PBI - quotation model

[TomerIwanir1]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to build a quotation model in Power BI, but I haven’t started yet and feel a bit lost.

I know I’ll have a fixed Excel file that contains product cost data, and on the sales side, the sales reps will likely fill out another Excel file with customer-facing pricing.

One of my main concerns is how to handle multiple quotations over time, and how to structure the data model to support that.

My goal is to allow the end user (e.g., sales manager or rep) to interactively play with the customer price inputs inside Power BI — for example, adjusting unit prices or discounts and seeing the impact on margins or totals.

I’d really appreciate any feedback, best practices, or examples from people who have built similar quotation models in Power BI.

Thanks in advance!

---

[lbendlin · Accepted solution]

Power BI is a tool to gain insights from data.  For a quoting process use a quoting tool.

[BA_Pete]

Hi @TomerIwanir1 ,

This is a pretty huge question and almost impossible to answer fully as so much will depend on your data structure, common columns etc. etc.

However, here's a steer on a couple of the larger points:

Re: Handling mutliple quotes over time.

I would split the data up into a 'ProjectHeader' table and a 'QuoteDetail' table. ProjectHeader contains a single row per 'Project', with stuff like Project ID, Project Desc, Client, Lead Engineer, etc. QuoteDetail then contains a row for each new quote, along with Project ID, Quote Date, Quote ID, Quote Desc, etc. You can relate the two tables together on Project ID and this will give you a very versatile model platform to report from. You can obviously add further ~Detail tables off the ProjectHeader table as well if you find other elements of the project change over time.

You can additionally create a QuoteItemDetail table that you can relate back to the QuoteDetail table on Quote ID, listing the different materials/labour quantities and costs etc. per quote, and so on, and so on.

Re: End user interactivity.

For this one, I think you should look into What-If Parameters. They are designed for exactly the scenario you describe:

Use parameters to visualize variables - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

Pete