Does my data consumer need a PowerBI Pro license?

[CarlMeads]

Hi, can I publish dashboards somewhere centrally for users to consume without them having the pro licence? What experience will someone have if they tried to access a dashboard that took content from a Group Workspce or locally hosted dataset and they DIDN'T have a Pro licence

[Anonymous]

@CarlMeads The only "central" location that I am aware of where this would work is SQL 2016 SSRS. The current solution just stores PBIX files, but long term plans sound like there will be an in-browser experience from what I've read. There is nothing like this currently. You could look at Power BI embedded for external facing solutions, but all internal would require a user to have a license if Pro content is used.

[CarlMeads]

thanks guys that clears up the refresh.

How about if I manually refresh, the datasource is an excel spreadsheet but the dashboard is created from within a group workspace?

[Anonymous]

@CarlMeads Group workspace is a Pro feature. My assumption is that your end users would need a Pro license since you are using this. (haven't tested this particular scenerio though)

[CarlMeads]

That  was also my assumption, however I have tested it and my end user who had no pro licence was able to view the dashboard.

[v-micsh-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi CarlMeads,

As shared by Eno1978, a Dashboard in a group workspace should belong to the Power BI pro content, and a free user Account is not allowed to access such data source.

The following is my first test result when sharing a dashboard in a group workspace:

But after some time, when I click the shared link in Mail from the free Power BI account, the shared dashboard shows out without any error popping out.  I will keep monitor this behavior.

Dashboard within a content pack is not available to share, neither the original  nor the copied version.

There is no share option available at the top-right corner on the original Content Pack dashboard, and the following is the copy (sharing this using the group admin account):

Regards

[Anonymous]

@CarlMeads Further fact checking outlines that this scenerio should "not" work. Either your "Free" user has a Pro trial, or something is currently broken in the Service. I personally wouldn't assume that this continues to work based on this link outlining specifically that this falls under "Pro" and would require a license for all users. (second to last bullet in first paragraph of bullets.)

[Habib]

Local hosted data sources needs gateway for data refresh and this will requrie Pro license. You can't share dashboard being refreshed from local servers to ones having free license.