See your whole business in one view with Power BI.
Power BI connects the systems you already use and turns their data into interactive reports and dashboards that refresh on their own. We plan, build and secure them with you.
What Power BI covers
What is Power BI?
Power BI is Microsoft’s business intelligence tool. It takes data from spreadsheets, databases, accounting and CRM systems and cloud services, combines it, and presents it as visuals you can filter and explore. A manager can see sales by region, jobs by status or tickets by technician, and click to drill into the detail.
It sits alongside Excel rather than replacing it. Many reports start life as a spreadsheet that takes hours to update each month. In Power BI, the same data refreshes on a schedule and the report is always current, with one agreed version of the numbers.
Power BI is also part of the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Reports can be shared in Teams, embedded in SharePoint, opened in Excel and protected with the same sensitivity labels and sign in rules as the rest of your data.
A Power BI solution has a few moving parts. Power BI Desktop is the free Windows application used to build reports. The Power BI service is the cloud site where reports are published, shared and refreshed. Mobile apps let people view dashboards on a phone. An on premises data gateway links the cloud service to data that lives inside your office network.
The main design decision is not the charts. It is the data model: which data sources, how they relate, and what each number means. A well built model makes reports fast, trustworthy and easy to extend. A poor one produces dashboards no one believes.
What Power BI can do.
Hundreds of data connectors
Connect to Excel, SharePoint, SQL Server, Azure, Dynamics, Salesforce, QuickBooks through connectors or exports, and many more.
Power Query data preparation
Clean, reshape and combine data with repeatable steps, so the monthly clean up in Excel disappears.
Data modelling and DAX
Define relationships and calculations such as year to date, growth and margin once, and reuse them everywhere.
Interactive visuals
Charts, maps, matrices and cards with cross filtering, drill down and drill through to the detail.
Scheduled refresh and gateway
Reports update automatically, including from on premises data through a gateway. Pro allows up to eight refreshes a day.
Row level security
Show each person only their own data, such as a branch manager seeing only that branch.
Sharing in Teams, SharePoint and Excel
Embed reports where people already work, or analyse a Power BI model in Excel.
Copilot and data alerts
Ask questions in plain language where licensed, and get alerts when a number crosses a threshold.
How Power BI works.
Connect
Link Power BI to your data: Excel files, SharePoint lists, SQL databases, accounting, CRM and hundreds of other sources.
Model
Clean and relate the data, and define the measures that give one agreed answer, such as revenue or margin.
Visualize
Build reports with charts, tables, maps and filters, designed for the people who will use them.
Share and refresh
Publish to the Power BI service, set refresh schedules and control who can see what.
What happens behind the scenes.
Power Query pulls data from each source, applies the cleaning steps you define and loads it into a data model. The model stores tables, relationships and measures. Visuals in a report ask the model questions, and the answers update as the user clicks or filters.
When a report is published to the Power BI service, the model refreshes on a schedule. Data stored in your office goes through a gateway, a small service that runs on a server and passes data to the cloud securely. Access is controlled through workspaces, apps and row level security, and sensitivity labels can follow the data into exports.
How it benefits your business.
Power BI replaces time spent compiling reports with time spent acting on them. Instead of someone pasting numbers into a spreadsheet every month, leaders open a dashboard that is already current, and can ask the next question themselves.
It creates a single version of the truth. When sales, finance and operations all use the same definitions, meetings stop being arguments about whose spreadsheet is right. That improves the speed and quality of decisions.
It also surfaces problems earlier. Trends in overdue invoices, support tickets, project hours or stock levels become visible while there is still time to respond, not at the end of the quarter.
The benefits at a glance.
One version of the truth
Shared definitions end arguments about whose numbers are right.
Reports that refresh themselves
Stop rebuilding the same spreadsheet every month.
Spot problems early
Trends and exceptions are visible while you can still act.
Right data for the right person
Row level security shows each person only what they should see.
Works where you already work
Teams, SharePoint, Excel and Outlook alerts.
Scales with you
From one simple dashboard to company wide reporting.
Licensing: Power BI Desktop is free. Sharing reports normally needs a Power BI Pro licence for creators and viewers, and Pro is included in some E5 plans. Premium and Fabric capacity are separate. Plans and features change, so we confirm current licensing with you before you buy.
What this looks like day to day.
A distribution company reconciles sales, inventory and receivables across three spreadsheets each month, which takes two days. Connecting the accounting export and inventory file to Power BI produces one dashboard showing sales by customer, stock days on hand and overdue invoices. It refreshes each morning, and the managers open it before their first meeting.
This is an illustrative example of how the feature is used, not a description of a specific client.
Mistakes we see, and how we avoid them.
Starting with charts, not questions
Dashboards that show everything answer nothing. Begin with the decisions the report must support.
Skipping the data model
Wide flat tables and ad hoc calculations lead to slow, inconsistent reports. Model once, reuse everywhere.
Licence surprises
Sharing needs Pro licences for viewers in many setups, or capacity licensing. Plan before you build.
No ownership or refresh monitoring
Reports silently go stale when a source or password changes. Assign owners and monitor refresh.
Power BI with Infinity.
Reporting needs workshop
Agree the decisions, audience and key measures before building.
Learn moreData connection and preparation
Connect Excel, SharePoint, accounting, CRM, PSA and databases.
Learn moreData models and measures
Reliable models with documented calculations.
Learn moreReport and dashboard design
Clear, fast reports designed for the people using them.
Learn moreSecurity, sharing and licensing
Workspaces, row level security, labels and licence planning.
Learn moreSupport and changes
Refresh monitoring, updates and new report requests.
Learn moreIs Power BI free?
Power BI Desktop, used to build reports, is free. Sharing reports with colleagues normally needs paid licences, such as Power BI Pro. We confirm the options for your size before you build.
Can Power BI use data from Excel?
Yes. Excel files stored in SharePoint or OneDrive are a common starting point, and a report can refresh from them automatically.
Can it connect to our accounting or CRM system?
Often yes, through a built in connector, an API or an export. We check your systems before we promise a design.
Is our data secure in Power BI?
It can be, with workspace permissions, row level security, sensitivity labels and sign in controls. We set these up as part of the project.
How is Power BI different from Excel?
Excel is excellent for calculations and ad hoc work. Power BI is built for repeatable, shared, refreshing reports on larger and multiple data sources.
Talk to us about Power BI.
Book a free consultation. We will look at your current setup and show you where it fits.
Tell us about your IT.
We answer almost every inquiry within one business day.