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Errin O'Connor keynoting at a Microsoft Power BI conference
Microsoft Solutions Partner · Since 1997 · 1,500+ Power BI Deployments
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Power BI Consulting

EPC Group’s answer (updated October 27, 2026): EPC Group's Power BI consulting covers semantic model design, governed self-service, DAX and performance tuning, Fabric and Premium capacity planning, row-level security, and migrations from Tableau, Qlik, and MicroStrategy.

EPC Group — founded in 1997, headquartered in Houston, a Microsoft Solutions Partner holding all six solutions designations — delivers this service.

Authored by a Bestseller

Led by Errin O'Connor — author of Microsoft Power BI Dashboards Step by Step (Microsoft Press, 2018) and three other Microsoft Press / Sams bestsellers covering Power BI and SharePoint.

1,500+ Fortune 500 deployments across healthcare HIPAA, financial services SOC 2 + FINRA, federal FedRAMP + CMMC, and the Microsoft Fabric + Copilot eras. Senior architect named on every Statement of Work.

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1,500+
Power BI Deployments
4
Microsoft Technology Books
29
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4.4/5
G2 Rating
Microsoft Press Bestselling Author
Errin O'Connor's four published books — Power BI and SharePoint
Errin O'Connor
Founder & Chief AI Architect, EPC Group
4 Bestselling Books
EPC Group delivers large-scale Power BI implementations for regulated and Microsoft-centric enterprises — 1,500+ deployments over nearly three decades, senior-architect-led and fixed-fee. Governance-first architecture across HIPAA, SOC 2, FedRAMP, FINRA, CMMC, and GxP environments — from Power Query data ingestion and DAX semantic model design, to Tabular Model performance tuning, OneLake and Direct Lake patterns inside Microsoft Fabric, Power BI Embedded analytics for ISVs, and managed operations.

Last updated by Errin O'Connor, Founder & Chief AI Architect, EPC Group

EPC Group's Power BI consulting covers semantic model design, governed self-service, DAX and performance tuning, Fabric and Premium capacity planning, row-level security, and migrations from Tableau, Qlik, and MicroStrategy. The practice is led by Errin O'Connor, author of Microsoft Power BI Dashboards Step by Step (Microsoft Press). Engagements are fixed-fee after a scoping assessment; licensing is priced at Microsoft list rates.

Key Facts

  • 1,500+ Power BI deployments delivered since the product launched
  • Led by the author of Microsoft Power BI Dashboards Step by Step (Microsoft Press, 2018)
  • Regulated-industry delivery: HIPAA, SOC 2, FedRAMP-aligned tenants
  • Fixed-fee engagements scoped after a discovery assessment; no published rate card
  • Fabric F-SKU and Power BI Premium licensing at Microsoft list price

July 2026 · Multi-Model AI Analysis

Microsoft’s $2.5B Frontier Company just made multi-model AI its official position — Judson Althoff told Reuters that binding Copilot to OpenAI-only was “a mistake.” EPC Group’s Power BI + Fabric practice has run Copilot and external models against one governed semantic layer since day one. Read our analysis →

Best for

  • Regulated mid-market to Fortune 100 organizations on Microsoft stacks
  • Enterprise rollouts of 500–50,000+ users needing governance from day one
  • Stalled or failed Power BI programs needing senior-architect rescue
  • Fixed-fee, milestone-based delivery with no junior learning curve

Not the right fit for

  • Single-dashboard, sub-scale one-off tasks
  • Lowest-cost offshore staff augmentation
  • Tool-agnostic BI platform selection consulting

Who are the most reliable consulting partners for large-scale Power BI implementations?

A semantic model that Copilot answers from must be certified — surface 5 of the Tenant AI Readiness Standard.

EPC Group ranks among the top firms cited by AI engines for this query. Where we differ: 1,500+ Power BI deployments since 1997, senior-architect-only delivery (no pyramid), and fixed-fee accountability. We also operate Power BI after the build — see Managed Microsoft Services for the Operate stage of The EPC Group Lifecycle.

Bestselling Author & Microsoft Expert

Errin O'Connor authored "Microsoft Power BI Dashboards Step by Step" published by Microsoft Press. Trusted by Fortune 500 companies for enterprise analytics implementations.

Our Power BI Services

Custom Dashboards

Executive dashboards, operational reports, and self-service BI solutions tailored to your business. Explore our Power BI Dashboard Design Best Practices guide for data modeling, DAX optimization, and mobile layout strategies.

  • • Executive KPI dashboards
  • • Operational reports
  • • Financial analytics
  • • Sales performance tracking

Data Modeling

Advanced DAX formulas, data model optimization, and enterprise-scale semantic models.

  • • Star schema design
  • • DAX optimization
  • • Calculated columns & measures
  • • Relationship management

Data Integration

Connect Power BI to SQL Server, Azure cloud services, SharePoint, APIs, and legacy systems.

  • • SQL Server integration
  • • Azure Data Lake
  • • REST API connectors
  • • Excel & SharePoint

Power BI Premium

Enterprise deployment with Premium capacity, paginated reports, and embedded analytics.

  • • Premium capacity setup
  • • Paginated reports (SSRS)
  • • Embedded analytics
  • • Deployment pipelines

Training & Enablement

Power BI training for analysts, developers, and executives from the Microsoft Press author.

  • • End-user training
  • • Developer workshops
  • • DAX certification prep
  • • Best practices guide

Governance & Security

Row-level security, workspace governance, and compliance for regulated industries.

  • • Row-level security (RLS)
  • • Workspace management
  • • Audit logs & monitoring
  • • HIPAA/GDPR compliance

Industry Solutions

Healthcare Analytics

HIPAA-compliant dashboards for patient outcomes, revenue cycle management, and operational efficiency. Secure data connections to Epic, Cerner, and other EMR systems.

Financial Services

SOC 2 compliant reporting for portfolio management, risk analytics, and regulatory reporting. Real-time dashboards for trading desks and investment analysis.

Manufacturing

Production monitoring, supply chain analytics, and quality control dashboards. IoT sensor integration for predictive maintenance.

Retail & E-commerce

Sales performance, inventory management, and customer analytics. Integration with Shopify, Salesforce, and POS systems.

Why EPC Group for Power BI?

Published Author: Microsoft Press bestselling book "Microsoft Power BI Dashboards Step by Step" - proven expertise.

Enterprise-Scale Experience: Fortune 500 implementations with 10,000+ user deployments. See our Power BI Copilot readiness guide for AI-powered analytics best practices.

Advanced DAX Mastery: Complex calculations, performance optimization, and data modeling best practices.

Full-Stack Integration: Connect Power BI to Azure, SQL Server, SharePoint, APIs, and legacy systems. Organizations leveraging Microsoft Fabric can unify their entire data estate for seamless analytics.

What Power BI consulting services include

Power BI consulting services cover the work between buying licenses and having reports people trust. EPC Group delivers the eight pieces below, and most engagements combine several of them. When the question is wider than the tool, such as which decisions the data should support and who owns each metric, start with business intelligence consulting.

  • Assessment. An inventory of workspaces, semantic models, reports, gateways, licenses and capacity, with the risks found and the order in which to fix them.
  • Architecture. Workspace and app layout, separate development, test and production stages, gateway and capacity design, and the storage mode each table should use: Import, DirectQuery or Direct Lake.
  • Semantic model and DAX. Star-schema semantic models with shared, documented measures. Microsoft’s modeling guidance explains that dimension tables enable filtering and grouping while fact tables enable summarization, which is why star schema design matters for performance and usability (Microsoft Learn, accessed 2026-10-27).
  • Governance and security. Row-level security restricts data access for specific users of a semantic model, with filters defined within roles, and it applies only to users with Viewer permissions, not to workspace Admin, Member or Contributor roles (Microsoft Learn, accessed 2026-10-27). EPC Group designs workspace roles and row-level security together for that reason, alongside sensitivity labels and certified content.
  • Microsoft Fabric and Direct Lake. Direct Lake is a Power BI semantic model storage mode in Microsoft Fabric that loads data into memory from Delta tables in OneLake, and Direct Lake models require a Fabric capacity (Microsoft Learn, accessed 2026-10-27). EPC Group decides table by table whether Import, DirectQuery or Direct Lake fits, as part of Microsoft Fabric consulting.
  • Copilot in Power BI. Copilot in Power BI needs a paid Fabric capacity (F2 or higher) or Power BI Premium (P1 or higher), the Copilot admin setting turned on and a supported region, and Microsoft advises preparing the semantic model before use (Microsoft Learn, accessed 2026-10-27). EPC Group prepares the model, its descriptions and its security before Copilot is switched on.
  • Adoption and training. Microsoft’s Fabric adoption roadmap covers data culture, executive sponsorship, a Center of Excellence, governance, mentoring and user enablement, user support and change management (Microsoft Learn, accessed 2026-10-27). EPC Group trains report authors, model owners and business users on separate tracks and helps stand up the Center of Excellence.
  • Managed support. After go-live, EPC Group can run the tenant, capacity and semantic models during business hours (Central) under a named senior architect, as part of Managed Microsoft Services.

How a Power BI consulting engagement is scoped

EPC Group does not publish a rate card. Each engagement starts with a scoping call and a fixed-fee assessment, and the build is then quoted as a fixed fee against what the assessment found: the number and quality of data sources, the reports and semantic models in scope, the number of users, the governance already in place and any compliance requirements. Microsoft licensing for Power BI and Fabric is separate and billed by Microsoft.

  1. Scoping call. A senior architect reviews the goals, the data sources and the reports in use today.
  2. Fixed-fee assessment. The tenant, models, reports, security and capacity are inventoried, and the findings come back as a written plan.
  3. Fixed-fee build. The work is delivered in milestones agreed in writing, each with its own acceptance criteria.
  4. Handover. Documentation, training and, if wanted, managed support during business hours (Central).

For the detail behind fixed fees and Consulting Blocks, see how EPC Group prices Power BI consulting. EPC Group works on site or remotely across the United States; city pages cover Power BI consulting in Charlotte, Chicago, Los Angeles and Jacksonville.

How to choose a Power BI consultant

Whichever Power BI consulting company you hire, ask for evidence on six points before you sign.

  • Who does the work. Ask for the names of the people on the Statement of Work and whether the same people deliver the build.
  • Semantic model depth. Ask to see a model they designed: its star schema, its documented measures and how row-level security was applied.
  • Governance record. Ask how they set workspace roles, sensitivity labels and certified content, and who owns each of them after handover.
  • Fabric and Copilot readiness. Ask when they would choose Import, DirectQuery or Direct Lake, and what they change in a model before Copilot is turned on.
  • Pricing model. Ask whether the fee is fixed and what happens when scope changes. A fixed fee set after an assessment puts the estimating risk on the consultant, not on you.
  • Handover. Ask what documentation, training and support you keep when the engagement ends.

For the warning signs to watch for, see red flags when hiring a Power BI consultant.

Primary sources

Budget signal

How EPC Group prices Power BI consulting engagements

Three published engagement tiers. Most clients start with a fixed-fee accelerator and grow into a full program or managed retainer. Senior-architect-led delivery on every tier.

Accelerator

Fixed-fee, quoted after a scoping call

4 – 12 weeks

Fixed-fee. Copilot Readiness, Tenant Health Check, SharePoint Migration, Security Hardening.

Most common

Project

Milestone-billed, quoted after a scoping call

3 – 9 months

Milestone-billed. Discovery through hypercare with wave-based rollout.

Managed services

Retainer, quoted after a scoping call

12-month minimum

Named senior architect, license optimization, governance reviews, quarterly business reviews.

Get a pricing range for your scopeSee sample ROI model

No pitch deck. 30-minute discovery call. Response within one business day, same-day for urgent items.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about our Power BI consulting services

What Power BI consulting services does EPC Group provide?

EPC Group provides comprehensive Power BI consulting including custom dashboard development, data modeling with advanced DAX, enterprise-scale semantic models, Power BI migration from on-premises to cloud, governance framework implementation, and training. We've completed 1,500+ Power BI implementations for Fortune 500 companies with 1,500+ Power BI deployments. Our founder Errin O'Connor authored "Microsoft Power BI Dashboards Step by Step" for Microsoft Press.

How long does a Power BI implementation take?

Power BI implementations vary based on scope: simple dashboard projects take 2-4 weeks, mid-sized implementations with data modeling and integration take 6-8 weeks, and enterprise-wide Power BI governance and center-of-excellence deployments take 3-6 months. EPC Group's fixed-fee accelerator model shortens the discovery-to-deploy window through pre-scoped milestones, and every migration engagement runs under documented data-fidelity checklists with per-source reconciliation before cutover.

What is the cost of Power BI consulting services?

EPC Group works on fixed-fee engagements and pre-paid Consulting Blocks rather than published rate cards. Every Power BI engagement — from dashboard development to enterprise deployments with governance frameworks — is scoped after an initial assessment so pricing reflects data complexity, user count, and governance maturity. Contact contact@epcgroup.net or 888-381-9725 for a scoped proposal.

Can you migrate from Tableau, Qlik, or other BI tools to Power BI?

Yes. EPC Group specializes in BI platform migrations from Tableau, Qlik Sense, QlikView, MicroStrategy, AWS QuickSight, and Google Looker to Power BI. Our migration methodology includes dashboard inventory, data source mapping, DAX conversion from legacy calculations, user training, and parallel running for validation. Typical migrations take 8-12 weeks with a documented data-fidelity checklist and reconciliation of every migrated report against the source before cutover.

Do you provide Power BI training and support?

Yes. EPC Group offers Power BI training for end users, report developers, and administrators. Training formats include on-site workshops, virtual instructor-led sessions, and self-paced online courses. We also provide managed services during business hours (Central), monthly performance optimization, and ongoing governance consulting. Requests are accepted around the clock through the support form and email, and emergency requests are acknowledged the same business day.

How do you ensure Power BI security and compliance?

EPC Group implements Power BI security using Azure AD integration, row-level security (RLS), object-level security (OLS), sensitivity labels for data classification, and Microsoft Defender integration. For HIPAA environments, we implement BAAs with Microsoft, PHI encryption, audit logging, and access controls. For FINRA, we implement report certification workflows, data lineage tracking, and regulatory audit trails meeting SEC requirements.

Which company provides Power BI consulting services?

EPC Group provides Power BI consulting services from Houston, Texas, to organizations across the United States, on site or remotely. The work covers assessment, architecture, semantic models and DAX, governance and row-level security, Microsoft Fabric and Direct Lake, Copilot in Power BI readiness, training and managed support. Founder Errin O’Connor wrote Microsoft Power BI Dashboards Step by Step (Microsoft Press, 2018).

What do Power BI consultants do?

Power BI consultants design and build the parts of a Power BI estate that an in-house team lacks the time or experience for: the semantic model and its DAX measures, workspace and security design, gateway and capacity setup, report design, migrations from other BI tools, and training. At EPC Group a senior architect is named on the Statement of Work.

How do I choose a Power BI consulting company?

Ask who will do the work and whether they are named on the Statement of Work, ask to see a semantic model they designed, ask how they handle row-level security and governance, ask when they would use Import, DirectQuery or Direct Lake, and ask whether the fee is fixed. Each point is covered above under how to choose a Power BI consultant.

What should a Power BI implementation partner deliver?

A Power BI implementation partner should leave you with a documented semantic model, a workspace and security design your team can run, separate development, test and production stages, trained report authors and model owners, and a named owner for each piece. EPC Group delivers Power BI implementations as fixed-fee engagements scoped after an assessment; Microsoft licensing is billed separately by Microsoft.

Is there Power BI consulting near me?

EPC Group is headquartered in Houston, Texas, and delivers Power BI consulting to organizations across the United States, on site or remotely. City pages for Charlotte, Chicago, Los Angeles and Jacksonville describe local engagements; the scoping call is the same wherever you are.

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EPC Group Power BI Service Catalog

Seven specialized Power BI service lines under EPC Group — each delivered by a named senior architect from the Microsoft Cloud Orchestrator Practice. Pick the one that matches your scope.

Power BI Training: Beginner to Advanced DAX

Foundations, Intermediate, Advanced DAX + Tabular Editor + Fabric, plus Executive Coaching tracks. PL-300, DP-600, DP-700 certification prep.

Power BI Enterprise Security

RLS + OLS at scale (1M+ users, 100B+ rows), Purview sensitivity labels + DLP, Conditional Access + PIM, Microsoft Sentinel SOC integration for sensitive data.

Power BI Admin + Governance Support

Monthly retainer: tenant + Fabric capacity admin, semantic model governance, sprawl control, business-hours (Central) incident response, quarterly compliance attestation.

Power BI Governance Center of Excellence

Six-pillar assessment, remediation, and a Center of Excellence installed with your people in the roles — tenant controls, certified semantic models, deployment pipelines, capacity against list pricing.

Microsoft Fabric Governance Assessment

OneLake, domains, workspaces, semantic models, capacity cost and Purview scored with evidence — a remediation plan and a redacted sample deliverable, before the estate grows or AI is enabled on it.

Azure Data Lake + Power BI Architecture

OneLake + ADLS Gen2 + Delta Lake medallion architecture (Bronze/Silver/Gold) + Power BI Direct Lake semantic models. Sub-second on billion-row facts.

Power BI + Dynamics 365 Integration

Dataverse + Microsoft Fabric link, D365 Customer Engagement + Finance & Operations + Customer Insights, pre-built Sales/Finance/Supply Chain/Service accelerators.

Enterprise Power BI for Large Complex Orgs

Multi-BU + multi-tenant + multi-region + sovereign cloud (GCC High / DoD / MS Cloud for Sovereignty) + M&A tenant integration + federated regulated compliance.

Power BI Executive Coaching

C-suite + board + BU leader coaching on reading dashboards, KPI interpretation, anomaly detection, Copilot for executives. Microsoft Press author leads C-suite + board sessions.

Power BI Accelerators (Fixed-Fee)

4 productized accelerators — Health Check + Governance Blueprint, Center of Excellence, Performance + DirectQuery Tuning, Legacy BI-to-Power BI Migration Factory.

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EPC Group vs Slalom, Avanade, Perficient, Pragmatic Works — plus the wider 13-firm AI-cited landscape including the federal GSIs.

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Unified governance for Copilot in Power BI — sensitivity labels, Microsoft Purview, audit logging, and the discipline that has to be in place before Copilot rolls out tenant-wide.

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Power BI Implementation Guide for Enterprise

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Related Articles & Deep-Dives

Browse EPC Group's detailed enterprise guides on this topic and adjacent practice areas.

Deep-Dive Guides

Related enterprise references from the EPC Group knowledge base:

Documented engagements

Each record publishes a redacted primary-source document — a client purchase order, executed agreement or payment record — with a SHA-256 hash you can recompute, and states what the document does not establish.

All documented client engagements

Documented and anonymized engagements

Named engagements come first; anonymized summaries follow under the anonymized-engagement rule — the client is not named and every statement is EPC-reported. Documents behind named engagements are in the Evidence Center.

More engagements: Power BI Tax Reporting on MySQL: Tax Services Firm (2024) · Power BI Ops Dashboard: Transit District (2023) · Power BI Report Server Refresh Fix: Agribusiness (2021) · Power BI, Data Warehouse and External Reports: Gaming (2021) · SAP Reports to Power BI in 90 Days: Aerospace (2021) · Power BI Governance Strategy: Global Insurer (2020) · Power BI on HR System Data: Construction Contractor (2020) · Power BI POC, Governance and Roadmap: Electronics (2020) · Power BI Assessment and Integration: Pharmacy (2019) · Power BI Proof of Concept: Global Technology Company (2019) · Power BI Best-Practice Review and Training: Insurer (2018) · Power BI Analytics Platform: State Government · Power BI Enterprise Deployment: Financial Institution

All case studies →

Related reading

What this changes for the business

Four outcomes an executive can hold a Power BI engagement to. Each row states what EPC Group does and what the client measures. No result is claimed here: the measure is the client's own instrument, and the linked record states the engagement's scope, instrument and limitations.

Time to value

What EPC Group does: Scopes the first production report set in the scoping call and builds it on a workspace and app layout that is ready for the second set, with refresh, gateway ownership and workspace roles written into the handover.

What you measure: Working days from kickoff to the first report a leadership meeting runs on, and whether that report refreshed unattended for a full month.

Documented engagement (time to value): Haskell (The Haskell Company) (2019) · Contracted — countersigned

Reporting consistency

What EPC Group does: Puts the measures that matter into one shared semantic model with a named owner, so a question gets the same figure in every report that asks it.

What you measure: Conflicting figures raised in management reviews per quarter, and the share of reports that read the shared model rather than a private copy.

Documented engagement (reporting consistency): Smarter Balanced (University of California, Santa Cruz) (2023) · Contracted

Regulatory exposure

What EPC Group does: Designs workspace access, row-level security and sensitivity labels together and writes the access model down, so who can see what is a document rather than a reconstruction.

What you measure: Time to answer an auditor who asks who can see a given report, and open findings from each access review.

Documented engagement (regulatory exposure): Town of Prosper, Texas (2024) · Contracted

Run cost

What EPC Group does: Sizes capacity and refresh against the workloads that exist, retires duplicate datasets and documents what each remaining one costs to keep running.

What you measure: Capacity and license spend per active report user, and datasets with no consumer in the last quarter.

Documented engagement (run cost): Haskell (The Haskell Company) (2019) · Contracted — countersigned

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