IQ‑Insights vs. Excel + Power BI: The Smarter Way to Do Schedule Analytics

For years, project teams have relied on Excel and Power BI to manage schedule data. But using spreadsheets and dashboards for schedule analytics is slow, manual, and resource-heavy.

IQ‑Insights changes the game by delivering real-time, AI-powered schedule analysis—no spreadsheets, no dashboard builds, and no developer time required.


Why Excel + Power BI Fall Short for Schedule Analytics

1. Long Setup Time

With Excel and Power BI, you don’t get schedule analytics out of the box. Teams spend weeks—or even months—building dashboards, creating formulas, and maintaining custom templates.

2. Manual Maintenance

As projects evolve, dashboards break. Formulas need updating, new data sources require rework, and reporting becomes a never-ending cycle of patching and fixing.

3. No Built-in Schedule Intelligence

Schedule health checks, delay analysis, critical path shifts, and risk insights all require manual builds. There’s no plug-and-play solution for this in Excel or Power BI.

Why IQ‑Insights Is Better

Instant Setup

IQ‑Insights works out of the box. Upload your schedule export, and the platform handles the rest. No formulas, no modeling, no custom visuals.

Conversational AI

Ask questions like,

  • “What’s driving the delay to Project X?”
  • “Show me how the critical path changed.”

IQ‑Insights responds instantly with explanations you can actually use—no coding or dashboard design required.

Automatic Health & Change Tracking

IQ‑Insights monitors schedule health, tracks changes across versions, and highlights delay drivers—all automatically.

Real-Time Reporting

Reports are generated instantly with charts, tables, and natural-language summaries—ready to share with your team or client.

Zero Maintenance

Because IQ‑Insights is cloud-native, you never have to rebuild models or maintain dashboards. The system updates itself automatically.

Summary
FeatureIQ‑InsightsExcel + Power BI
Deployment SpeedLive in hoursWeeks or months to build dashboards
Ease of UsePlain‑language AI copilot, no training requiredRequires ETL, data modeling, and advanced skills
Out-of-the-Box Health ChecksBuilt-in schedule quality & delay analyticsMust custom build metrics and visuals
Change TrackingAutomatic version comparison & delay detectionManual version loads and data diffing
ReportingAuto-generated, shareable narrative reportsManual report creation and formatting
Maintenance LoadZero—automatic updates includedHigh—requires constant dashboard upkeep
Cost ModelFlexible SaaS pricing, free to startSoftware licenses plus developer and IT support
The Bottom Line

If your team is tired of cobbling together spreadsheets and dashboards to understand schedule data, IQ‑Insights is the smarter path forward.

No build time. No maintenance headaches. Just real answers—instantly.