Today was our first day learning PowerBI and Power Query. In the second half of the day, we were tasked with replicating two designs, the first designing an overview of the Top 50 Films on Netflix and the second replicating executive sales from the Tableau superstore dataset.
So what did we find were some of the pros and cons of using PowerBI and Power Query?
Pros
1) I found the PowerBI and Power Query user-face relatively easy to navigate as it is similar to the Microsoft Excel interface with different functions split into tabs.
2) Many of the functions are completed simply by clicking a button rather than having to create calculated fields or needing to navigate through several steps
2) Power Query and PowerBI are integrated so you can seamlessly make changes to the dataset without having to switch between softwares.
3) The different graph types all shown in the visualization pane and it is easy to find the chart you need or develop KPI visuals as needed.
4) It was easy to determine whether errors are present as PowerBI will show this in the column distribution visual at the top each column.
5) It was easy to view which steps had been created in the data panel and has the additional pane with the code for each step which can be easily copied and shared for simplified handovers.
Cons
1) When developing graphs, it is slightly difficult to find the type of formatting you require as each formatting section is sorted into hierarchies.
2) When developing models, we came across an issue when attempting to create relationships between outputs which was due to the same order ID assigned to different product names. It was difficult to dive further into this in PowerBI to visualize which rows had the errors so we needed to open the data in Tableau Prep to complete this step.
3) PowerBI is limited in the variety of functions that can be carried out and requires expert knowledge to carry out more in-depth functions.
4) Most importantly, there is no undo button in Power Query so any incorrect steps need to removed and completely redone.
5) Sharing of visualization creation is not as widespread as Tableau dashboards.
Overall, PowerBI and Power Query, although it may have some limitations compared to Tableau Desktop but would be a good additional tool software to delve further into.