Does my Service Principal Account need to have Pro License for Schedule Refreshing

[HassanAshas]

Hi, I have been asked to setup a Schedule Refresh on my Power BI Dataset through a Virtual Machine. 

The idea is VM will be on 24/7 so whenever the refresh happens, it will never fail due to machine being down. 

However, the problem is, the VM is being accessed by multiple people so I can't really open my own Microsoft account there (as then all its content will be accessible by everyone). Someone gave me the idea of getting a Service Principal Account created by the Azure Administration Team of our project and then add that account into the Workspace and then schedule refresh using that account.

I was following this guide for this: https://www.powerbisentinel.com/creating-a-service-principal-and-connecting-to-power-bi/

But I was wondering that before I create the request for this account creation, will I also need a separate Power BI Pro License for this account? That is, will the client have to pay an extra $10 per month for this account? Can anyone clarify this, please? Thank you

[GilbertQ · Accepted solution]

Hi @HassanAshas 

When you set up the Gateway VM it is set up once when you have to authenticate to connect your gateway to your Power BI tenant. After that there is no need to log into the VM. So you should not have to worry about an account on the VM.

You would then create the data source's in the Power BI Service (which is where you would store the credentials connecting to your different data sources).

Finally, as far as I am aware the Service Principal account should not need a Power BI license. I am using a Service principal account to refresh datasets and it does not have a Power BI license.