost
• No change management or versioning

33. Summary
If budget is an issue and you have the right technical professionals to publish
reports, Power BI would be the more affordable option
If budget is not an issue and you have non-technical users publishing reports,
Tableau would be the easier option.

34. Source
• https://www.quora.com/What-are-differences-between-Tableaus-Desktop-Server-Public-Online-versions-Does-
Tableau-server-online-versions-need-Tableau-Desktop
• https://www.interworks.com/blog/bfair/2014/08/26/tableau-online-vs-tableau-server-5-things-consider
• http://www.butleranalytics.com/microsoft-power-bi-vs-tableau/
• http://sqlmag.com/power-bi/introducing-free-power-bi-designer-desktop-app
http://public.tableau.com/shared/QH6PH5GMG?:display_count=yes&:showVizHome=no
• http://content.criticalpathtraining.com/blog/road-ahead-power-bi/
• https://onlinehelp.tableau.com/current/pro/online/mac/en-us/stories.html
• https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/
• http://www.marquisleadership.com/messages/tuesdays-with-tableau-tableau-server-vs-tableau-online
• https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/power-bi-embedded-get-started/