In this guide 6 sections
Ask who defines the metrics, whose licence the tool sits under, what documentation you receive, whether your team can extend the model, and what support exists after handover. The answers show whether you are buying dashboards you own or a dependency you must keep renting.
Who decides what each number means?
Start here, because it predicts the project’s fate. A consultant who opens a tool and starts dragging charts is guessing at definitions, while one who asks for your margin formula first has done this before.
Ask whether there is a workshop to agree metrics, and who signs them off. Ask to see a sample definition page from a past engagement, with identifying details removed.
Be wary of a promise to “figure it out from the data”. Data shows what was recorded, and only your team can say what a return or a credit note should do to a figure.
- Is there a metric definition workshop?
- Who on our side signs off each definition?
- Can we see a sample definition page?
- How are disagreements recorded?
Whose licence and whose account is it?
Power BI, Looker Studio and Metabase differ in cost and in who holds the account. Ask whether the workspace will be created in your company’s tenant or in the consultant’s. If it is theirs, leaving them means rebuilding.
Ask who pays for per-user licences, how many you need and what happens at renewal, since a free tool with a paid hosting layer is still a cost. Request the licence terms in writing before work starts.
Ask which tool they recommend and why. A good answer names your data sources, your user count and your team’s skills. A weak answer is simply the tool they already use.
What do you receive at handover?
Dashboards alone are not a deliverable. You also need the data model, the connection details, the refresh schedule and the logic behind each measure, so ask for every one of these by name.
Ask to see a handover pack from another job. It should list data sources, tables, measures, scheduled jobs and who holds which credentials, and a recorded walkthrough helps a new hire a year later.
Check who holds the source files. Power BI pbix files, SQL scripts and dbt projects should sit in your repository. Also check who holds the gateway credentials and the service account that refreshes the data, since a consultant’s personal login will stop working the day they leave.
- Data model diagram
- Measure and formula list
- Refresh schedule and failure contacts
- Source files in your repository
- Recorded walkthrough
Can your own team extend it?
The first dashboards are only the start. Within six months someone will want a new filter or a new branch, so ask whether a competent analyst on your side could add it without calling the consultant.
Ask about training. Will your staff build a report during the engagement while the consultant watches? Learning by doing sticks far better than a slide session.
Ask what is deliberately kept simple. Over-clever DAX or nested queries become a trap for the next person who opens the file. Prefer plain measures with comments, named tables and a folder structure that a stranger can follow on the first morning.
What happens after go-live?
Dashboards break. A source system renames a column, a refresh fails overnight or a report owner leaves. Ask who is on call, how fast they respond and what the fixed fee actually covers.
Get a named person and a response time in writing. Then ask for two references and call them.
Put one question to each reference: what broke after handover, and how long did the fix take? Their answers are worth more than any proposal.
BI consultant question sheet
A one-page scoring sheet. Rows are the five topics: metric ownership, licence and account, handover pack, extension by your team and support after go-live. Columns are the question, the consultant’s answer, evidence shown, a score from one to five and a follow-up note. A strip at the bottom compares two or three consultants side by side.
Open a blank worksheet to printQuestions owners ask
Should the consultant or our team own the tool account?
Your company should. Accounts, workspaces and source files in your name mean you can change partners later without rebuilding anything. Insist on this before the first invoice.
How do we compare two proposals?
Score both on the same question sheet. Compare handover contents, support terms and licence cost, not the number of dashboards promised. A long list of charts says little about whether the numbers agree.
Do we need a consultant at all?
Not always. A capable analyst and a free tool can cover a single-source report. A consultant helps when sources are many, when definitions are disputed or when nobody in-house has built a model.
What is a fair first scope?
One function, one or two sources and a short list of agreed metrics. Prove those, check the figures against the ledger, then widen the work in stages. Each stage should end with a signed-off set of definitions and a handover check, so you can stop or change partner cleanly at any point.