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Power BI consulting, dashboards and reports on one governed model

Power BI is Microsoft's business intelligence software for connecting to data, modelling it and sharing interactive reports and dashboards. Arke Technologies designs, builds and supports Power BI for South African organisations, government bodies and schools from Johannesburg, on governed data models, with licensing advice, training and one SLA.

Discuss your projectSee Power BI dashboard examples

What is Microsoft Power BI?

Power BI's meaning is in its name: BI stands for business intelligence, and Microsoft Power BI, sometimes shortened to MSFT Power BI after Microsoft's stock ticker, is Microsoft's platform for it. In practice, Power BI means a set of connected tools rather than one program:

  • Power BI Desktop, a free Windows application in which report builders connect to data, shape it with Power Query, write measures in DAX and design reports.
  • The Power BI service, also called Power BI online: the cloud platform, used in a web browser, where reports are published, shared, refreshed on a schedule and secured.
  • Power BI apps, bundles of reports and dashboards published to a defined audience under your own logo and colours rather than the Power BI logo, so staff recognise them as your reporting portal.
  • Power BI Mobile for phones and tablets, and Power BI Report Builder for printable, paginated reports such as statements.
  • The on-premises data gateway, which lets the cloud service refresh data held on servers inside your network, such as an accounting database.

Power BI now sits inside Microsoft Fabric, Microsoft's wider data platform, which adds data engineering, a lakehouse and a warehouse under one capacity. Business intelligence in Power BI suits organisations on Microsoft 365: one sign-in, and sharing through Teams and SharePoint. Our data, analytics and business intelligence service covers the pipelines underneath.

Two colleagues examine a printed report full of charts.

Our Power BI services

Our Power BI services take you from a first report to a governed platform, or bring order to one that grew without a plan.

  • Power BI consulting and health checks

    A review of your tenant, models, refreshes, licences and security, with ranked fixes.

  • Data modelling and DAX

    Star-schema models with each measure defined once, documented and signed off by its business owner.

  • Power BI reporting

    Board packs, management accounts and operational Power BI reports, designed with the people who use them.

  • Power BI and Power Apps

    Where a report needs someone to act, such as correcting a record, a Power Apps visual lets them do it inside the report.

  • Power BI as a service

    We run the platform under an SLA: refresh monitoring, fixes, new measures and user support, reported at a monthly service review.

  • Power BI training

    Handover training for report readers and your own builders, on your data rather than a sample file.

Two colleagues compare figures on printed charts at a shared desk.

Power BI dashboard examples

A dashboard in business intelligence is one screen of the measures a person checks most often, each clickable down to the detail. The best Power BI dashboards answer a named person's recurring question, as these Power BI dashboard examples show:

AudienceDashboardTypical measuresTypical sources
Board and finance directorManagement accountsRevenue, expenses and cash against budget; debtor daysSage, Xero, SAP Business One, Dynamics 365 Business Central
Municipal budget and treasury officeRevenue and collectionsBilled against collected by ward and tariff; mismatches between billing, metering and the valuation rollBilling, prepaid-meter and valuation systems
Principal, bursar and governing bodySchool performanceFees collected by grade, attendance, results by subjectSA-SAMS exports, the accounting system, the learning platform
Sales and operationsSales and stockSales by branch and product, stock cover, orders at riskERP, CRM, e-commerce
IT and service managersService deskTickets by priority, SLA performance, recurring faultsService desk and monitoring tools
ESG officerSustainabilityEnergy, water, waste and people measures against targetsMetering, HR and site data

Each reads from one governed model, so the board and operations never see two versions of a figure. The revenue example is the core of municipal revenue enhancement.

DAX in Power BI, and why the model matters

DAX (Data Analysis Expressions) is the formula language in Power BI, used to define measures such as "collection rate". What is DAX in Power BI for, in business terms? It is where your rules live: a DAX measure decides, for example, whether a credit note reduces revenue in the month it is issued or the month of the original invoice.

That is why the model matters more than the visuals. A well-built model uses a star schema (a table of transactions surrounded by tables of dates, customers and regions) and defines each measure once, so every report on it agrees; reports on copied datasets drift apart. We build shared semantic models and record each measure, its owner and its definition in a data dictionary you keep.

Two colleagues review charts pinned to a glass wall in a meeting room.

Power BI pricing and licences

Last reviewed: September 2026.

Is Power BI free? Partly. Power BI Desktop is free, and anyone can build reports with it on their own computer. Sharing through the Power BI service needs licences, and Microsoft licenses Power BI per user or per capacity:

LicenceWhat it allowsUsually fits
FreeBuilding in Power BI Desktop and a personal workspace; viewing content shared from a large enough Fabric capacityIndividual analysis, and readers in organisations with capacity licensing
Power BI Pro, per userPublishing, sharing and collaborating on reports and dashboardsOrganisations with up to a few hundred report users
Premium Per UserEverything in Pro, plus larger models, more frequent refresh and advanced featuresGroups of heavy report builders who need premium features without a capacity
Fabric capacityA shared pool of compute; from F64 upwards, staff with free licences can view reportsLarge readerships, such as every employee, and Fabric data engineering

Power BI pricing is set by Microsoft and changes from time to time, so we quote current prices in your proposal. Power BI Pro is already included in Microsoft 365 E5, so check what you hold. We size the licence mix for your builders and readers and supply Power BI licences with your Microsoft 365 subscriptions, monthly or annually; a Fabric capacity runs in your own Azure subscription. See also software licensing. The build is usually the larger cost: published hourly rates for IT project work in South Africa run from about R550 to R750 ex VAT (matnet.co.za, September 2026), and we quote per phase.

Power BI on a Mac or MacBook

Power BI Desktop runs only on Windows, so Power BI for Mac users means choosing a route:

  • The Power BI service in a browser. Viewing, sharing and a growing range of report editing work in Safari, Chrome or Edge on a MacBook.
  • A cloud PC. Windows 365 or Azure Virtual Desktop gives Mac users a managed Windows desktop with Power BI Desktop: the most dependable route for regular report builders.
  • A Windows virtual machine. Suits occasional use; we test it first, because performance varies between Mac models.
  • Mobile apps. Power BI Mobile on iPhone and iPad for reading reports on the move.

We set up whichever route fits through our device and IT asset management service, which covers macOS.

Tableau vs Power BI

Tableau vs Power BI is a common shortlist. Both are capable platforms; the right one depends on your stack and skills.

Power BITableau
OwnerMicrosoftSalesforce
Fits best withMicrosoft 365, Teams, SharePoint, Excel and AzureSalesforce, and analyst teams focused on visual exploration
ModellingSemantic models with DAX measures; Power Query for preparationCalculated fields; Tableau Prep for preparation
Free optionPower BI DesktopTableau Public, for data published openly
Wider data platformPart of Microsoft FabricConnects to warehouses such as Snowflake and Google BigQuery

Where Microsoft 365 is your productivity platform, Power BI is usually the simpler choice, because licences, identity and sharing already line up; if your analysts already use Tableau, the warehouse we build serves it too.

How we deliver, govern and hand over

  1. Decisions first

    A scoping session with the people who will use the reports: which decisions, which measures, how often.

  2. Source audit and licence sizing

    Every source tested for quality, and the licence mix sized for builders and readers.

  3. Proposal and SLA

    Phases and running costs in writing; incidents prioritised P1 to P4, with response and resolution targets agreed to your needs and a defined escalation path.

  4. Model, then reports

    The semantic model and its measures signed off first, then reports refined with their users.

  5. Governance

    Separate development, test and production workspaces, change control for measures, row-level security, sensitivity labels and access logs. Together they support POPIA compliance and give the audit trail that King IV Principle 12 and PFMA and MFMA reporting expect.

  6. Training and handover

    Documentation and Power BI training for readers and builders; free Microsoft Power BI training on Microsoft Learn complements training on your own model.

  7. Support and monthly service review

    Refresh reliability, usage, changes and decisions, reported monthly.

Procurement, ownership and continuity

Arke Technologies (Pty) Ltd is a Level 1 B-BBEE contributor, which gives buyers 135% procurement recognition (sworn affidavit available on request). Company documents, our CSD supplier number and SARS tax compliance status are available on request, and you can buy through a proposal and SLA, a purchase order or a tender response. See procuring from Arke.

The tenant, workspaces, models, reports, credentials and documentation are yours from the start. A certified team works remote-first under one contract, so a new department or data source changes the SLA schedule, not the supplier, and if the work moves, we hand everything over in an orderly exit.

A finance analyst checks a printed report against a dashboard of charts on screen.

Frequently asked questions

Is Power BI free? Show answer

Power BI Desktop is free to download and use for building reports on your own Windows computer. Sharing reports with colleagues through the Power BI service needs a paid licence: Power BI Pro or Premium Per User for each person, or a Fabric capacity, which from F64 upwards lets staff with free licences view reports. Power BI Pro is included in Microsoft 365 E5.

Can I use Power BI on a Mac? Show answer

Yes, you can use Power BI on a Mac through the Power BI service in a web browser, which covers viewing, sharing and a growing share of report editing. Power BI Desktop runs only on Windows, so regular report builders on a MacBook are best served by a cloud PC such as Windows 365. Power BI Mobile runs on iPhone and iPad.

What is DAX in Power BI? Show answer

DAX (Data Analysis Expressions) is Power BI's formula language, used to write measures such as year-to-date revenue, collection rate or growth against last year. It resembles Excel formulas but works across whole tables and relationships. Because DAX measures carry the organisation's business rules, we define each one once in a shared model, document it and have its business owner sign it off.

How much does Power BI cost? Show answer

Power BI costs licences plus the work to build and support reports. Power BI Desktop is free; Microsoft licenses sharing per user through Pro or Premium Per User, or per capacity through Fabric, at prices it changes from time to time. The build is usually the larger cost, driven by the number and condition of your data sources. We quote per phase after a scoping session.

Is Tableau or Power BI better? Show answer

Neither Tableau nor Power BI is better for everyone; Power BI usually suits organisations on Microsoft 365, and Tableau suits analyst teams already invested in it or in Salesforce. Power BI shares identity, Teams and SharePoint with Microsoft 365, and sits inside Microsoft Fabric. Compare the two on your own data, licences and skills, and keep the warehouse independent of either tool.

How do I learn Power BI? Show answer

The quickest way to learn Power BI is to start with Microsoft Learn's free Power BI learning paths, then build a report from a data set you know well. Learn Power Query for preparing data and DAX for measures, in that order. Microsoft's Power BI Data Analyst certification tests the full skill set. When we hand over a build, we train your staff on your own model.

See your figures in one place, and trust them

Tell us which reports you produce today and where the data lives, and we will scope a Power BI build, with licences and running costs shown before you commit. Talk to us.

Discuss your project