Executive Q&A: How companies are consuming Power BI as an integrated offering

In the age of cloud-based Dynamics 365, Microsoft is increasingly touting Power BI, recently redubbed the Power platform, as its business applications become more integrated. MSDW spoke with Matt Allington, principal Power BI consultant, trainer, and Microsoft MVP with Excelerator BI about the trends he is seeing in Power BI. Matt will be participating in the upcoming Power BI World Tour '18 from the Power BI User Group, which kicks off in Melbourne, Australia on August 21st and Sydney on August 27th.

MSDW: What skills do you recommend for the various roles that are being developed with Power BI?

Matt Allington: Power BI is a broad term. It means different things depending on who you are. Power BI Desktop is much like Excel. You can be self-sufficient with that product, or publish to Power BI and share it. On the other end of the spectrum is the enterprise-grade system, which needs to be built and controlled by an IT team. It really depends on where you sit on that continuum in terms of what skills you need to have. One of the exciting things for me is an enterprise strength BI product, accessible to typical Excel business users-basically someone who is competent at using Excel. You need to have a good understanding of your business, and understand what data is available. From there, you can take the next step to become a BI practitioner.

What advice do you ...