It starts with one useful report. Two years later there are forty flows, six near-identical dashboards, two versions of revenue, and one person quietly holding it all together on their own laptop. We build the good version of this — and we clean up the other one.
None of these are unusual, and almost none of them are solved by buying more licences.
Almost always the data model, not the licence. Flattened tables, calculated columns doing a measure's job, and DirectQuery pointed at something unhappy.
A sign the report answers the wrong question. If the first click is Export, the dashboard is decoration.
Duplicated logic in separate files. Measures belong in one shared model, defined once, so there's nothing to reconcile.
And it's usually their side project. When they take a holiday, reporting stops — that's a business risk, not an IT preference.
Stale data presented confidently is worse than no data. Failures should page someone, not sit silently in a service.
Premium features switched on to solve a problem that was really a modelling problem. Worth checking before renewal.
We work in your tenant, under your licences, with documentation and a second owner as part of the deal.
Reports that load fast and numbers everyone agrees on.
Case study a badge-kiosk inspection system with Power BI in its stack
Internal tools on the licence you're already paying for.
Flows that are documented, monitored, and owned by more than one person.
For when Power Platform quietly became business-critical without anyone deciding.
Power Platform is the right answer when your users are internal and already licensed, the data volumes are reasonable, and speed of delivery matters. Custom software takes over when the logic gets genuinely complex, the volumes get large, the users are outside your organization, or per-user licensing would cost more than just building the thing.
We build both, so the recommendation follows your situation rather than a product we happen to sell. If a canvas app has outgrown the platform, we'll say so — and we can build the custom replacement, or hand you the analysis to take wherever you like.
Most Power BI pain is a modelling problem wearing a performance costume. Fix the schema and the rest gets easy.
One shared semantic model, one definition of revenue. Two reports that disagree is a governance bug, not a rounding issue.
Everything load-bearing gets documented and a named second owner. Reporting shouldn't stop when one person is on leave.
We look for the cheapest compliant option before recommending premium capacity or a Microsoft Fabric SKU — ideally before your renewal date.
Usually not — and it is worth checking before you buy. Slow reports are most often a modelling problem: a flat table where a star schema belongs, calculated columns doing the work of measures, or a DirectQuery source under strain. We look at the model first and tell you if capacity is genuinely the constraint.
Yes, and often that is cheaper than starting over. We will tell you plainly which reports are worth repairing, which should be consolidated into a shared model, and which are duplicates that can quietly be retired.
Real, for a specific job: internal tools, forms, and workflows for people who already have Microsoft licences. It gets expensive and awkward when you need complex logic, heavy data volumes, or an external-facing product, and we will tell you when you have crossed that line.
Common, and fixable. We inventory what exists, map what each flow touches, document the load-bearing ones, retire the dead ones, and put the survivors into solutions with a deployment pipeline — so changes stop happening in production.
You do — it all lives in your tenant, your environments, your workspaces, under your licences. We build inside your Microsoft estate rather than ours, and documentation and a named second owner are part of delivery.
Power Platform when the users are internal and licensed, the data is modest, and speed matters. Custom when the logic is complex, the volume is large, the users are external, or per-user licensing would cost more than building it. We build both, so the recommendation follows your situation.
Not on anyone's schedule but yours. Fabric bundles Power BI with data engineering and warehousing on capacity-based licensing — genuinely useful when you have the data volumes and the team to feed it, expensive shelf-ware when you do not. Your existing Power BI reports keep working either way. We will tell you whether Fabric solves a problem you actually have, before a renewal conversation decides for you.
Usually less than the Premium capacity people buy instead. Most engagements here are short and specific — a model rebuilt, a slow report fixed, a tenant put in order — scoped and quoted before work starts rather than billed open-ended. The review of your slowest report is free, and it is what produces the scope.
We'll tell you why it's slow and what it would take to fix — before anyone talks about licences.
Call 832-598-8234 or email msco@stoneagesoftware.com. Houston, Texas — serving Houston, The Woodlands, Conroe, Sugar Land, Katy, Pearland, and the Greater Houston metro.
We read your message, an engineer replies with questions or a straight answer, and if a call would help, we book one. From the first reply on, you're talking to the people who'd do the work.
