Power Partners DWH (BC Edition)

A data warehouse (DWH) is a central database used to collect data from various sources. A DWH makes it possible to analyze company data. A DWH allows to create company reports from a central database.

Typical data sources are:

• ERP system (enterprise resource planning) such as Business Central.
• SaaS CRM system, such as Pipedrive
• Web Analytics such as Google Analytics
• Excel sheet
• public data (price data, weather data, traffic data, etc.)
• Purchased data sets (e.g. industry demand index, salaries, etc.)

A DWH (Data Warehouse) is a central database that collects data from various systems (BC, Dynamics CRM, Google Analytics, Excel, etc.). A DWH allows you to create and link reports and dashboards from a central source without having to connect to all the surrounding systems.

A DWH allows you to link data across multiple systems to make efficient queries to deliver the right information to decision makers quickly, reliably, and consistently.

The Power Partners DWH is suitable for all companies that use Business Central and want to analyze, report and control data outside of BC.

Of course! The Power Partners DWH is an SQL server that can be extended as required. Thanks to the integration of the Azure Data Factory, even complex data pipelines can be defined, and data from multiple systems can be mapped.

Of course! For many of our customers, this is an important reason for choosing the Power Partners DWH.
Note that the transfer of historical data is not included in the basic package and is charged according to effort.

Yes, we use state-of-the-art security protocols and processes. We use only MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) access, secure connections and encryption. We use an OAuth2 key for BC access, as well as an Azure Key Valut for key storage.

Note that, depending on your setup, availability of these security features may be limited for on-prem installations.

No, unless that is what you want. Access to the DWH can be controlled via users or roles.

No. Your DWH is yours, and as many employees as you want can access it.

However, an increased number of accessors will put more strain on your Azure SQL database, resulting in higher usage fees from Microsoft/Azure. However, for common application scenarios – even with dozens of users – these costs are low.

Yes. This is possible on different levels:

1. directly in the DWH, using classic SQL security concepts (schemas, roles, users)
2. from the reporting tool (e.g. with the Power BI security concept of workspaces, row-level security, etc.)

We support all BC versions from 19.

Yes.

In principle, yes. We support storing data in most popular databases, including Oracle, MySQL and PostgreSQL. But we can’t offer an on-prem DWH at a fixed price. As a rough ballpark figure, you can expect an effort of about 1.5 times a cloud setup.

Yes. We value your trust and do everything we can to protect your data. This also includes a non-disclosure agreement.

Of course, your data belongs to you. You give us access to your infrastructure for the duration of the setup – and possibly longer if you want support. But both the data and the infrastructure is yours at all times. The Azure account is set up for you on behalf of your company, and you are the owner and administrator.

No. The installation of the DWH requires special knowledge that goes far beyond BC. So far, we have collaborated successfully with various BC partner companies. There is no competition because we do not provide BC advice.

We offer support on a time & material basis or as a support package.

The Power Partners DWH is built with robustness in mind. For example, we have customer installations where we don’t have a support request for multiple months.

This depends on the number of tables, the amount of data and the loading frequency. But the design of the DWH also takes into account the Azure costs, with typical SMBs in mind. Most installations with a daily load typically cost less than 15.- EUR (or CHF) per month.

Although we are committed to cost transparency, it is very difficult to make a statement in this regard.

The TCO depends on many factors. The most important ones being:

• Amount of data
• Number of additional systems that have been integrated
• Complexity of data transformations
• Incoming data quality
• Update frequency
• Number of active users/requests

The TCO consists of the following components:

1. The initial investment
2. The maintenance effort
3. The Azure cost

Azure costs are negligible for most customers.

Thanks to the fixed price, the initial investment of the basic package is known. And thanks to clear estimates, any additional expenses can also be predicted.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to make a general statement regarding maintenance efforts. On the one hand, these efforts vary from customer to customer. On the other hand, larger customers take over parts of the maintenance themselves, so that we have no insight into the maintenance work actually carried out. But we can assure you that we have many customers for whom we have not had a support request for months.

Either way, you have the option of making maintenance costs transparent and predictable by entering a support agreement with Power Partners.

We have been working with Azure for years and know the licensing models very well.

We have also been working with SMEs for years and know their needs very well.

Finally, we have been working with Business Central for years and know the data very well.

This knowledge allowed us to develop a product that is precisely tailored to the needs of our target customers: low, controllable costs with attractive performance.

Our tip: If you do not have the technical and license-related special knowledge in your company already, then we do not recommend that you develop a DWH yourself. You will learn the hard way. And the knowledge gained will probably not be part of your core business, so this lesson will not give you an edge.

The Azure expenses are billed by us, monthly.

No. Apart from the Azure costs, as well as any support expenses, there are no additional costs.

The DWH has been designed to be robust. It will run for years.

Nevertheless, we cannot rule out the possibility that future changes from BC or Azure will not be compatible.

In many cases, it will be possible to implement the necessary changes with little effort.

Yes. If you have the necessary resources with the necessary skillset, you can maintain the DWH yourself. Since we only use standard components, the hand-over of the DWH to your employees is realistic.

On the other hand, it is complex software. It does not make sense to maintain it without prior training.

We constantly keep our solution up to date with the latest technology. Accordingly, there are new versions all the time.

On the other hand, an upgrade only makes sense if there is a concrete need (e.g. for security reasons, or if a new feature becomes available, or if a new version of BC forces an upgrade). Experience has shown that this is only the case after a few years. We make smaller upgrades according to effort, for larger upgrades we offer a fixed price.

The DWH runs successfully with many customers. Contact us so that we can put you in touch with a reference customer from your region or industry.

The DWH is a standard SQL Server. Being one of the most popular database system, there exist a huge number of tools that can access your data. In short, you can access it with virtually any tool you can think of.

Yes. We support both SQL users and Azure AD users. This means de facto that your employees can access the data with their normal Microsoft 365 user, if you so desire.

There are several reasons. The most important ones are:

1. Not all employees typically have a BC license. With a DWH, you can create and distribute dashboards and reports that are independent of BC.
2. If you want to include data from different systems in your reporting and dashboarding, then a DWH is the right solution for your company.
3. If you want to aggregate data across several companies (group reporting), then a DWH is the optimal solution, as this is hard to achieve with the Power BI Connector.

If you’re already using Power BI, the connector is a simple solution that delivers results quickly at no extra cost. On the other hand, a DWH is an investment that should be carefully considered.

We recommend that you use the connector in the following cases:

1. You already have Power BI know-how
2. You are well versed in Power Query/M and know how to merge tables, etc.
3. You only want to create a few specific reports
4. Your amount of data is small
5. You don’t need to create multi-company reporting (across multiple companies)
6. You don’t want to re-use your data for multiple reports
7. You have only few data sources (in addition to BC)

Many of our customers started with the Power BI Connector first, and after a few months or years they move on to the next level. This makes it possible to build up data and BC know-how without having to invest into a DWH.

Over time, the requirements become more complex and the limitations of the connector are recognized. These limitations are e.g.

1. No multi-company support
2. No incremental loads
3. No (or difficult) reusability of the data models

As soon as you find that these limitations are too restrictive, the right time is to switch to a DWH.
However, it is important to remember that the work that has been put into Power BI / Power Query is often only partially sustainable. Often, a lot of effort is used to circumvent the limitations of the connector. The loading logic is distributed over different reports. These workarounds are then sunk costs and it takes considerable effort to convert the reports to the new DWH.

Either way, we will be happy to advise you on the optimal time for the introduction of a DWH. We are also happy to support you in getting your data culture on a cost-effective but still sustainable basis on Power BI, so that you can switch to a DWH later without major sunk costs.

Power Partners DWH is not a proprietary product with licensing costs. On the contrary, you are paying for a package that consists of standard components.

In contrast to other solutions on the market, the Power Partners DWH offers the following advantages:

1. it is more cost-effective to operate
2. it is robust and dispenses with complicated bells and whistles, which are only useful for  big corporations.
3. it was designed specifically for Business Central
4. it is completely extensible, even with data from third-party systems
5. it is fully integrated into the Microsoft 365 environment
6. Excel, Power BI and many other reporting and business intelligence solutions can be connected directly