Power BI Embedded - Does it Make Sense to Pause and Start the Capacity?

[Whatever1]

We have a product and we want to have a dashboard for some of our customers. Most users use the normal screens but "manager" types would want to periodically look at the dashboard. It doesn't make sense to pay $750 USD per month to enable a couple dozen people to look at a dashboard for 5 minutes every few weeks.

I doubt that the dashboards would be used for more than 10 or 20 hours a month. I just don't know when those hours would be.

However, it looks like it would be possible to have the application start the capacity when the user clicks to see the dashboard and pause it when the user closes the dashboard or signs out. 

Is anyone doing that? Would it really work or would there be too much delay in starting the service and generating a dashboard? 

[Whatever1]

I understand that it is technically possible but I was wondering if anyone was doing it with an actual product and if was a satisfactory solution. My main concern is if we had someone click on a link to resume the capacity and generate the report if it took 30 seconds to resume the capacity it just wouldn't be a realistic solution. 

[V-lianl-msft]

As far as I know, there may be delays in restoring capacity and re accessing reports, which is mainly related to server and network bandwidth.

[V-lianl-msft]

Hi @Whatever1 ,

Please refer to the REST api. It seems to be working fine. 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/power-bi-embedded/capacities/suspend

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/power-bi-embedded/capacities/resume

Here is guide for setting up Postman:

https://www.codit.eu/blog/authenticate-postman-against-azure-service-management-api/ 

Best Regards,
Liang
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