Guest user Licensing and Assignment

[Anonymous]

Hello Everyone, 

My use case has me deploy copies of reports to customer-specific workspaces. I have specified RLS in the golden dataset and access has only been given though App (Build). This way I can give the customer admin access to the workspace to edit and manage users without exposing data they are not privy to. 

I am not a global nor license manager and cannot purchase licesnses. My question is with Pro licensing for guest users.

1. Can I purchase multiple licenses in bulk and assign them on a need basis?

2. Will I be billed for purchases but unassigned licenses? 

3. What permissions do I need to assign licenses? (Can I be a PBI Admin and be granted licesnse assigning specific permissions without making me a license admin?)

Bonus Q: This is more of a thing I noticed. I created a dummy guest user with a free license (I didn't turn the trial on) The user was assigned to an Contributor role in the workspace. Although the workspace name was not visible I was able to go to the reports using shared with me. The kicker is that I was able to make edits to the report. I cannot do Save As but the save works find. Is this a bug or can a free user with Contributor access or above be able to edit reports? 

Thanks in advance !

[v-angzheng-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi, @Anonymous 

1. Can I purchase multiple licenses in bulk and assign them on a need basis?

Yes, but you must be assigned an admin role to purchase or assign licenses for your organization.

follow these steps to purchase Power BI Pro licenses in the Microsoft 365 admin center:

(step 7)

1. Sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center.

2. On the navigation menu, select Billing > Purchase services.

3. Search or scroll to find the subscription you want to buy. You'll find Power BI under Other categories that might interest you near the bottom of the page. Select the link to view the Power BI subscriptions available to your organization.

4. Select Power BI Pro.

5. On the Purchase services page, select Buy.

6. Choose Pay monthly or Pay for a full year, according to how you want to pay.

7. Under How many users do you want? enter the number of licenses to buy, then select Check out now to complete the transaction.

8. To verify your purchase, go to Billing > Products & services and look for Power BI Pro.

9. To add more licenses later, locate Power BI Pro on the Products & services page, and then select Add/Remove licenses.

Purchase and assign Power BI Pro user licenses

Licensing the Power BI service for users in your organization

2. Will I be billed for purchases but unassigned licenses? 

Yes, you need to pay for the license you purchased even if the license is not allocated, so it is recommended to purchase according to the number of licenses required at the time of purchase.

3. What permissions do I need to assign licenses? (Can I be a PBI Admin and be granted licesnse assigning specific permissions without making me a license admin?)

To purchase and assign licenses in the Microsoft 365 admin center, you must be a member of the global administrator or Billing administrator role in Microsoft 365.

To assign licenses in the Azure portal, you must be an owner of the Azure subscription that Power BI uses for Azure Active Directory lookups.

4. Bonus Q: This is more of a thing I noticed. I created a dummy guest user with a free license (I didn't turn the trial on) The user was assigned to an Contributor role in the workspace. Although the workspace name was not visible I was able to go to the reports using shared with me. The kicker is that I was able to make edits to the report. I cannot do Save As but the save works find. Is this a bug or can a free user with Contributor access or above be able to edit reports? 

Contributor roles can edit content. But free users do not have normal access to reports from other workspaces. They will be prompted to upgrade their license.
Note, however, that when a user accesses a report from another tenant as a guest user, they can access the report normally if they have tried the license. Here the guest user tries the license of the invited tenant, while remaining a free user in the guest user's own tenant.

Roles in the new workspaces in Power BI

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Zeon Zheng

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