Microsoft’s PowerBI is a powerful reporting tool that turns your company data into rich visuals and interactive reports. The free download (yesFREE!) of PowerBI continues to impress. The September monthly release includes a new analytics feature that compares one data point to the data point before it and explains the increase or decrease.
In this example we are viewing quarterly quantities sold by item class. A timeline slider allows us to dynamically change the report as needed. There is sharp decrease between Quarter 1 and Quarter 2 in the Retail Class.
PowerBI will then analyze the data in the visualization and offer several explanations as to why the data changed.
Swim with the Big Fish
With PowerBI you are limited only by your imagination. An example of this is the whimsical visualization Enlighten Aquarium that is available from the for FREE!
In this visualization each fish is a different data point. The size of the fish is proportionate to the total of the data points. Each salesperson could be a fish, and the size of the fish represents their monthly sales totals. You will quickly see who the big fish are in your pond.
