Can a free Microsoft Entra ID plan + Power BI Pro accounts be used for RLS (Row Level Security)?

[PelaezLink]

Hello everyone.

I have been studying in depth all the different options avalible for sharing Power BI reports which include RLS with a relatively big user base (between 100 and 300 end users for the dashboard) and which Power BI licenses are need for each case: Pro, PPU, Premium Capacity, Report Server, Embeded,...

radacad.com reviews are great for this, e.g. : https://radacad.com/power-bi-sharing-methods-comparison-all-in-one-review

I had a question about a solution my team is considering. Basically we want to create a new tenant on microsoft entra with the free plan from the ground up. In this tenant we would be the admins and we would create accounts for each of our end users in the AD of the tenant, so around 300 user accounts. Then we would assign a PRO license to each of these users and give the login data to the end users. This account would only be used to access our Power BI report using RLS, that would be shared in secure embedded mode, so we would implement roles that would be assigned to users or groups of the entra id, probably using the dynamic RLS as is very suitable for our case.

My question is if there are any extra costs I am not taking into account, as with this option I think we would only need the 300 pro account being 10$ each, so 3000 monthly and thats it. Do I need ad office 365 organization to back my entra ID tenant? Can I use entra ID for free (and nothing more) to host my accounts and create groups for my RLS? I am not really 100% sure after investigating all the subcription options, it can be confusing. Also let me know if you see any other issued with that approach.

Thanks a lot to everyone!

[v-yilong-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @PelaezLink ,

Based on your problems, here are my answers.

The specific features and capabilities of the free Microsoft Entra ID plan may vary based on the associated services and licensing agreements.

With a Power BI Pro account, users can publish reports to the Power BI service, share them with others, and collaborate within workspaces.

RLS only restricts data access for users with Viewer permissions in the Power BI service. It doesn’t apply to Admins, Members, or Contributors. You can read this document for the further study: Row-level security (RLS) with Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

In summary, while the free Microsoft Entra ID plan provides basic access, combining it with Power BI Pro accounts allows you to implement RLS effectively to control data access based on user roles and rules. Remember to tailor your RLS setup according to your specific use case and licensing agreements.

Best Regards

Yilong Zhou

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[aj1973]

Hi @PelaezLink 

Please refer to this

Solved: Using Power BI service without an Office 365 accou... - Microsoft Fabric Community