Jet Reports vs Power BI: Similarities and Differences

If you are starting your reporting and analytics strategy and you work with Dynamics NAV or Dynamics 365 Business Central, you have surely heard of both Power BI, as a tool developed by Microsoft, and Jet Reports, a tool that we partners offer. But which one is right for your company? What similarities and differences do they present? In this article we will review these questions and others. Keep reading!

What is Power BI?
Power BI is a Microsoft Business Intelligence tool that includes a series of applications for Big Data analysis and information sharing . At a glance, Power BI allows you to visualize the information that you consider most important to your company in an intuitive way and in real time. To collect data, this tool uses SQL Server Analysis Services and Azure Analysis Services .

It is a tool that we recommend for data visualization, creation of dashboards and dashboards, and analysis of trends and KPIs thanks to the powerful interface that it incorporates.

It is a tool that can connect to various data sources but will require more time to maintain than other solutions and advanced technical knowledge for the end users to build and maintain.

Although it can offer a real-time connection to the ERP data, it is not recommended , since the form of connection would considerably affect performance and would not be optimal.

You can check more information here .

What is Jet Reports?
For its part, Jet Reports is a reporting solution for Dynamics 365 Business Central and Dynamics NAV, it offers rapid adoption by users since it is based on Excel . It allows the generation of reports from any ERP table, with connection to multiple databases to generate cross-reporting. As a positive point, the connection in real time against the ERP data stands out, without affecting the performance for the internal users.

In addition, it has a very useful report scheduler to automate the execution of reports . And, in the same way, it allows you to continue working with the logic of the ERP (ERP Smart). In the case of Dynamics 365 Business Central, this translates into what can be used with calculated fields, flow filters, implement the language module, Business Central security layer , among others.

On the other hand, the same vendor, Insight Software, markets Jet Analytics, the Business Intelligence solution for Dynamics 365 Business Central and Dynamics NAV.

Power BI vs Jet Reports: similarities and differences
Creating and maintaining financial reports in Power BI implementation is complex and requires workarounds . This forces us to ask ourselves: Who is responsible for maintaining these reports? How long does it take to update them? What happens when the structure of that data changes?

Another significant difference between the two solutions is that in Power BI, reports must be created against a Power BI-optimized extract or data warehouse; this feature inevitably breaks the link with the ERP and prevents real-time work.

In terms of similarities, both solutions accept a multitude of data sources such as Excels, Azure, SQL Server, Apis, other tools, etc.

What benefits does Power BI offer?
As a pioneering Microsoft reporting product, it has a large market share of millions of users around the world and an extensive partner network offering its services. Of course, it should be noted that the focus of this product by Microsoft is not financial reporting itself, but the generation of dashboards and other control panels.

On the other hand, its low acquisition price stands out, since its users are £7.50 per month per user, but this price increases when working with large volumes of data and wanting to distribute the reports to wider audiences. In these cases, it will be necessary to have Power BI PRO (£7.50/user) or Premium (£3,766.70/month) depending on the needs to be covered.

In addition, another of its strong points is that it allows collaboration between the different members of the team.

What disadvantages does Power BI have?
If we talk about the disadvantages of using Power BI compared to Jet Reports, first of all, it is worth noting the learning curve for report designers .

Because Jet Reports is an Excel-based product , it is much easier for designer users to learn how to design and modify reports. In contrast, Power BI requires users with some technical knowledge (such as Power Query and Power Pivot) who know how to create the data datasets and experience with the underlying ERP data structures. More complex reports require a proprietary DAX scripting language, typically used by IT, not functional users. The need for a data warehouse increases costs, creates work for IT, and delays the realization of value.

On the other hand, it is difficult to merge multiple data sources; reports and dashboards can only pull data from a single dataset. Imported data cannot be mixed with live connection data.

Also, it doesn't offer real-time ERP integration , so you can't see or drill down into operational and transactional data, which is key to many financial and operational reports and processes.

It is important to note that parameterized dashboards and reports are not supported : you cannot pass user, account, or other entity parameters to "customize" a dashboard (for example, so that each manager sees their own department's spending, or each salesperson sees history). of customer orders).

On the other hand, dashboards and reports can only be shared with users who have the same email domains or email domains listed in the Office 365 tenant, i.e. they cannot be shared with external domains.

What is the most suitable solution for my company?
If you answer yes to the following questions, you definitely need to schedule your Jet Reports demo.

When you talk to your finance team, do they want to close faster, eliminating manual data dumps to Excel? Do they need access to live, detailed data?
Do you have difficulty accessing the data?
Would you like to have real-time access to data in Excel and be able to check the origin of that data in case of doubt?
Do you need to manage critical processes in real time, such as reconciliations and consolidations? Is it important for you to be able to access detailed information on balances, journals and subbooks?
Do you need to share information in tabular form (eg, for profit and loss, balance sheet, etc.) and not just create graphs? How easily can you do this? Are you comfortable creating the calculations you need in PowerQuery?

Article source: https://article-realm.com/article/Business/Ethics/27799-Jet-Reports-vs-Power-BI-Similarities-and-Differences.html