Introduction to Automated Decision Making in BI: power BI: The Basics.

Last updated on November 18th, 2025 at 12:57 pm

Honestly, I said, the first image that was formed in my mind after hearing the terms automated decision making in BI was that it was a corporate buzzword. Then, I tested Power BI at least half a day, and it made sense. This is not ultra-fancy dashboards.

It is all about letting your data actually make decisions on your behalf and sleep.

In case you are also interested in how automated decision making BI works and wish to test it, here are the things that I learnt.

What Decision Making in BI is really Automated?

Having briefly set aside the matter of tools, here is something to make clear. Automated decision making on BI implies that your system analyses data, identifies patterns and either proposes them or makes them automatically. Waiting until monthly reports to get a response. No manual number-crunching.

Consider it in this way; other than checking your sales figures every morning then making a decision on whether you need to order stock or not, the system reminds you when you have stock at the threshold. Or better still it orders itself.

Walmart and UPS are among companies that apply AI in inventory management and to optimize the logistics respectively, which saves them several millions in real-time. The thing is, though, that you do not have to have a Fortune 500 budget to begin with.

The Reason I Chose Power BI as a Beginner.

Having tried out a few alternatives, Power BI became the most reasonable choice to a person only getting into automated decision making BI. Here’s why:

It’s free to start. Microsoft also has free learning modules and sample dashboards and these are what literally teach you something useful.

It connects to everything. Your excel sheets, Google Analytics, databases, Power BI is what is needed to consolidate it all, without making you a code expert.

Automation is built-in. You are able to arrange notifications, periodic reports, and even connect it to power automate in order to make decisions that prompt actions across applications to happen.

And there is huge community. In my case, I had to rely on the power BI subreddit where I managed to find a solution within hours when I was stuck.

Your preliminary measures: Automated Decisions.

This is how I would begin doing it the next time.

Step 1: You will have to get Power BI Desktop (Free).

Install power BI Desktop on Microsoft. There is no need to think about it too much, use the free version. It is possible to upgrade later.

Step 2: Connect Your Data

Start simple. Connect it in case you have sales data in Excel or on a Google Sheet. It is very simple to use, as you can drag and drop your file in Power BI.

I gave this basic sales spreadsheet a test and in 10 minutes, I already had live charts that were updating automatically.

Step 3: Use Building to Create Your First Dashboard.

This is where it gets fun. There are templates in power BI, but anyhow? Just start clicking around. Add a chart. Pick your data columns. Watch it visualize.

Juno School has a free course on Power BI that teaches you to follow this step step by step in case you would like to learn.

Step 4: Set Up Automated Alerts

Here’s the game-changer. You can say to Power BI: When the sales are lower than X, email me. Or when stock grows to this size, sound my alarm in Slack.

It is automated decision making BI into action. Your data initiates decisions yet you do not monitor it 24/7.

Go to your dashboard- Data alerts- Set your threshold. Done.

Step 5: Meet Power Automate to Real Automation.

Want to take it further? Power Automate allows the chaining of actions. As: Once this sales target has been achieved, automatically a celebratory message is sent to the team and the tracker is updated.

I installed one that gives me an alert in cases of sudden traffic spikes in the site – it took approximately 15 minutes. The AutomateM365 video channel contains walkthroughs which in fact demonstrate how and not necessarily discuss it.

What You’ll Learn Along the Way

When you go futzing with Power BI, you will find out it does not just do charts. Intelligent features currently allow you to pose questions using simple English. Type “show me top customers this month” and it puts up the visual to your eyes.

That is the change between the manual reports to smart automation that understands what is important to your business.

Look Out against these Amateur Goofs.

I committed some mistakes initially. Skip these:

Don’t ignore data quality. Power BI is not capable of correcting the typos or gaps of your spreadsheet. Good automated decisions are based on clean data.

Start small. On day one, I attempted to connect five data sources with which I became overwhelmed. Pick one. Master it. Then expand.

Test your alerts. Establish a trigger and activate it by hand and ensure notifications are effective. There is nothing like telling automation is on when it is not.

Free Resources That are Indeed Helpful.

Here’s what helped me most:

• Official Microsoft tutorials: First Power BI modules.
• Power BI challenges of DataCamp by doing.
• The power BI Reddit community – ordinary individuals trying to overcome real problems, weekly practice challenges.

My Take After Testing This

Automated decision making BI is no future technology. And it hass got right here, and you can get going, free, this very day. But the Power BI enables everyone, including non-data scientists, to have access to it.

The actual change would occur once you learn to take your dashboards off your hands and allow information to inform you when it is necessary to perform a task. Then BI automation has its moment, and it does not concern prettier charts. It involves being smarter in making faster moves.

Start with one simple alert. Build from there. You will find that you are able to automate decision making activities that had been consuming your day very fast.

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