Migration assessment
A full inventory of existing reports, sources, and calculations, each tagged rebuild or lift with an effort estimate so you approve scope and price before work begins.
Migration to Power BI
Excel to Power BI Migration Service, done without losing a number
Our Excel to Power BI migration service replatforms your reporting with a side-by-side parity check on every metric, a clean cutover, and your team owning the model at go-live — delivered through prepaid Flex hours, with most tasks turned around in 3–5 business days. We also migrate from Tableau, Qlik, and legacy BI.
Representative dashboard — sample data
Migration to Power BI
From legacy tool to live in Power BI
A migration is only successful when the new reports are trusted on day one. That trust is earned by translating the data model correctly, reconciling every number against the system you are leaving, and switching over in a way that nobody has to clean up afterward.
Most teams reach Power BI by one of three routes. Some have outgrown a sprawl of Excel workbooks where every refresh is a half-day of copy-paste and version confusion. Others are leaving Tableau or Qlik because licensing, hosting, or maintenance no longer fit. And many are retiring legacy enterprise BI — SSRS, Cognos, or older Microsoft stacks — that has become slow, brittle, or unsupported. Whatever the starting point, the hard part is rarely the visuals. It is the logic buried underneath: the calculated columns, the joins, the row-level security, and the dozens of small business rules that have accumulated over years and that nobody has documented. Our staged approach mirrors Microsoft's Power BI migration guidance (opens in new tab), from requirements gathering through validation and cutover.
We treat migration as a translation problem, not a copy-paste exercise. Power BI models data differently from a Tableau extract, a Qlik script, or a stack of spreadsheets, so rebuilding logic the Power BI way produces something faster, cleaner, and far easier for your team to maintain than a literal port would. The outcome is a governed semantic model, validated reports that match your old numbers, and a clear owner for every measure. If you are still comparing the two platforms, our Power BI vs Tableau comparison walks through the trade-offs.
We migrate from
- Excel
- Tableau
- Qlik
- Cognos
- SSRS
- Looker
- Crystal Reports
- Domo
What's included
Everything a clean replatform requires
A migration covers the work end to end — from inventory through cutover — so nothing critical gets left behind in the old tool. Your prepaid Flex hours cover every step; we scope each task and you approve before any work begins.
Data model translation
Tableau extracts, Qlik scripts, Cognos packages, and spreadsheet logic rebuilt as a proper Power BI star schema with measures, relationships, and row-level security.
Report rebuild
Your core reports rebuilt as decision-ready Power BI dashboards — not pixel-copied screens, but the same answers delivered faster and on brand.
Parity validation
Side-by-side reconciliation of totals, subtotals, and key measures against the legacy source, with documented sign-off before anything goes live.
Refresh and gateway setup
Scheduled refresh, gateway configuration, and workspace permissions set up so reporting becomes an automatic refresh instead of a manual chore.
Documentation and handover
A documented data dictionary, measure definitions, and refresh runbook so your team owns the model and can extend it without depending on us.
How it works
A controlled path from legacy tool to live in Power BI
- 1
Assess and decide
We inventory every report and source, trace the logic underneath, and recommend rebuild or lift for each one. You get a written scope, an estimate of the Flex hours each task needs, and a clear migration plan — and you approve before any hours are used.
- 2
Translate and validate
We build the Power BI semantic model, rebuild the reports, and reconcile each metric against the old system side by side. You review the parity results and sign off on the numbers before cutover.
- 3
Cut over and hand off
We schedule refresh, set permissions, and switch your team onto Power BI with documentation and credentials in hand. The legacy tool is retired on your timeline, not in a rush.
Rebuild versus lift — choosing the right approach per report
Not every report deserves the same treatment, and pretending otherwise is how migrations blow their budget. During the assessment we sort your reporting into two buckets. A lift makes sense when a report already works, is well understood, and simply needs a new home — here we reproduce it faithfully and move on. A rebuild is the right call when a report has accumulated years of workarounds, when its logic is duplicated across a dozen spreadsheets, or when the underlying calculations were never quite right and people have learned to mentally adjust the numbers. Rebuilding those in a clean Power BI model is cheaper over the life of the report than carrying the old mess into a new tool.
Tagging every report up front means you never get surprised. You see exactly which items we recommend rebuilding, which we will lift, and the Flex hours behind each — so you approve the scope before any work begins and can defer lower-value reports to a later phase if you want to control cost.
Translating the data model, not the screenshots
The biggest risk in any migration is treating it as a visual exercise. Tableau hides logic in calculated fields and table calculations; Qlik buries it in load scripts and set analysis; Cognos packages it into framework manager models; and Excel scatters it across cells, named ranges, and pivot caches. In Power BI that transformation logic is rebuilt cleanly in Power Query (opens in new tab) and DAX measures. Copying the look of those reports while ignoring how they computed their numbers is exactly how migrations produce dashboards nobody trusts.
We rebuild the logic the Power BI way — a clean star-schema data model with well-named DAX measures — so the new reports are not only correct but fast and maintainable. That foundation is what lets your analysts extend the work later without untangling someone else's shortcuts. If the migration is part of a broader reporting overhaul, our dashboard development work picks up from the same model to deliver polished, decision-ready views. If the team is still deciding whether to leave spreadsheets at all, read Power BI vs Excel: when to upgrade. Moving off Tableau rather than spreadsheets? Our Tableau to Power BI migration service covers workbook triage and LOD-to-DAX rebuilds.
Proving the numbers tie out
Parity validation is where trust is won or lost. For every migrated report, we reconcile totals, subtotals, and the measures that matter against the legacy source for the same time period. Where numbers differ — and they sometimes should, because the old report had a genuine error — we document the variance and its cause so you can decide whether it is a defect to fix or an improvement to keep. Nothing is declared live until you have reviewed and signed off on the reconciliation.
| Source | What we migrate | How we validate parity |
|---|---|---|
| Excel workbooks | Formulas, named ranges, and pivot logic rebuilt as a governed model connected to the underlying source. | Reconcile totals and key figures against the workbook for the same period. |
| Tableau | Calculated fields, table calculations, and joins translated into DAX measures and relationships. | Compare each view side by side against the original workbook output. |
| Legacy BI / SSRS | Stored-procedure and report logic rebuilt in Power Query and a clean semantic model. | Tie out subtotals and parameters against the existing report runs. |
| Other BI tools | Qlik scripts, Cognos packages, Looker, and Crystal Reports logic re-expressed the Power BI way. | Reconcile measures against the source and document any variances for sign-off. |
Timeline, pricing, and what you own
A migration runs on prepaid Flex hours: you buy a block of senior-led hours, we scope the migration into tasks, and hours are deducted only for work you approve. Most individual tasks are delivered within 3–5 business days of your approval, with a larger multi-report migration getting a clear timeline up front. Your prepaid Flex hours cover this — and they never expire. See Flex pricing. At go-live you own the report files, the semantic model, and the credentials outright; nothing is locked to us.
Who this is for
This service fits finance, operations, and analytics teams who have outgrown their current reporting and need the switch done cleanly the first time — without a months-long internal project or a stalled rollout. If you are still weighing whether to migrate, standardize, or govern what you already have, our Power BI consulting engagement helps you sequence the decision before committing to a build. If your reporting lives in Crystal Reports, Cognos, or Qlik rather than spreadsheets, we run those migrations too — see our Crystal Reports to Power BI migration, Cognos to Power BI migration, and Qlik to Power BI migration paths. Oracle BI estates have their own page — OBIEE to Power BI migration — because the RPD, its initialization blocks and its subject areas set the scope there, and a MicroStrategy project has its own page too — MicroStrategy to Power BI migration — because flattening the lookup-table snowflake and rewriting Level Metrics as DAX is where that work actually sits. A SAP estate is scoped from its semantic layer for the same reason: our SAP BusinessObjects to Power BI migration page starts with the Universe, its contexts and its aggregate awareness rather than with the Web Intelligence document list. If the reporting you are replacing is an SQL Server Reporting Services catalogue of RDL files, subscriptions, and shared datasets, our SSRS to Power BI migration page covers that estate specifically. A Pentaho estate is scoped from its Mondrian schema and Kettle jobs rather than its report list, which is why Pentaho to Power BI migration has its own page. A Google Cloud Looker estate is scoped from its LookML — view files, explores, and derived tables — with BigQuery retained as the source, which is why Looker to Power BI migration has its own page too. A Sisense estate is scoped from its ElastiCube rather than its dashboard list — the cube schema, its build steps and the JAQL formulas buried inside widgets — which is the work our Sisense to Power BI migration page sets out, and a ThoughtSpot estate is specified from exported TML and then triaged on Liveboard usage, with the search-bar replacement answered up front, on our ThoughtSpot to Power BI migration page. A Spotfire estate is scoped from its DXP analysis files, the Information Designer layer behind them and the IronPython and TERR inventory sitting on top — script and data-function density, not page count, sets the cost there — which is the work our Spotfire to Power BI migration page sets out.
The migration path
- Assess and tag every report rebuild or lift
- Rebuild the logic as a clean Power BI model
- Validate parity against the legacy source
- Cut over on your timeline, not in a rush
- Document and hand over the model
Parity guarantee
Nothing goes live until the numbers tie out
Every migrated report is reconciled side by side and signed off by you before cutover — so you trust the new dashboards on day one.
Representative perspective
We had ten years of Tableau workbooks and nobody fully understood the calculations anymore. The side-by-side reconciliation is what finally let us turn the old server off with confidence.Analytics lead, mid-market distribution company
Representative perspective
Moving off the spreadsheet sprawl saved our finance team the better part of a week every month. The numbers matched on the first review, which is what made the cutover painless.Finance director, mid-market SaaS
Ready to retire the old reporting tool?
Bring your current reports and sources to a free demo. We'll map the migration, flag what to rebuild versus lift, and estimate the Flex hours each task needs — you approve before any hours are used.
FAQ
Questions about migrating to Power BI
It depends on the report. We lift reports that already work and only need a new home, and we rebuild ones that carry years of workarounds or broken logic. The assessment tags every report with a recommendation up front, so you approve the approach and the price before any building starts.
We run side-by-side parity validation. For each migrated report we reconcile totals, subtotals, and key measures against the legacy source for the same period, then document any differences and their cause. Nothing goes live until you sign off that the numbers tie out and the variances are understood.
Yes. We migrate from Tableau, Qlik, Cognos, SSRS, and Excel-based reporting. Each platform models data differently, so we translate calculations, joins, and security into a Power BI semantic model rather than copying visuals — the result is faster, cleaner, and maintainable in your environment.
We connect Power BI to the underlying systems your spreadsheets pull from, so reporting becomes a refresh instead of a manual rebuild. Where Excel is the system of record, we keep it as a governed source. You keep your files; the goal is to remove the copy-paste, not your data.
A migration runs on prepaid Flex hours. You buy a block of senior-led hours, we scope the migration into tasks, and hours are deducted only for work you approve. Most individual tasks are delivered within 3–5 business days of your approval; a larger multi-report migration gets a clear timeline up front. Your prepaid hours never expire.
Yes. You own the report files, the data model, and the credentials at go-live. We hand over documented measures and a refresh setup, and offer optional training and support so your analysts can extend the work without depending on us.
Book a free demo
Get senior Power BI help, on demand
Tell us the task. We scope it, you approve, and a senior consultant delivers — typically in 3–5 business days. Prepaid hours that never expire.
- Prepaid hours from $100/hour — and they never expire
- Senior-led delivery — 20+ years on the Microsoft platform
- Typical 3–5 business day turnaround
- Full refund if you’re unhappy in your first 4 hours
The fastest way to reach us is the form — tell us the task and we'll reply within one business day.