Do I have to manually refresh my dashboard for non-pro users?

[BrianC]

So I'm aware that if any part of my dashboard contains a "pro" feature, then my non-pro users cannot view it. I also read that one pro feature is:

"Data from a dataset that connects to on-premises data using the Power BI Gateway - Personal or the On-premises Data Gateway, and for which a scheduled refresh is set."

I have set up gateway. Does that meant that if I intend to have non-pro users view my dashboard, I literally have to click refresh every day in order for the data to stay up to date?

[Anonymous]

Hi @BrianC,

If your dashboard contains data that connects to on-premises data using Power BI Gateway, the no-pro users will not be able to view the content in your dashboard.

The users you shared dashboard with can try the 60-day free trial of Power BI Pro, or you can use "publsih to web" to generate link of your report and send the no-pro users this link.

Thanks,

Lydia Zhang

[BrianC]

Are you sure? I'm pretty sure my non-pro users are able to view my dashboard, and it accesses data on an on prem gateway. The data however is not automatically refreshing.

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@BrianC What is the data source?

[BrianC]

SQL Server, import

[Anonymous]

Hi @BrianC,

I test the sceanrio as yours, when I share the dashboard to a free Power BI user, I get the following warning "Only users that have Power BI Pro will have access to it". However, I reproduce your issue the free user can view content in the dashboard.


I suspect that in this scenario, free users can view static data but not refreshed data which utilizing gateway.


Thanks,
Lydia Zhang

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@BrianC My personal opinion then is that this is a bug, and won't work for much longer. There has never been a concept of showing end users a "Snapshot" of data shared from a Pro user. Unless some big change is coming, I would assume this works only temporarily.

[BrianC]

@Seth_C_Bauer Well I certainly can't build my entire business model on a bug. It would be nice to get confirmation on this soon. Do Microsoft employees view these forums?

[GilbertQ]

Hi @BrianC

I have played with this and from my experience is that if you have your data connected to a Gateway, but you have not enabled the Scheduled Refresh, then Free users can still access the reports.

As soon as you enable the Scheduled Refresh, the Free users will then get prompted that it is now a Pro feature and will require a license. 

That is how it currently works for me, and I have tested both scenario's as described above.

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@BrianC I'm going to try to get confirmation on this, but I'm pretty sure just installing the gateway and refreshing data requires a Pro license. The symantics of "schedule a refresh" are what gets me with this post vs. other references where it just states the gateway is a Pro feature. And I don't have the free test accounts to test this quick, but I can say,

"IF" you can use the gateway for free (which I don't think you can), then "yes" you would have to manually refresh the data set in order for end users not to need a Pro license.