Can Power BI replace our Tableau, Crystal, or SSRS environment?
Often yes. Ascension migrated 140 Crystal Reports to Power BI in 20 weeks (4 hr to 8 min report run time, $1.1M a year in licensing saved). We scope migrations realistically. Sometimes the answer is partial migration. Sometimes it's no migration.
A semantic model is the layer where your tables, relationships, measures, and metric definitions live. Bad semantic models cause every downstream dashboard to be wrong in the same way. We rebuild them as a foundation step.
Yes. We connect to the Power BI Service via REST APIs and read-only credentials. See our AI Reporting Automation service for how the layer on top works.
Pro is per-user licensing; Premium is capacity-based. The right answer depends on usage volume, dataset size, and which features (paginated reports, AI services, Premium-only datasets) you need. We do the math with you.
Usually it's the data model, not the report. Star schemas, calculated columns vs measures, incremental refresh, and aggregation tables fix most cases. We measure first.
Yes. Knowledge transfer is part of every engagement. We can also build a custom training program for your team, including role-based curricula.
Sometimes. Native AI features are good for generic patterns. We build for your specific reports, metric definitions, and approval workflow. We use Copilot when it's sufficient. We don't replace it when it's not.
Annual licensing saved at Ascension Health, 140 Crystal Reports to Power BI
Power BI for clinical analytics, EMR data certification, population health, payer reporting. Ascension Crystal-to-Power-BI migration scale work.
Power BI for ALCO reporting, credit risk dashboards, regulatory exam packages, executive scorecards on Dynamics 365 and Synapse data.
Power BI for OEE, shop-floor reporting, quality control, supplier scorecards. Often paired with Microsoft Fabric and Dynamics 365 supply chain.
Power BI for sales, inventory, marketing, customer cohorts. Native integration with Dynamics 365 Commerce and Azure Synapse.
Power BI for federal, state, and local agency dashboards. Native to Microsoft 365 GCC tenants and FedRAMP-aligned deployments.
Power BI for product analytics, pipeline reporting, ARR governance, and engineering metrics. Often paired with Azure Synapse or Microsoft Fabric.
We deploy and configure Power BI workspaces with proper permissions, row-level security, deployment pipelines, and documentation. Built to scale, not to be rebuilt in 12 months.
We build Power BI reports and dashboards that executives trust and analysts use. We design for decisions, not decoration. Every visual answers a specific business question.
Slow Power BI reports are almost always a data model problem. We rebuild star schemas, optimize DAX measures, reduce model size, and fix the performance issues at the source.
We connect Dynamics 365, Salesforce, SQL databases, SharePoint, and other sources into clean, reusable Power BI dataflows. One data layer. Every report. Every team.
We migrate organizations from Excel-based reporting, SSRS, Crystal Reports, and legacy BI tools to Power BI. We bring the data, the logic, and the governance with us.
We train your analysts and business users on Power BI Desktop, Power BI Service, and DAX. Custom curriculum built around your data model, your reports, and your use cases.
We build the star schema, the relationships, and the measures your reports read from, then write DAX that is fast and testable instead of a pile of calculated columns nobody can follow.
Executive and operational Power BI reports designed to answer one question fast, with a layout an analyst can extend and a refresh that holds up under real load.
Reusable dataflows and clean Power Query transforms so Dynamics 365, Salesforce, SQL, and SharePoint feed one governed data layer instead of five copies of the same table.
Workspace structure, deployment pipelines, certified datasets, and row-level security, set up so the tenant stays clean as report count grows instead of sprawling.
Moving off Crystal Reports, SSRS, Excel, or Tableau onto Power BI, carrying the logic and the metric definitions across so users trust the new reports on day one.
Getting the model, the field names, and the metric layer in the shape Power BI Copilot needs, so AI-assisted authoring returns answers your team can stand behind.
Review the tenant, the datasets, the DAX, and the refresh history to find exactly where reports break or slow down.
Rebuild the semantic model as a star schema, fix the relationships, and certify the measures every report will read from.
Design and build the Power BI reports on the fixed model, tuned so they refresh cleanly and load in seconds.
Set workspaces, deployment pipelines, row-level security, and certified datasets so the estate stays trustworthy as it grows.
Train your analysts and business users on the model and the reports, with a curriculum built around your data, so the team runs it after we leave.
We work with mid-market and enterprise organizations across healthcare, financial services, government, manufacturing, retail, and technology. If your team is running Power BI and the reports are not trusted, we can help.
Can you fix a Power BI environment that is already in production?
Yes. We assess the current environment, document what is broken, and deliver a prioritized fix list. We then rebuild the data model, reports, and governance framework without disrupting your current operations.
Yes. We work across all Power BI licensing tiers including Power BI Pro, Power BI Premium, and Microsoft Fabric. We help organizations decide which tier is right for their size and use case.
We certify datasets, document metric definitions, configure row-level security, set up deployment pipelines, and build a governance framework that keeps your Power BI environment clean as it grows. Governance is not optional. It is part of every engagement.
A Power BI consultant diagnoses why your reports are slow, wrong, or ignored, then fixes the root cause: the semantic model, the DAX, and the workspace setup underneath the visuals. The work spans model design, dataflows, report build, row-level security, migration off legacy tools, and training your team to run it. The person who scopes the work is the person who does it.
It tracks the size and state of your Power BI estate, not a fixed rate. The number of reports and DAX models, the state of the data model, how many sources feed it, and whether you are migrating legacy reporting all move the effort. We scope every engagement against fixed deliverables and milestones before any work starts, so you see the number before you commit.
If Microsoft 365 is already your operating layer and the data stack runs on Azure or Fabric, Power BI usually wins on licensing and native integration. If your teams live in Tableau and it works, we fix it rather than replace it. We are certified in both and vendor-neutral, so we recommend the tool that fits your stack and team, not the one we would rather sell.
Yes, it is the core of what we do. The semantic model is where tables, relationships, and measure definitions live, and a bad one makes every report wrong in the same way. We rebuild the star schema, write DAX that is fast and testable, and certify the measures your reports read from, as a foundation step before we touch a visual.
Yes. We migrate organizations off Crystal Reports, SSRS, Excel-based reporting, and Tableau onto Power BI, carrying the logic and the metric definitions across so users trust the new reports on day one. Ascension moved 140 Crystal Reports to Power BI in 20 weeks, cutting report run time from 4 hours to 8 minutes. We scope every migration realistically, and sometimes the right answer is a partial migration.
Thinklytics offers Power BI consulting including workspace setup, DAX optimization, semantic model design, and data governance consulting for enterprises.
Power BI consulting: workspace setup, DAX optimization, and dashboard design in Austin TX.
Power BI consulting is the engagement-based work of building, fixing, modernizing, or governing a Power BI environment. It covers semantic models, DAX, dataflows, Power BI Service, workspace design, performance tuning, executive reporting, and adoption. We work in your existing tenant rather than asking you to migrate.
Performance tuning and adoption work for environments that have stalled.
A Power BI vs Tableau pitch. We work in both. We use whichever tool you already have when it's the right tool.
A junior offshore pool. Senior-led delivery with defined milestones.
Slow, inaccurate Power BI reports are almost always a data model problem. We rebuild star schemas, optimize DAX, and fix the model before we redesign a single visual.
Every Power BI engagement includes certified datasets, documented metric definitions, row-level security, and deployment pipelines. We do not hand you a report and disappear.
We work with organizations that have real data problems at real scale. Not proof-of-concept work. Not demo environments. Production systems that executives rely on every day.
We do not start by opening Power BI Desktop. We sequence the work so the reports land on a model that holds, and your team can run the tenant after we leave.
The investment tracks the size and state of your Power BI estate, not a fixed rate. These are the factors that move the effort.
The number of reports, datasets, and DAX models sets the build and cleanup effort.
Data-source variety, gateways, and refresh complexity affect the work.
Establishing workspaces, certified datasets, and row-level security is more than a single report build.
Moving legacy reporting into Power BI adds translation and validation. The Ascension engagement moved 140 Crystal Reports.
You are Microsoft-first and want governed Power BI done right.
You are moving legacy reporting (Crystal, Excel, SSRS) into Power BI.
You run Tableau and want it fixed, not replaced: see Tableau Consulting.