Excel spreadsheets are widely used for various business purposes, such as financial planning, operational insights, and project management. However, they also pose many problems that affect organisational efficiency and data quality. Some of these problems are:

• Single ownership and maintenance, which leads to version conflicts, inconsistencies, and limited access for other team members.
• Performance issues, such as slow loading times, when dealing with large datasets or external data sources.
• Lack of robustness, real-time data sharing, and collaboration features, which limits the ability of teams to leverage organisational data for informed decision making.

These challenges highlight the need for a more integrated, scalable, and accessible solution that can handle enterprise-level data management without the drawbacks of traditional spreadsheet practices.

To move from Excel to an enterprise platform, a thorough analysis is performed on the Excel document while maintaining the data quality, meaning and logic of the original data. This process discovers the essential insights needed to convert the Spreadsheet into an enterprise solution that aligns with the organisation’s data strategy.

• Examination of the structure and content of the Excel document, identifying data and visualisations that can be reimagined in Power Apps & Power BI.
• Identifying key elements for migration, such as tables, charts, pivot tables, formulas, external data sources, VBA code, and comments that provide invaluable context.
• An analysis of the relationships between data across multiple sheets, lookups, and connections to external data sources.
• Develop a strategic blueprint for data migration for the benefit of entire teams of people in your organisation.

This in-depth analysis, guided by user feedback on the spreadsheet’s value, helps design a customised, enterprise-ready data driven solution. By exploring the complex data relationships and dependencies, the data is prepared for a transformation that improves data quality and structure, that supports decision-making and operational efficiency.

Once the Excel document has been analysed, a data schema design is completed and data is migrated to the Dataverse in the Power Platform. The data migration itself is automated, configuring the Dataverse entities, constraints, relationships and other characteristics in a single time-saving operation.

• Data is validated and prepared for management with Power Apps and others systems that the organisation has employed.
• Data is structured and modelled for advanced reporting and analytics with Power BI to surface important businesses insights.
• Business rules, logic, validation and data constraints are applied to the data structure to ensure quality,  compliance and integrity.

By transitioning to Dataverse, users gain a secure, centralised platform where data is not only protected but also easily shareable across teams, enhancing collaboration and accessibility.

For organisations that want their mission critical Excel data incorporated into company-wide data analytics and insights, the data migrated to Dataverse can be included in the organisations’ Microsoft Fabric instance.

Microsoft Fabric is a data governance and reporting framework that can link Dataverse data with other data sources in the organisation. This allows a comprehensive view of data across the entire business, enabling integrated analysis and decision-making across executive team and department levels.

• Data governance features are implemented at an organisational level to ensure data quality, security, and compliance.
• Enhanced reliability and accuracy of data analysis and reporting, which are essential for achieving strategic goals and competitive edge.
• Transformation of data from various sources and formats, into a common data model for enhanced analysis and reporting.

By integrating Dataverse data with Microsoft Fabric, organisations can optimise their data strategy and unleash the full potential of their data assets.

Mission critical data that is migrated to the Dataverse needs to be secured, governed and meet regulatory compliance mandates.

Many organisations are required to comply with the regulations for the industries that they work in, which often requires that an organisation implements security measures such as data encryption, hiding of sensitive and personal information and more. Microsoft 365 provides the features to enforce these measures.

• Ensure that organisational data adheres to regulatory standards and organisational policies, mitigating risks associated with data breaches and unauthorised access.
• The Power Platform provides a secure environment for data interactions with features designed to safeguard data across applications, workflows, and analytics.
• Microsoft Fabric facilitates data integration and sharing across the organisationwithin a secure framework that supports comprehensive data governance.

The integration of Dataverse with the Power Platform and Microsoft Fabric offers a robust suite of security and sharing capabilities, protected by compliance policies and the highest standards of data governance.

Power Apps provides a superior user experience when it comes to managing data with forms. Users can create and edit data in familiar and intuitive user controls, such as text boxes, drop-down lists, buttons, and sliders. Power Apps supports validation rules and formulas, which ensures that the data managed is always accurate and consistent.

• Securely share business data with team members, without compromising their privacy or compliance requirements.
• Provide users with a superior  responsive user experience (UX) on desktop and mobile devices.
• Enforce business rules and validation on business data to ensure that data integrity is maintained.

Power Apps helps users to manage the data migrated from the original Excel document, now in Dataverse, and streamline their workflows and processes whilst collaborating effectively with their colleagues.

Power BI enables users to access and explore data analytics from anywhere in the organisation, empowering them to make data-driven decisions. The platform’s enterprise reporting capabilities allow users to easily access and share insights, trends, and reports across various data sources and devices.

We migrate objects from the original Excel document to maintain the original purpose and intent of the data it maintained.

• Advanced filters, cards, and drill-down reports enable users to interact with data visualisations that reveal insights and information.
• Charts, formulas, and calculations and other visuals that existed the original Excel are replicated in Power BI.
• Dashboards enable users to concentrate on essential data points, metrics and trends that informs strategic decision-making.

Power BI enables organisations to advance their data analysis and visualisation capabilities beyond Excel. It enhances the analytical experience with real-time data updates and secure sharing of insights across the organisation, by transforming data into strategic assets that drive business outcomes.

When data is well designed, managed, validated and its integrity maintained, organisations can innovate in many areas of their business by integrating Microsoft Copilot & AI with their data and application ecosystems.

• Use Microsoft Copilot to realise insights and trends from live data by enabling users to interact with the data by using natural language e.g. “Show me the top 10 performing products in the last quarter.”
• Utilise Microsoft Fabric to automate data analysis and visualisation with Microsoft AI to access cross-domain insights, speed up decision-making, and improve strategic planning.
• Migrate data to SQL Azure for SaaS applications that offer custom solutions with high security and user-friendliness.
• Build Power BI portals to deliver the full Power BI user experience for customers without them requiring a license.

Microsoft Copilot & AI is a game-changer for business as it has revolutionised how users interact with data and make decisions based on data insights identified with AI models. AI enables organisations to gain deeper insights, optimise operations, and improve decision-making.