Licencing vs collaborative forms between Power BI Pro and Power BI Desktop

[melindapsy]

The university I work for provided me with Power BI Pro. This licensing is however not available with number of data experts who I need to collaborate with in the launch of a Power BI dashboard with the data we collected from multiple universities. The university I work for does not extend licences to anyone outside its own university. 

Can the collaboration with other non-university colleagues work if they have the M365 and the free version of Power BI (Desktop)? I understad that they should be able to prepare the data in the Desktop version of Power BI and share the files they prepared (.pbix) in OneDrive or SharePoint, to which I may be also given access and therefore integrate it in the Pro version.

An alternative could be to make a different M365 account (family /personal version) and then on top we buy monthly subscription to all the Power BI Pro licences I need (basically 3 people in total)?

Can anyone advise?

Many thanks,

Melinda

[v-huijiey-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @melindapsy ,

Hope all is going well.

Power BI Desktop users can indeed prepare data models and reports (.pbix files) and share them via OneDrive or SharePoint.

As a Power BI Pro user, you can access these .pbix files, upload them to the Power BI service, and integrate them into your project.

This workflow allows basic level collaboration between Power BI Desktop and Pro users.

Thinking another way is a possible solution by creating different Microsoft 365 accounts (Home/Personal version) and purchasing Power BI Pro licenses for the required members (3 people in total).

This approach will ensure that all members have the necessary permissions to fully collaborate in the Power BI service, including sharing and co-authoring content.

In summary, either ensure that all team members who need to collaborate on the Power BI service have a Power BI Pro license to effectively share and co-author content. When sharing .pbix files either via OneDrive or SharePoint, consider data governance and security policies, especially when working with data from multiple universities.

For more details about collaboration features in Power BI, see the following documentation:

Share Power BI reports and dashboards with coworkers and others - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

Ways to collaborate and share in Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

If you have other questions, please contact me at any time.

Best Regards,
Yang
Community Support Team

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