How Power BI Automation Can Improve Business Intelligence Reporting

Business reports are fact-based documents used to make decisions in a business. These essential documents are needed in almost every field of work. You can create manual reports, typically by piecing together a variety of free tools, or you can use report automation software, such as Power BI Automation, to generate automatic business reports. 

While business reporting is a vital part of managing and scaling a business, it’s something that you don’t want to be spending too much time on. Manual reporting is time-consuming and stretches your resources significantly, forcing the business to choose between allocating time to menial tasks or activities that add value to your business process. 

Report automation software streamlines your workflow, allowing you to generate great business reports without getting caught in an endless loop of copy-and-paste operations. This article will show you how to create reporting dashboards with automated report generation tools that will work for your business.

What Is Report Automation?

Report automation is the process of creating and automatically updating digital marketing reports using software. Report automation tools use Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to connect your accounts to various platforms and automatically retrieve data from them daily. The reports are delivered to your email address or displayed for view on an online tool at specified intervals. 

Most report software also comes with additional features, such as customizable email messages and the option to add personalized comments, notes, and comments and insights. This allows digital marketers to add context to automated business reports and deliver them to the right people. 

Why Is It Better?

Automation has significant benefits for business reporting. For instance, the process of generating business reports becomes systemized and automatic by way of software, removing the need for someone to process the reports manually. Report automation can save your business a lot of time, allowing marketers to focus on value-added tasks. 

But that’s not all. Below, we take a look at some of the other ways report automation can improve your operations. 

Let’s Software Do Repetitive Tasks

Report automation is about giving marketers their time back. What better way to give digital marketers their time back than taking repetitive tasks off their plate? Business reporting software automates the parts of the reporting process that don’t require human insight to save time. There are report templates that are already filled with the most common KPIs, which you can customize however you see fit.  

Keeps Your Workforce or Talent on Higher Priorities

Report automation keeps your workforce or talent on higher priority. The amount of time it takes to prepare and run reports, find and correct mistakes, and finally distribute them can be used for tasks that are more productive. For instance, digital marketers can use that time to work on strategies for adding value for their clients. 

Report Frequency and Format Is Customizable

Manually preparing a report on a spreadsheet takes forever, which means you may not be able to get reports as frequently as you need. Business reports can also become difficult to understand, cumbersome, and sometimes inaccurate with manual reporting. 

With customizable frequency and format, report automation software can help you solve these two problems at once. You can get high-quality reports monthly, quarterly, weekly, etc. Automating business report generation brings more clarity to your reports. You get more accurate business reports that are presented in a format that’s easy to understand. 

Event-Triggered Release Is Available

Report automation software can trigger and distribute reports based on an event. Event-based triggers can detect when a specific kind of activity has occurred and perform certain actions. 

The event-triggered release is one of the most notable features of Power BI automation because it takes the hassle out of tracking your time and work, as well as managing relationships with your clients. 

Event-based triggers can fully automate your projects, services, and support processes. The triggers run in the background, generating reports of tasks, emails, status changes, etc., so that you can focus on more critical tasks. 

Reports Can Be Tailored To Each Recipient

With report automation software, report focus, including data featured, can be tailored to each recipient. You can customize marketing reports with notes, custom email messages, comments, and other features offered by Power BI automation tools. Customization ensures that reports are delivered to the right people without any confusion. 

End-Users Should Be Able To Access However They Need It

With report automation software, end users can access business reports in the most convenient way. Automated business reports can be delivered via different communication channels and in a variety of file formats. You can get reports in the form of: 

• SMS text
• Email
• PDF

Users can also get reports on their mobile devices. 

How Businesses Can Automate Reporting

It’s imperative that you take time to consider what your needs are before jumping into automating your reports. That will help you choose an automated reporting tool that suits your needs as an organization. Here are a few factors to keep in mind when choosing a report automation tool for your organization.

• Frequency. Think about the desired frequency of reports i.e., daily, weekly, monthly, etc. 
• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Consider KPIs and the relevant information that is most impactful on your decision-making process. 
• Resources. How much time and money are you willing to commit to implementing a report automation system?
• Sharing options. Think about how you will deliver the reports across the organization. Options may include automated email dispatches, print, PDF, URL link, etc. 
• Budget. Last but not least, set a budget. Ensure that you establish guidelines for project managers to avoid running huge costs with the implementation. 

When you have an idea of what you need from report automation software and set a budget, you can start looking at options in the market. 

Automating business reports can bring many benefits to your organization. Report automation software eliminates many of the mundane and time-consuming processes involved in manual reports. Automating reports saves time, which you can use to perform tasks that improve results for your clients.