Common mistake – Power BI free version not used

Office 365 plans which include Office Pro Plus are capable of running Power Pivot, Power Query, Power View and Power Map. Extremely powerful tools. Highly popular with users and top management. Unfortunately, in many cases, these tools are just not deployed!

The problem

If you have Office 365 E3 or above, you can installed Office Pro Plus. Some customers have Office 2013 Professional version already deployed on the desktop. Some customers have Office 2010 Professional installed.

All these customers can use the amazing Power BI tools. Unfortunately, I most customers who have the technical capability of using these tools are not using them. In fact, many customers have not even deployed these tools.

What are these tools?

Power Query, Power Pivot, Power View and Power Map. A great combination of tools which just transform your data analytics to a new level. With LESS effort, all users can understand MORE. That means more actionable items and better business management.

Power View and Power Map work only with Office 2013 and above. Power Query and Power Pivot work on Office 2010.

Power Query and Power Map need to be installed as add-ins.

All of them are built-in to Office 2016 – which is about to get released (at the time of writing this article).

Why are these not installed?

Simple. Nobody knows about them!

If users do not demand something, IT does not provide it – typically. Users have no clue about the power and necessity of these tools. So they don’t ask for these tools.

Available but not used

This is also a common situation. In many cases some of these tools are part of the base deployment. Office 2010 provides Power Pivot and Office 2013 comes with built-in Power Pivot as well as Power View.

But users still are not aware of these tools. So they never end up clicking on these buttons and tabs. It is sad but true.

Who will do this?

Obviously, IT has to take the lead here, along with Learning and Development. Install these tools, create awareness and empower users. It is a quick win. Amazing value with minimal effort. Try it out.

Here are two videos which will help you learn more about these tools. Of course more details are available on www.PowerBI.com

Quick overview of Power BI tools

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qhlhmBt47Q?rel=0 width = 600]

Power BI for technical people (developers)

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDfk9-iSIko?rel=0 width=600]

Call to action

Create a pilot group of heavy users of Excel analytics. Implement these tools for them. Conduct training and use the resulting benefits to promote these tools across all users.

Here is a list of 50+ Data Analytics articles I have written. Share these with your users.

Let me know your experiences as well as queries.

***