Forum Discussion
Refresh taking multiple licenses for custom database
Another way to do it is to use the Power BI REST API to push /refresh the dataset. Your code could control the connections and thus not have to use up all licenses. Parallel processing helps performance, but it also depends on your data source and a lot of other factors. For the most part I have found that pushing data is fast and you have control. In this scenario I would suggest you do a push. (I assume you are talking about the service here, not PBI RS)
luisrh do I have to have the power bi for developers? How can I access the API without making a seperate application?
You do have to register an 'app' with azure AD. This is mostly so you can access the API. You can create this in Azure and there is a simple guide that shows you how to do that - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/developer/walkthrough-push-data
The API's are simple and you can use a tool like fiddler or Postman to do test it out. If you are embedding in your application, you will need to get up to speed with the API. It's very easy to use, as well.
Good luck!
Luis