Microsoft Power BI is a great business intelligence tool. It provides self-service visualizations and easy to understand dashboards and reports. In fact, Power BI is one of the best available tools for interactive dashboards providing trend analysis and it is a great compliment to Jet Analytics solutions, which helps you manage your data models.
The Challenge with Power BI
While it is a great tool and it has its own merits, it also has its shortcomings in the financial and operational reporting arena. Some of the challenges with using Power BI include the following:
Creating new reports in Power BI is not easy, given the complexity of navigating the Microsoft Dynamics data model.
For more complex reports, you need to master the proprietary DAX scripting language.
Data preparation can be slow and cumbersome, and requires technical Power Query and Power Pivot knowledge.
Learning Power BI takes time and requires a lot of training because of its complexity and different options.
There is no drill-down capability to launch Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central client. You need to include detailed transactions in the Power BI data model for users to view them.
Power BI has no automatic real-time reporting; the data model must be refreshed either manually or on a schedule. Data refreshes in Power BI Pro are limited to 8 times per day (Power BI Pro) or 48 times per day (Power BI Premium).
The Benefits of Jet Reports
This is where it's more beneficial to use Jet Reports to address the above challenges. Jet Reports offers fast, flexible financial and business reporting inside of Excel or in the browser. Finance executives benefit from Jet Reports' capabilities for financial and operational reporting in the following ways:
Reporting against real-time Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central data directly in Excel with reports that drill down into transactional details and can report across multiple legal entities.
Get up and running with reports immediately. Easily created and modify reports using drag-and-drop tools and report creation wizards. Use the extensive, purpose-built, out of the box templates to be up and running fast.
No need to master complex scripting languages. Leverage existing Excel sills and allow your team to easily build and modify the reports they need, without requiring coding or programming skills.
Refresh against live data. Refresh reports against your Microsoft Dynamics system in real time, so you can always have up-to-date, accurate data to support time-critical processes throughout the month and during your close.
Always have the answers. Drill down on the numbers directly in Excel to view detailed transactions, with direct integration with Business Central client.
Download this e-book for a full comparison of how Power BI stacks up against Jet Reports for financial and operational reporting.
Alternatively, you can join us for our latest webinar on 15th June 2021 on 'Cash Flow Reporting Made Easy with Jet Reports' to see it in action. Register here to reserve your spot.
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