Clarity Today our interview guest was Benjámin Kormos, thanks to him our colleagues could have the chance to get to know the functions and usage of Microsoft Power BI better.

Clarity What is exactly Power BI? What do we use it for?

Beni Power BI is Microsoft’s self-service business analytics tool for creating interactive data visualizations. It allows the user to create dashboards through data loading, data transformation and data modelling.

Clarity How did you get interested in this field?

Beni This goes back in a relatively long time. During my master’s studies I was working for a multinational company in the area of business intelligence, where I got to know a similar data visualisation tool, which I really liked. I also wrote my thesis in this topic. (The development of Business Intelligence and decision support with the increasing usage of IoT solutions)

Clarity What kind of Power BI trainings have you attended so far?

Beni Attila Kővári, who has a great reputation in the market, helped me to acquire the basic skills of the tool within an introductory training, and we also did a data visualization project with him as an on-the-job training. After learning the basics, I trained myself mostly in an ad-hoc way by buying online trainings and videos (e.g.: Enterprise DNA, Guy in a Cube). Last year we decided with my manager that it would be great to expand this competency, so I went on a 3 days advanced trainings in Copenhagen, which was held by Alberto Ferrari (SQLBI). It was an amazing experience to learn from someone who is working with Microsoft to develop this tool. It inspired me so much, that I bought various additional online trainings from them.

Clarity What kind of projects did you participate in, which needed the use of Power BI?

Beni Fortunately, there are more and more Power BI related projects in the life of the company. To name just a few from the past:

• Preparation of an analysis of the financial situation and tender activity of fast-growing enterprises in Hungary, with visualized support of various hypotheses;
• Development of comprehensive analysis interfaces on the operation of a recently introduced central government service in terms of service volume, usage data, development process, key system indicators and implementation data.
• Preparation of ad-hoc analyses of the economy of local governments;
• Development and implementation of a management controlling report at another consulting firm;
• Unification and renewal of a bank's existing report publications.

During the preparation of the reports, we place great emphasis on the fact that the organization can further develop the introduced Power BI tool, therefore we also do user and developer trainings as part of the projects.

Clarity As we know, there was an internal Power BI training not so long ago that you held for your colleagues. How many participants were there? How do you see, how many people would like to get deeper knowledge in data visualization in the future within the company?

Beni Yes, I held a training for 14 colleagues to help more people learn this competency within the company, in order to serve the increasing project needs. After the training, 8 of them indicated that they are interested in this area and would like to learn more about it.

Clarity Thank you Beni for the conversation and we wish you good luck in the future as well!