Power BI Consulting Services

PS3G’s Power BI consulting services turn the data in your SQL Server, Dynamics 365, Excel files and cloud applications into reports people trust and open every morning. We build the data model and DAX measures, design the reports, set up the Power BI Service with workspaces, row-level security and deployment pipelines, and bring in Microsoft Fabric where it earns its place. The work is scoped to your size: a founder who needs one sales dashboard, a finance team replacing a monthly spreadsheet pack, or a department inside a larger organization that needs governed self-service reporting.

Dashboards people open every morning

Most Power BI projects fail quietly. The dashboard gets built, two people look at it for a month, and the spreadsheet comes back. The usual causes are numbers that do not match the system of record, reports that take too long to load, and measures nobody can explain when a director asks where a figure came from.

Our approach starts with the questions, not the visuals: which decisions does this report support, who makes them, and which number would they argue about. Then we build the model so that one definition of revenue, margin, headcount or backlog is used everywhere, documented, and owned by someone.

What our Power BI consulting services include

Data models and DAX

A star-schema semantic model with clean fact and dimension tables, a date table, and DAX measures named the way your business talks. We choose Import, DirectQuery, composite or Direct Lake storage per table, tune with Performance Analyzer and DAX Studio, and document every measure so the next analyst can read it.

Reports and dashboards

Report pages designed for their audience: an executive summary that fits one screen, operational pages with drill-through, mobile layouts for people on the floor, and paginated reports built in Power BI Report Builder where a printable, pixel-exact statement is required. Alerts and subscriptions so the report reaches people who will not go looking for it.

Power BI Service setup and governance

Workspaces organized by domain, apps for distribution, deployment pipelines for development, test and production, an on-premises data gateway where sources sit behind your firewall, refresh schedules, usage metrics, and endorsed (promoted or certified) semantic models so people know which report is the official one. Governance ties into the policies described on our data governance page.

Row-level security

Static roles for simple cases and dynamic row-level security driven by a user-to-territory or user-to-department table for the rest, plus object-level security where some columns must stay hidden. Every role is tested with the View As feature before release, and the rules are documented for your auditors.

Microsoft Fabric and dataflows

Microsoft Fabric consulting for organizations ready for it: OneLake, Lakehouse and Warehouse items, Data Factory pipelines and Dataflow Gen2 for transformation, and Direct Lake semantic models that read Delta tables without a scheduled import. For teams that are not there yet, Power Query dataflows give you reusable, shared transformations inside the Power BI Service. We will tell you plainly when Fabric is more platform than you need.

Training

Sessions for report consumers, for the analysts who will build the next report, and for the administrators who run the tenant, with the model documentation and a short standards guide handed over at the end.

Tell us which numbers you need to trust and we will scope the first report.

Connecting Power BI to your sources

Source	How we connect	What to watch
SQL Server and Azure SQL	Direct connection or through the on-premises data gateway; views or a reporting schema built for the model	Query folding, incremental refresh on large fact tables
Dynamics 365	Dataverse connector, Business Central APIs, or a Fabric link that lands tables in OneLake	API limits on large extracts; option sets need lookup tables
Excel and SharePoint	Standardized layouts in SharePoint libraries, loaded through dataflows	Someone changing a column name breaks the refresh; we add checks
Cloud applications	Built-in connectors for common SaaS tools, or a small Azure Function that calls the API and stages the data	Authentication expiry, pagination and rate limits
Other ERPs and line-of-business systems	Vendor connectors, scheduled extracts or a staging database	Ownership of the extract and its schedule

When the sources are many or the volumes are large, the right answer is often a small warehouse or lakehouse in front of Power BI rather than a complicated model. That work is described on our big data and data engineering and data analytics pages.

Tableau and other tools

Power BI is our default recommendation for organizations on Microsoft 365 because the licensing, identity and Excel integration are already in place. It is not the only tool we work with. We provide Tableau consulting for companies that have standardized on it, and we work with SQL Server Reporting Services where printed and scheduled reports still matter.

Two situations come up often. Organizations that cannot use the cloud service run Power BI Report Server on their own servers; it supports the same report files with a narrower feature set, and we help decide whether that trade-off is acceptable. Organizations choosing between tools can read our comparison in Power BI vs Tableau, and our guide on moving from spreadsheets to dashboards covers the steps that apply whichever tool wins.

Engagement models

• Fixed-scope project. One model and a defined set of reports, or a governance setup for the Power BI Service, quoted up front.
• Dedicated team or staff augmentation. A Power BI consultant or a small BI team working inside yours on a monthly basis.
• Managed services. We run the tenant, refreshes, gateway and report changes under defined SLAs.
• Advisory. Model review, performance tuning, Fabric readiness or a reporting roadmap for a team that builds its own reports.

How we start: a first conversation, a short assessment, a written proposal.

Why PS3G

Business intelligence consulting services have been part of our work for more than ten years, alongside the data engineering and .NET development that usually sit around a reporting project. Our engineers are certified on Microsoft and open-source technologies, we work from Wilmington, Delaware and an India delivery center, and our testing center of excellence checks report numbers against source systems before release. We also build and run our own software products, including our HIPAA-compliant EHR and telehealth platform, DocVilla, so we know what it takes to keep reporting trustworthy in a live system.

Related services

• Data analytics and BI: warehouses, ETL and reporting across tools.
• Big data and data engineering: pipelines and lakehouses that feed Power BI.
• Data governance: definitions, ownership and quality rules behind the numbers.
• Microsoft technology services: SQL Server, Azure, Dynamics 365 and Power Platform.
• All services: the full list of what we build, modernize and run.

Guides on this topic

• Power BI vs Tableau: Which Should a Growing Company Choose?
• Business Intelligence Reporting: From Spreadsheets to Dashboards

Frequently asked questions

What does a Power BI consultant do?

A Power BI consultant designs the data model and DAX measures, builds the reports, connects the sources, sets up the Power BI Service with workspaces, security and refresh, and trains the people who will use and maintain it. At PS3G the consultant also works with our data engineers when a warehouse or pipeline is needed, so the reporting is built on a foundation rather than on a chain of spreadsheets.

How do we get Power BI numbers to match our accounting system?

By agreeing the definitions first, then building one measure per definition and reconciling it against the source before anyone sees a dashboard. Most mismatches come from timing (when a transaction counts), filters applied in one place and not another, and duplicated rows from joins. We document each measure, add reconciliation pages to the model, and test refreshes against known totals.

Do we need Microsoft Fabric to use Power BI?

No. Power BI works on its own with per-user licenses, dataflows and the data gateway. Fabric adds a lakehouse, warehouse, pipelines and Direct Lake models on a capacity-based license, which helps when you have many sources, large volumes or a data engineering team. We recommend it when those conditions exist and advise against paying for it when they do not.

Can Power BI run on-premises?

Yes, through Power BI Report Server, which hosts Power BI reports and paginated reports on your own Windows servers. It lags the cloud service in features, has its own licensing requirements, and does not include dashboards, dataflows or Fabric. It is the right choice for organizations with a hard no-cloud rule; for everyone else the cloud service is usually the better value.

How is Power BI licensed?

In broad terms, per-user licenses for people who build and share reports, a higher per-user tier with more features, and capacity-based licensing (Fabric capacity) that is bought for the organization and can reduce per-viewer costs at scale. Power BI Embedded has its own model for software products. The details and prices change, so check Microsoft’s current licensing documentation; we help you map features to the licenses you already own.

Can you help if we use Tableau instead?

Yes. We provide Tableau consulting for data modeling, dashboard design and server or cloud governance, and we have helped organizations run both tools during a transition. If you are deciding between them, we will give you a recommendation based on your stack, your analysts and your budget rather than a preference for one vendor.