7 reasons why you should switch from Tableau to Power BI

According to Gartner, Tableau and Microsoft Power BI are two of the biggest players in the field of data analytics tools. But when choosing a data analytics tool, it is especially important to pick the one that best fits the needs of your organization. Perhaps your organization is already heavily involved in BI, you have recently migrated to the cloud and you have an Office 365 package, but you are also still working with Tableau. This creates a tangle of reports across different tools. So there is a chance your organization will now decide to migrate to Power BI after all. But why would you migrate, what are the differences between these two powerhouses and which tips can you use for your migration? Read the top 7 reasons in the blog below.

Why switch from Tableau to Power BI

Tableau and Power BI are two different data analytics tools, each with their own pros and cons. It may well be that you once chose Tableau for its fantastic data visualization capabilities, but are now finding that Power BI is a more attractive tool for your organization. When you look at the differences between Power BI and Tableau, it almost feels like comparing apples and oranges. Both tools have their own specialty and strengths. So when choosing a data analytics tool, it is important to decide in advance which aspects your organization considers important. Need help choosing the right tool? Feel free to get in touch with us.

Power BI can be a better choice for your organization in a number of situations. For example, when you already use Azure and the Office 365 suite. The decision to also start working with Power BI can then be made quickly, if only because of the good integration options. For example, you can easily use Power BI in Teams and publish your reports in PowerPoint or share them on SharePoint. There are also countless possibilities with the Power Platform. With an Office 365 license, you can partly use it as well (read more about the licensing structure of the Power Platform in this blog).

7 reasons to consider switching to Power BI

To make it easy for you, we have listed the most important reasons to consider switching:

#1 Price

Power BI is considerably cheaper than Tableau. The cheapest Power BI subscription is available from €8.40 per user, per month. The cheapest Tableau subscription starts at $15 (roughly €13.73) per user, per month. Incidentally, with this cheapest Tableau subscription you can only edit dashboards and visualizations. That is a significant difference compared to the cheapest Power BI subscription, which immediately gives you access to almost all Power BI functionality.

#2 Custom data visualizations

Although Tableau is one of the best data analytics tools for visualizing data, Power BI lets you use custom data visualizations via the Microsoft Store. This quickly gives you access to hundreds of new data visualizations.

#3 Security

Microsoft invests considerably more time, money and dedicated resources than Tableau to guarantee high levels of data and user security.

#4 User interface

It is easy to get started learning Power BI. Thanks to the familiar Microsoft interface, many users can get to work with it easily, even if they do not yet have much experience with data analytics tools. Tableau, on the other hand, takes a bit more time to master. That is why it is often a favorite among more experienced users.

#5 Data sources

Tableau beats Power BI when it comes to the number of data sources available. Power BI has only limited access to other databases and servers compared to Tableau.

#6 Cloud vs. On–Premise

Power BI has a fully functional SaaS version of its software and is therefore mainly focused on working from the cloud. Tableau, on the other hand, does have a cloud version of its software available, but its main strength is on-premise.

#7 Power Platform integration

Microsoft Power BI is part of the Power Platform. The Power Platform consists of four components that can each mean a lot for your organization on their own, but that can also be combined to reinforce each other. The Power Platform consists of the following four components: Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate and Power Virtual Agents. With the Power Platform, Microsoft builds further on its philosophy of giving people without a developer background the tools to automate business processes. You can read more about the Power Platform and what it can do for your organization in this blog.

Migrating from Tableau to Power BI

Once you have decided to switch from Tableau to Power BI, there are of course a number of things involved. Below, we have listed some points to keep in mind during a migration from Tableau to Power BI.

1. Make sure you have sufficient knowledge of data modeling and/or data warehousing. Or choose TimeXtender.
2. Appoint someone as Enterprise Power BI Product Administrator. This prevents the task from being left undone, with no one taking the time to learn the ins and outs of implementation and management. Or someone simply taking on the task, resulting in a sudden tangle of reports and workspaces.
3. Make sure someone within your organization understands Power BI’s DAX. This helps you avoid complicated situations.
4. Research carefully which Power BI licenses you need within your organization. Not everyone needs a Power BI Pro license. Read more about the different licenses here.

An example from one of our clients

You may now be wondering what such a process looks like. How do you decide as an organization to switch from Tableau to Power BI? Below, we briefly describe an example of one of our clients that is still in the middle of this migration to Power BI.

Human resources service provider

Initially, this client only had Tableau. That environment was developed and maintained by a single person, which meant all the knowledge was concentrated with that one person. The organization wanted to spread that knowledge and was already doing a lot with the Microsoft Azure Stack. They were also already using the Office 365 suite, leading to the conclusion that switching to Power BI would also be more attractive for them in terms of price. Power BI is also an easy-to-use data analytics tool, which was an advantage for this client because many end users had to work with the reports. In addition, a Power BI Pro license makes it easy to share reports with third parties, while row-level security makes it easy to keep track of who is allowed to see which data. They have now partly migrated to Power BI, but are also still partly using Tableau. In the future, they want to switch to Power BI completely so they have a single BI front end.

Want to know more?

After reading this story, are you curious whether a migration to Power BI is also a step your organization is ready for? Feel free to get in touch with us without obligation or schedule an appointment via the buttons above. We can then help you make this decision.