Feature |
SAP Analytics Cloud |
Microsoft Power BI |
| Tool Type | Available on web. All operations (create, modify, share stories) are done on web | Development is primarily done using Power BI Desktop which is a free tool. Post development users can share stories by publishing stories on app.powerbi.com. For sharing stories, users will need license. |
| Connection to data sources | Live and acquire data options are available | Direct query as well as import data options are available |
| Live Connection/Direct query (no data storage) | Out of the box connections available for SAP specific source systems only. | Out of the box connections available for wide range of data sources |
| Live Connection/Direct query – Authorization | It will maintain authorization/roles of source systems. | It will maintain authorization/roles of source systems (Checked specifically for SAP BW) |
| SSO Connection | Available | Not available. But Windows authentication option is available |
| Live Connection/Direct Query (out of the box integrations with SAP Sources) | Available SAP Sources: – SAP BW – SAP HANA – SAP S/4 HANA – SAP Universe – SAP BPC |
Available SAP Sources: – SAP BW – SAP HANA |
| Acquire Data/Import (out of the box integrations with SAP Sources) | Available for wide range of SAP applications | Available SAP Sources: – SAP BW – SAP HANA |
| Acquire Data/Import from excel/csv files | Bit difficult – No option to exclude Top N rows. – Does not record transformations like data type changes while modelling in SAC – Bit complex to reload data |
You may exclude Top N rows – Records all modifications done in Power BI |