Over the last few months, Microsoft Teams has become the go-to platform for remote working to work effortlessly.  From a quick chat on the messenger function to easy file sharing and collaboration to the team video calls with the odd interruption. With all of us looking at Teams all-day, Microsoft has been hard at work integrating Power BI.

Fully integrated App

Microsoft has integrated the Power BI portal into the Teams platform. You can now access all your reports from the side bar without having to go anywhere else. Forgot those figures for this month’s sales in the meeting? You can quickly click the Power BI icon and have all the information at your fingertips.

Teams Group Integration

To improve your team’s workflow, you can add a Power BI report into a team’s group. It can empower the team as they have oversight to the reports and have a closer eye on their KPIs enabling them to work smarter and make informed decisions.

Microsoft has also added a chat window for Power BI. This helps encourage a data culture by getting everyone involved discussing the data that impacts them daily.

Power BI Service Integration

There have also been changes to the Power BI service to bring Power BI and Teams closer together. While viewing a report in the Power BI Service you can now click ‘chat’ in teams to send the report to a team’s group. With this, you can spotlight a certain visual so everyone can see exactly what part of the report you are talking about. A great tool to focus the attention during meetings.

The switch to remote working and digital collaboration makes Power BI’s integration to Teams even more important. Dashboards give staff more information on how the business and their team is performing, KPI’s and objectives can be easily set against current data and staff are more empowered to make the right decisions. It’s the improved efficiency.

We appreciate starting on Power BI can be daunting, but we’re here to help. If you want to know more about Power BI or get started, drop us an email or give us a phone on 0141 280 2882.   

Did you miss our Lunch and Learn on how Power BI can transform your business? No problem, you can watch the recording from the Lunch and Learn on our YouTube channel here.

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One of the themes at Microsoft’s Ignite conference in 2020 was empowerment. Out of all the products in the Microsoft stack, personally I do not think there is one that deserves this title more than Power BI.

The public release of Power BI five years ago shook the world of data analytics. It made business intelligence affordable and approachable for all, no matter size from one person operations to fortune 500 companies.

It has been great watching Power BI develop from not much more than an excel skin to a fully featured cloud data analytics tool and the journey doesn’t stop there. Every month Microsoft release an update and without fail, there’s always something new to empower decision making through using data intelligently.

Empowering individuals

Power BI empowers individuals by allowing them to take back control of their data. No longer do users have to contact IT professionals to make changes. Basing decisions on incomplete information can be as bad as basing it on information that is wrong, and Power BI helps to stop this from happening.

Here are some of the features that allow individuals to be more agile and empower their decision making:

• Self-Service Analytics: Power BI desktop’s intuitive user interface lets users with little experience build their own dashboards and add missing pieces in minutes to suit their own needs.

• Data Flows: Data Flows is one of the relatively new features. It allows users to mashup multiple data sets to compare and contrast then develop an integrated report.

• Question and Answer: Question and Answer uses Microsoft cognitive services. It is able to understand the English language. All you need to do is ask it a question and it will show you what you’ve asked for, building the element into the report for you.

Empowering teams

The big difference between Power BI and other data analytics tools is that it encourages collaboration between team members; much like the other Microsoft applications and tools. Once a report and published to a workspace, anyone in that workspace can view, modify, and transform the report and can build their own report based the data presented.

This allows a team to all piece together their own insights and, therefore, empowering the team to make smarter decisions.

Empowering organisations

Traditionally business intelligence wasn’t readily available to SME’s due to the high cost of the software and the need for IT professionals to configure, maintain and manage the reporting infrastructure. This led to large amounts of time and money being invested before getting a single report. With Power BI, the entire estate is managed in the cloud.  There’s no costly infrastructure to be maintained by IT professionals as it’s per user licence, so you can buy as many or as few as you’d like and only roll out Power BI fully once you know it’s right for you.    

Are you ready to empower your teams using data? Watch the recording from the Lunch and Learn on YouTube here.

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The way we work has changed. From being in a physical workspace with colleagues to working remotely, creating home offices. It is not without its issues. The speed at which we moved to home working was sure to throw some curve balls – collaboration, reporting and informing staff.

Keeping up with project management, tracking data and analysis had, for many, become chaotic and scattered. At Cloud Cover we recognised some, if not all our clients had been affected by this. So, we are accelerating the shift to a data driven culture and hope to inspire and assist our clients to do the same.

Utilising Power BI, we have migrated our data to the platform which allows up to build tailored dashboards to keep up to date and make informed decisions based on real time data and insights. With this insight, our team can collaborate on reports and identify key areas of improvement, working together to get the job done.

Traditionally, businesses reported data on Excel and many still do but without that physical presence to get fully involved with the spreadsheet, it can throw a spanner in the works. Power BI eliminates this. It is easy to set up, user friendly and you can personalise it to fit your needs to get those meaningful insights without digging.

So Why Choose Power BI over spreadsheets?

1. Visualise your data

One of the standout features of Power BI is the ability to transform data into visually pleasing and consumable graphics. Charts, images, and graphs can tell you in real time how the data is performing. The dashboards are completely customisable to the needs of the organisation, team, or department, helping to inform the decision-making process.

2. Collaboration

Power Bi allows users to share reports with anyone in the organisation and allow multiple users to work on the same report or create new reports off the existing data sets while ensuring the data is secure. You can add Power BI reports to Teams. The integration into everyone’s workflow means teams can start discussions about the data no matter where they are working.

3. Mobile

Whether you are in the office, home or even the coffee shop you can securely access and view your reports and dashboards with applications for Windows, Android and IOS devices. This enables the user to annotate, comment, and share reports on the move.

4. Automation

 The automation ability within Power BI can transform your data and help the user to build the report once. After this, a schedule can be set for the report to refresh and get the latest data. Allowing hours of time to be saved each week as you no longer need to search for this month’s data or wait for someone else to finish what they are working on to put data from a single source.

5. Self Service

Power BI follows the same principals as the rest of the Power platform with no-code to low-code. This allows anyone of any skill level to jump straight in and build or modify reports. Eliminating the need for specialised staff or resources compared to traditional BI reporting tools.

Do you want to know more about how Power BI can transform your business? Watch the recording from the Lunch and Learn on YouTube here.

If you’d like to know more information regarding the webinar or any service, please contact Caitlyn Gillespie or call us on 0141 280 2882.

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