May 3 announcement FAQ

[MiguelMartinez]

Today we announced changes to Power BI Pro and the free service effective June 1, as well as the availability of an extended Power BI Pro trial offer. Please refer to our free Power BI service changes board for more information.

This discussion board contains a set of frequently asked questions. Please share your comments and additional questions.

• What capabilities are being added to the free service?

Beginning June 1, the free service will have capabilities equivalent to Power BI Pro. This includes the same 1 GB workbook size limit, up to 8 daily scheduled refreshes for datasets, and maximum 1 million rows/hour streaming data rate. We’re also providing access to all data sources, including those available through the on-premises data gateway.

• Which Power BI Pro capabilities are not available with the free service?

Peer-to-peer dashboard sharing, group workspaces (now called app workspaces), and analyze in Excel with Power BI apps are capabilities limited to Power BI Pro.  

• When will these changes go into effect?

Changes to the free service will go into effect on June 1.

• Will I lose access to my content (dashboards, reports) at that time?

No. You will not lose access to any content you’ve uploaded to the Power BI service. Content you’ve shared with others may no longer be accessible by recipients on June 1. Likewise, at that time you may no longer have access to content others have shared with you. Existing users of the free service who have been active within the past year can take advantage of the free 12-month extended trial of Power BI Pro. The offer will deliver the full capabilities of Power BI Pro to ensure you have the appropriate time to adjust how you use the service.

• How do I know if I’m eligible for the extended Power BI Pro trial?

Please refer to the extended Power BI Pro trial terms and conditions.

• What should I do if I’m not eligible for the extended Power BI Pro trial?

Sign up for a standard 60-day Power BI Pro trial.

• I’m currently taking advantage of the standard 60-day Power BI Pro trial – will I also be eligible for the extended Power BI Pro trial when it becomes available on June 1?

Power BI Pro trial users will be eligible for the extended Power BI Pro trial offer as long as they registered for the free service on or before May 2.

• How do I accept the extended Power BI Pro trial offer?

Sign in to the Power BI service any time on or after June 1 and follow the prompts to register for the extended Power BI Pro trial.

• Does the introduction of Power BI Premium change the capabilities of the free service?

Users of the free service with access to dedicated capacity in Power BI Premium will have the ability to receive content distributed to them by Power BI Pro users.

• Are any changes being made to Power BI Pro?

No changes are being made to Power BI Pro.

• Are any changes being made to Power BI Desktop?

No changes are being made to Power BI Desktop.

[kbl1726]

Will Power BI embedded pricing remain in place, even though it is being merged with Premium? Becuase as a small business, we can't afford $5k for a single node each month to service a dozen or two clients (external users) who don't need editing, particularly when embedded would cost us less than 10% of that.  And becuase you've removed the ability to view a shared dashboard using Free, all would have to upgrade to Pro.  The issue here is not that the 10$ per month, I would cover that if I could.  But it is utterly unprofessional to ask clients to go through the hassle of signing up for a paid service just to access my service and have me send them a reimbursement check.  Furthermore, there's no simple way to onboard them into my account as they are all external users with thier own corporate accounts, policies, etc. The nice thing with the previous embedded is that they could login to my website, where they already had an account, to view their dashboard. Please tell me I'm misreading something.  Otherwise you've squeezed out a large number of small businesses.  

[MiguelMartinez]

Hi @kbl1726,

We will be introducing additional SKUs for Power BI Premium that target embedded scenarios. While we aren’t disclosing details at this time, our approach is to add further pricing flexibility for embedded scenarios based on the needs of organizations building apps and their customers consuming them. Also, since recipients consuming content embedded in apps are licensed within Power BI Premium, they wouldn’t need to be licensed individually per user.

[joshmwolff]

Thanks for this FAQ. What about reports I've uploaded to PowerBI service and then published to web? Will the embed codes cease to work after June 1? 

[MiguelMartinez]

Hey @joshmwolff,

Users of the free Power BI service will continue to have the ability to use Publish to Web. That means that any reports and embedded codes will still work.

[TezzaX]

HI..  I currently provide dashboards to a number of free users within our business..  If I become a power user, will I be able to continue to share these dashboards with free users through the publish to Power BI service?  

OR will anyone who wishes to see my dashboards within my business also need to have a Power BI subscription??  

Or will I need to have a premium subscription which seems to be extremely expensive to service a small group of dashboard users within a single organisation!!!!!!

This change to the free service wreaks of money grabbing!!!

[MiguelMartinez]

Hi @TezzaX,

Beginning June 1 distribution and sharing will be capabilities limited to Power BI Pro users. Equally, consuming content shared by others will also require a Power BI Pro license. You - and other users of the free service within your organization - may be eligible for the extended 12 month free trial of Power BI Pro. Power BI Premium would be another option for you once it becomes generally available later this quarter. You can visit our calculator to explore what might be best for you.

[shanemr18]

Awesome news! Panic attack over!! 🤓

[MiguelMartinez]

Hi @shanemr18 and @Bjorn,

Sharepoint embedding to SharePoint doesn't change that much from its original licensing needs. You will basically have 2 scenarios now (one included with Power BI Premium):

1. As we communicated in the preview announcement: "The Power BI report web part requires all the viewers to have a Power BI Pro license. If your users don’t have a Pro license, they’ll be directed to PowerBI.com where they can enroll or start a Pro trial".

2. If the if the user that is trying to consume the embedded report does not have a Power BI Pro license but is part of a Power BI Premium instance, same viewer rights apply meaning that the user can view the report but collaboration features such as Analyze from Excel are not available, in line with regular Power BI Premium related features.

Both cases assume users embedding and consuming have SPO licenses.

[masplin]

We very recently started using power BI to share in a small orgnaisation (10 users). Several of the users clicked the pro trial button despite us not having made any use of the pro functions.  As far as I can tell several of our users will now be inelligable for a trial, when we have to actually use the Pro features to share dashboards.  This seems inhenernetly unfair to be slapped with a significant bill when we haven't even got started on whether this is a good solution.  I'm sure this goes for many people who took up the pro trial, but have never needed to use it. This is a fundamental change to the relationship between free/pro so  you shouldn't be inelligable for having had a trial under the old regime.

[MiguelMartinez]

Hi @masplin,

As long as your users meet the terms and conditions here, they will be eligible for the extended Power BI Pro trial even if they've previously used the standard 60-day trial.

[freswood]

Hi Miguel, in that case would it be possible to update the Exclusions in the T&C to reflect this? It appears to be contradictory.

[MiguelMartinez]

Hi again @freswood,

Done 😄

[jester121]

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• Will I lose access to my content (dashboards, reports) at that time?

No. You will not lose access to any content you’ve uploaded to the Power BI service. Content you’ve shared with others may no longer be accessible by recipients on June 1. Likewise, at that time you may no longer have access to content others have shared with you. Existing users of the free service who have been active within the past year can take advantage of the free 12-month extended trial of Power BI Pro. The offer will deliver the full capabilities of Power BI Pro to ensure you have the appropriate time to adjust how you use the service.

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All our Power BI users have E3 licenses, so we still be getting screwed out of the ability to share dashboards among our users? 

Microsoft, this is absolute garbage -- taking away something that's been included in our licensing, and now we have to figure out the budget impact of pro licenses (like who needs them?) Absolute BS.

[vvnboaz]

All users in our organization have O365 License.We are using Dynamics  365 (CRM) Right now all our users can able to view the Power BI Content. What will happen after June 1st should we need to buy a pro license or O365/Dynamics User license is enough for View purpose ?

[MiguelMartinez]

Hey @jester121

Power BI is not included as part of an E3 license - see the E3 licensing page for more information and details on what is included.

If users have been using the free Power BI service, they may be eligible for the extended 12-month free trial of Power BI Pro. See terms and conditions for more information.

[Anonymous]

I'm a little unclear how Premium and Pro will be expected to mix going forward.

Our business is sizable, and its possible we would grow to 500 Pro liceneses eventually (in the previous model).  Presently we have only a fairly small number of users who actively create shared content.  Some of the managers in the business are going to be encouraged to use it personally, but nothing they would share.

My expectation is that our business might have 20 or fewer report collaborators and maybe 1000 users who consume the reports.  If we were to use Power BI prevmium, are we expected to buy 20 Pro Licenses then on top of this pay the 5,000 for Premium so that the 1000 users could view those reports, or do we just pay the 5000 for Premium and we have the ability to allocate special rights to those 20 people included in the 5k cost?

I've looked at the calculator and it gave me the impression that the 5K covers "viewers" and the pro licenses were needed on top for creators.

[MiguelMartinez]

Power BI Pro licenses would be required for users publishing reports, sharing dashboards, collaborating with colleagues in workspaces and engaging in other related activities. Power BI Premium would enable those Pro users to distribute content without recipients being licensed individually.

[djnww]

Hi @MiguelMartinez,

Is it a 'MUST' for a whole organisation to be on PREMIUM ? Many Government Organisations have multiple Departments, but all under the same tenancy. However, each department is independent of each other. Can a single department choose to be on PREMIUM ? I'm not sure how it would work with licensing distribution.

For example, an entire State has signed a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement all under the same tenancy for 250,000 users. However, each Department functions independently. You have the Department of Finance, Department of Public Transport etc. Can the department of Finance go PREMIUM even though the tenancy is owned and managed by the State Government ? Or does the State Government have to go PREMIUM for the whole State ?

D

[MiguelMartinez]

Hi @djnww,

There may be specific requirements in the context of a government organization. But, in general, capacity in Power BI Premium can be applied to a specific set of users (e.g. team, department) or applied broadly across the organization - this happens by assigning users to workspaces in the dedicated capacity allocated to an organization as part of Power BI Premium. The only caveat is that for now, the IT admin for the tenant needs to do the initial purchase. 

[jimbobTX]

Um...what's Power BI PREMIUM? First I've seen of this.

[dsynan]

From what i've seen it was announced today. Seems like a good thing in the long-term, however less than a month's notice that changes for free users will be going into effect is no bueno.