Where we were
We have always used a combination of Word and Excel to create pdf reports. What we really needed was a product that could do this automatically to provide a report that worked like a website, with a home page and a drill down facility for analysis.
Then we discovered Power BI. This represented a major step forward in our reporting. First, it could produce reports automatically. Second, this was as 3-dimensional report that could be used as both as a management overview or for drill-down analysis.
Our First Power BI Project
So, our first project was to move all our existing client reports from pdf’s to Power BI reports. The next surprise was that Power BI Professional licence is an incredibly low cost. So, we were in good shape – low cost software, a well-defined specification from our existing reports. We went ahead and converted to Power BI and the clients were very pleased, much clearer reports produced immediately with no delays, clear graphics. We were able to review the reports with our clients using Teams. Further, we could use the comments feature to provide an analysis of any issues identified.
A Client Project with Power BI
Next, we took on a client project to automate a monthly manual spreadsheet process. Our client already had a set of reports, but were spending hours manually creating these with data from different products. Again, the existing reports provided the specification and the inputs were well defined. Some of the data structures were complex, which took some time, but we were able to produce an exact match of the existing reports. Having completed the project, now some of the real benefits of Power BI started to kick in. We were able to make better use of Power BI features to reduce the length of the reports and make these more interactive with analytics capabilities.
How You Can Realise the Benefits of Power BI
If you want to realise the benefits of Power BI, this is the approach that we suggest. Take a well-defined project with a pre-defined result, then go ahead and implement this. Do not be tempted to improve things at this stage, just replace the existing project with a fully automated, quality graphics report that fulfils its function. After this is finished, you can then bring in the additional features of Power BI.
Now you will have the knowledge and experience to specify your next project. The bottom line is, if you know Excel, you can do this. You don’t need to spend money on training, just go ahead and get started.
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