Forum Discussion
Pro vs. Licensing question
I am concerned about Pro licensing vs. Free licensing. I have a small analytics team (about 15 people) that serves many operational employees and leaders. My small team wants to use Pro for collaboration amongst the 15 of us, data refreshing, etc. However, I'm concerned that this will somehow mean that all of our clients will also need to have Pro based on some things I read but may have (hopefully) misinterpreted.
In other words, there seems to be a strange irony here such that upgrading our license will effectively reduce overall functionality. Because if we stay with the Free license then it seems all our clients can "consume" our output with their free licenses. But if we move to Pro and our clients don't then they will be out of luck.
Have I just misunderstood how the environement of mixed licensing works? I really hope so.
You can take a look at this document. There is a list of Power BI Pro content as below. If the analytic team share Pro content with free users, free users will not be able to see these contents.
- Data from a DirectQuery dataset, such asSQL Server Analysis Services tabular data,Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, or Apache Spark for HDInsight.
- Data from adataset that refreshes more frequently than daily.
- Data from a dataset that connects to on-premises data using thePower BI Gateway - Personal or the On-premises Data Gateway.
- Data (including reports, dashboards or tiles) from a dataset that usesRow-level security (RLS).
- A dashboard or report that's installed from anorganizational content pack.
- A dashboard, report, or dataset that's contained in agroup workspace.
- A dashboard that contains data streamed at a rate above 10k rows/hour.
But if the analytic team only share the content which only contains following items, both pro and free users can see them.
- A dashboard or report connected to content packs for services (e.g. Dynamics CRM, Salesforce, and Google Analytics).
- A dashboard or report with data imported from files such as Excel spreadsheets, Power BI Desktop, and CSV.
- Tiles pinnedfrom a report in SQL Server Reporting Services.
Best Regards,
Herbert
26 Replies
You can take a look at this document. There is a list of Power BI Pro content as below. If the analytic team share Pro content with free users, free users will not be able to see these contents.
- Data from a DirectQuery dataset, such asSQL Server Analysis Services tabular data,Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, or Apache Spark for HDInsight.
- Data from adataset that refreshes more frequently than daily.
- Data from a dataset that connects to on-premises data using thePower BI Gateway - Personal or the On-premises Data Gateway.
- Data (including reports, dashboards or tiles) from a dataset that usesRow-level security (RLS).
- A dashboard or report that's installed from anorganizational content pack.
- A dashboard, report, or dataset that's contained in agroup workspace.
- A dashboard that contains data streamed at a rate above 10k rows/hour.
But if the analytic team only share the content which only contains following items, both pro and free users can see them.
- A dashboard or report connected to content packs for services (e.g. Dynamics CRM, Salesforce, and Google Analytics).
- A dashboard or report with data imported from files such as Excel spreadsheets, Power BI Desktop, and CSV.
- Tiles pinnedfrom a report in SQL Server Reporting Services.
Best Regards,
Herbert
I imported a CSV file into Power BI Desktop. I created 2 visualizations (a line graph and a clustered column chart) and uploaded that to power bi. When I attempted to use the web part (preview) it is still saying a user with the Power BI Free license needs pro to consume the data.
How does this violate below?
- A dashboard or report with data imported from files such as Excel spreadsheets, Power BI Desktop, and CSV.
Creightonb Did you set up a gateway/refresh for the dataset?
v-haibl-msft Does this mean that, if I build a dashboard with an excel file residing in SharePoint Online, then I'm using Pro content?
Anonymous it doesn't matter, with the new license model in 5 days, only pro or premium can share.
robarivas You haven't mis-understood anything. If you as a report author use Pro content in the creation of a Power BI element, then the end user that is consuming that content is required to have the same level of licensing.
You mention "client" so depending on where data is stored, you could use Power BI Embedded in an application for them to access Power BI reports, and in that case, the pricing is completely different. But that would only be available in external facing applications.
Ok, so it sounds like if my team's end goal is to produce reports, dashboards, etc. for very many people then our only or best option is to stick with free licensing. (The assumption here is that the organization is unwilling to purchase licensing at this time for a slew of non-analysts).
Does it strike anyone else as extremely ironic that the cause of this pricing policy/structure can result in more robust use with the free version instead of the paid version??
robarivas I think the vast majority of businesses would fall into using the "Pro" version pretty fast. Groups alone is a good reason so content doesn't get stuck in one persons workspace. If you can make it work without a gateway, and other Pro features - cool, but I would be suprised if the majority of people stay with Free after the initial "POC" phase of determining if Power BI is a good fit.
robarivas yes you are right, it is a big problem, I suggest in your case to use only free license.
see this thread here
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Hello All in this thread.
We have multiple databases where data is read from, we have a small team of power users who extract colate and report from these databases.
We have a couple of hundred consumers of these reports.
From what this thread says, the power users need pro, and because the data would be extracted using a gateway, then the consumers would need Pro not the free version to access these reports.
Is this correct.
NB
All users and consumers reside on one network.
Thanks,
david.
Dsm999 To add. If you have a couple hundred end users, I would find out when your next true-up is with MSFT subscriptions and see if you can negotiate a better rate. For larger implementations, it's highly likely that your cost will drop per license.
