BI license

[limcheekeong]

Hi,

I was tasked to create a dashboard for my company and have completed it using BI desktop version. The dashboard is to share it among the various head of department. These HODs will only can view the dashboard and cannot edit it. May I know how can I achieve this requirement? These are the questions in mind:

• Do I need to purchase license for myself and for the HODs?
• If needed, what type of license shall I purchase? I have read the various license types and was confused. It seems to me that I have to purchase the Premium license but there are 2 types: per user and per capacity. Being a small company, I cannot afford to purchase per capacity license as this is too expensive. Can "per user premium license" achieve my requirement? If yes, do I need to purchase for myself and also for each individual HOD?
• After purchase the license, how shall go about it? Shall I publish my pbix to "my workplace" and do a share with the HODs?
• My dashboard will require a monthly refresh of data. How do I go about it so that all the HODs will get to see the latest refresh dataset?

Thank you.

CK

[Burningsuit · Accepted solution]

Hi @limcheekeong 

The simplest and cheapest option is to purchase a Power BI Pro licence for yourself and each of the HOD's that want to see the report. You'll all only need Pro, not PPU.

Yes, publish to "My workspace" and share to the HOD's will work fine.

When the data updates, just refresh the Power BI Desktop report and re-publish, anyone you've shared with will see the updated Report.

Hope this helps

Stuart

[limcheekeong]

Hi @Burningsuit,

Thanks for the useful reply.

I have another further question.

The dashboard I developed contains the entire company data. But when I want to share the dashboard to the HODs, I would like the respective HOD to see their own departmental data only. For example, Finance department can only see Finance related data, but not other department data.

I have 12 departments in the company. Do I need to duplicate 12 dashboards, filter by each department, and then publish to the 12 HODs individually? If I got to duplicate 12 dashboards, in the future any changes to the dashboard, I got to change all the 12 dashboards. I don't think this is efficient way of doing this.

Is there a more efficient way to do this?

Appreciate your advise.

CK

[Burningsuit · Accepted solution]

Hi @limcheekeong 

Yes, there's always a better way to do it!

What you need is called "Row Level Security" this enables users to only see allowed data in the Dataset.

see: Row-level security (RLS) with Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Docs

This will work fine with the Pro licence users.

Hope this helps

Stuart

[limcheekeong]

Hi @Burningsuit ,

Thanks alot, will try it out.

CK

[Burningsuit · Accepted solution]

Hi @limcheekeong 

The simplest and cheapest option is to purchase a Power BI Pro licence for yourself and each of the HOD's that want to see the report. You'll all only need Pro, not PPU.

Yes, publish to "My workspace" and share to the HOD's will work fine.

When the data updates, just refresh the Power BI Desktop report and re-publish, anyone you've shared with will see the updated Report.

Hope this helps

Stuart