Forum Discussion
How to install Power BI Personal Gateway
So, yes, the new gateway at present is a Personal Gateway and not really intended as the DMG to be a central/shared gateway.
You should be able to logon to your Power BI site as your O365 "work" account when the gateway asks you for credentials. I always go out to powerbi.microsoft.com and sign-in to app.powerbi.com first to check connectivity/credentials with the service. When you first launch the Power BI Personal Gateway, it should ask for credentials and it is looking for the same credentials that you use to access the Power BI service. I use my company's "Work" organizational account (the same one I use for access to SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, etc.) Also, I believe that you also have to specificy the credentials that Power BI Personal Gateway runs under and this is asking for Windows credentials, so that should be in the form of DOMAIN\USERNAME with the appropriate password.
Thanks smoupre!
I just went to powerbi.microsoft.com. Upon entering my O365 global admin account, the same account I use to add/delete/modify anything in O365 admin, it redirects to app.powerbi.com and tells me "you already have an account, to complete signup, sign in with your Office 365 user ID and password".
If I already have an account, why do I get the feeling it is creating an account? (... "to complete signup, sign in with your O365 user ID and password...).
I click Continue -> and then I'm "Almost there" -- "You're signed in as [email protected]" and "By choosing Start, you agree to our terms and conditions and understand that your name and email address will be visible to other people in your institution."
So I don't have an account or do I? This is the exact information I have been looking for for ~48 hours. I haven't found any documentation on the steps I'm doing right now. Anyway...
I agree to the terms and conditions and then it brings me to a "Get Started" page and asks for my work email address, then I click SIGN UP!?... again, for an account I supposedly already have.
I enter my email, then it seems to loop back to where I was before, because it tells me "You already have an account, to complete signup, sign in with your Office 365 user ID and password. I click CONTINUE...
Then it tells me "No need to sign up. You already have a license for Microsoft Power BI". So I click "Ok, got it ->"
It brings me to app.powerbi.com.
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I do understand what you mean about it asking for windows credentials for running the service. I created an Active Directory account just for this purpose, but have yet to get past the logging in part in the Configuration Wizard whereafter I expect it to ask for domain credentials to run the service.
So, after creating a windows VM and installing Server 2012 and getting it prep'd for the new gateway, I can scrap it all and just tell the CFO, the person who told me to "put this on a different VM than the existing DMG", that he just needs to install it himself on his own personal laptop?
I think the very first sentence on the URL I pasted below needs to simply say "Install this on your personal computer, not a server. Once installed, log in with your Office 365 account (that has a Power BI license) and NOT your tenant administrator credentials." ---> that would probably save A LOT of time for A LOT of people
Thanks for your help by the way. I feel so much better that I am getting these answers because looking for this online gets me no where, except this page (https://support.powerbi.com/knowledgebase/articles/649846-power-bi-personal-gateway) which doesn't expalin half of what I learned from posting this thread.
OK, well, now that you are able to logon to Power BI app.powerbi.com, you should be able to use those credentials when the gateway asks you for them (first set of credentials).
It is not necessarily a bad thing to have a VM "server" running the gateway. If the user has a laptop, then the gateway won't be able to run and update data if the laptop is shut off or not connected to the network. The personal part comes into play because data (currently) in the new Power BI is essentially owned by the user. Users can share reports and dashboards but each data set is effectively owned by the user and thus the credentials you use for the gateway define what data sets you see. The DMG was different, there was more of a "global" admin interface where data sources could be entered by the adminstrator and then any gateways could update those data sources. More of your central control of things.
Thanks again smoupre. I was then able to log in. However, all my effort was for naught since there are no workbooks/datasets tied to our O365 global admin. I had to give our CFO local admin access to the VM I created so he could RDP to it and install the gateway there, and then log into it as himself.... and I had to give him a DOMAIN ADMIN account to enter in the service section. If they (MS) were trying to make the personal gateway even less intuitive than the first data management gateway, the passed that contest with flying colors. I just can't believe for how much I have read about how to set this up, it actually could have been summed up in one nice succinct sentence.... probabaly 30 words max.
Just wanted to add my story here for anyone who finds themselves Googling their way here:
1) You *can* install on Windows Server 2012, or indeed any Windows machine, virtual, physical, otherwise.
2) There are some gotchas.
CORRECT STEPS TO INSTALL PowerBI Personal Gateway AS A SERVICE ON A SERVER
BEFORE RUNNING INSTALLER
1) The account that is running the unintaller *must* be listed under the Log on as a service user rights for the machine.
- Run gpedit.msc
- Computer Configuration -> Windows Settings -> Security Settings -> Local Policies -> User Rights Assignment
- Double click on "Log on as a service."
- Add the user that will run the installer.
- OPTIONAL: If you intend for a different account to run the service, add that account as well.
2) Make sure you have administrator (elevated install) privileges.
3) Run installer as administrator (right click -> Run as Administrator)
4) Follow steps, sign into PowerBI.com, and then
5) You'll be asked to provide credentials for the service, fill in the install user's info (NOT the different account, as this will cause a File access error)
6) Now once the service is running, you can go change the credentials.
7) If you want to make changes to the gateway, you have to change the service account back to the one who performed the install (or at least I did in my experience, otherwise I got an error message.)