Power BI, an Amazing Tool

Having quite some experience in various statistical and reporting programs, I have to admit that Microsoft Excel is the pioneer. Although it might seem easy for some people, Excel worksheet has many capabilities. From simple calculations to extensive spreadsheets and pivot tables.

Excel is a tool that allows you to create well designed and easy understanding reports. It is much easier to understand a result by watching a chart than watching some random numbers. The only disadvantage of Excel is the limited data and more specifically, every worksheet may have a maximum of 1.048.576 rows by 16.384 columns. The need for more space, led to the creation of Data Model, which is an additional tool inside Excel’s interface, and afterwards to the creation of Power BI.

Power BI by Microsoft has amazing possibilities and provides great information and most important, live information. The structure is very similar to Data Model, it contains the DAX language, the M language and Power query, but it has a lot of advantages, such as Visualizations, automatic refresh and Power BI service, which allows the user to see the report online through desktop, or through the mobile application.

Why is Power BI useful for us? We connect directly to the SQL server of each of our hotels and we receive all the necessary data. By cleansing, transforming and modeling the data, we have information regarding the income, the occupancy, the costs, the clients and we can compare the current year’s performance, with the previous years. It is a great tool for the manager, or the owner of the hotel to see live the hotel’s performance.

Therefore, we at Enorme Hotels & Villas are always searching for new technologies to upgrade and update our services regarding guests and owners.

Nikos Paravalos
Hi all!! I am Nikos and my role at Enorme Hotels Team, as a Data Analyst/Reservations Agent started in November of 2018. Data analysis is a process of inspecting, cleansing, transforming and modeling data with the goal of discovering useful information, informing conclusions and supporting decision-making. I graduated from the University of Crete, more specifically the Mathematics Faculty in 2009.I also own a Master’s Degree in Mathematics since 2016. Swimming, basketball, football, music, movies, gardening are some of my hobbies. I absolutely enjoy hiking and exploring the wild and unknown beaches around the island of Crete. But nothing is unknown these days because of the internet:). I started my career in tourism as a reservations agent. I thankfully got the opportunity that I was looking for and I started working for Enorme Hotels as a report analyst. At the beginning, I was mostly creating reports through excel, by getting data and combining formulas.