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.

[dfischer]

I have some follow-up questions on the Power BI Pro licenses. 

1. I see that the cost will be $9.99/month/user.  Are staff fluctuates often so adding and removing licenses will be necessary.  Is there long term licensing commitments or can we add/remove licenses every month?

1. My team currently develops visualizations and dashboards within Power BI Desktop and we would like to use Power BI Pro to share these views.  Is there additional charges associated with the development of dashboards/visualizations?  Will we be able to continue to use Power BI desktop to create our visualizations? 

[ElsD]

Hi,

The post of May 30 says:

"Users that have licenses assigned from the Power BI Pro or Power BI Pro Trial subscriptions, within Office 365, are excluded from this (1-year free PRO) offer."

We are working with 0365 and My colleague only gets the 60days offer.

Are you sure this is how it should be?

Why make a difference for O365?

Best regards

[lebeauceron]

Hi, is it normal that at 10 AM June 1st EDT it is still business as usual with the free version?

Kind regards,

Paul

[ovetteabejuela]

Hi,

I want to clarify, I mean explicitly (or maybe in other terms).

So in our organization, we've been using the free service and are expecting to have the extended trial for the next 12 months.

My question is, what will happen to those people who are just joining in and have not signed in to PowerBI before May 2nd? Does that mean they have to get a PRO license already?

[vlahoz]

Hello @MiguelMartinez. What about RLS on free accounts?

[mim]

@MiguelMartinez I am afraid this is a very bad news for our use case, I am very angry and disappointed by this change, basically Microsoft used us as a beta testers for PowerBI, until it become mature and then suddenly removed features from the free tier using the excuse that it was confusing, this is a blatant bait and switch tactic. 

so basically microsoft can change the license as they want, what I learned from this experience, when you move to the cloud you are at the mercy of the vendor, 

[Camilla91]

Some collegues of mine and I are Pro User within my organization and we're using Office365 with E3 subscription. My question is: will we still be able to use PowerBI Pro without PowerBI Premium or will we need to purchase that?

Thank you

[mschwit]

Will Row Level Security also be able to used for Power BI Free users? Would be great to get a feedback for that as I did not find something regarding Row Level Security in the announcement.

[mukul111]

Hello,

I have concern regarding the Reports sharing to our clients as my organization has published a few reports to its customers (out of the organization) using the sharepoint online. We have used "Publish to web" feature of the Power BI Reports.

1. Will that feature be available in future for free or part of Power BI Pro trail services?

2. Later to May, 2018 will i be able to use the  "Publish to Web" feature and the consumers have access to the content like earlier or we both will have to upgrade to the Power BI Premium services?

[francorg]

The most impacted will be small groups/SMBs with less than 50 people.
The previous licensing costs of PBI were too good to last... with just 1 Pro license you could share reports and dashboard on PC and mobile devices with the colleagues.

PBI Premium is out of budget starting at more than 4K/month.

At the end SMBs will have to pay PBI Pro license for every user, which at 100€/year is not that much if you compare with other BI solutions and consider the features you get, but it will be a 50x increase of the BI budget.

It was too good to be true... and I can understand the with the old licensing model Microsoft was losing/investing a lot of money.

[Boj]

Peer-to-peer dashboard sharing on free service...gone too soon

[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 ?

[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 license is enough for View purpose ?

[vvnboaz]

Should we need to get the Power BI Pro Licence for Dynamic 365 User too? Only to View the Power BI Pro content.

All the user in our organization have O365 license.

[KenGoodwin]

Is there a way of telling how many of my users are actually using Power BI?  I can see how many have licenses assigned but I can't really tell which ones are actively using it.  Office 365 audit log search just shows free Power BI users as "Free User", so I can't see how many licenses I'm going to need to purchase.

[osoosh]

Massive change for free users such as small businesses which I've been refering them to use Power BI as the best option in the market. Not sure where the power bi team had their feedback from (I suspect the internal people of commercial) to do this change only in giving a month notice (poor). 

[MiguelMartinez]

Hi @osoosh,

Existing users of the free Power BI service may be eligible for the extended 12 month free trial of Power BI Pro - see here for more information.

[jester121]

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@MiguelMartinez wrote:

Hi @osoosh,

Existing users of the free Power BI service may be eligible for the extended 12 month free trial of Power BI Pro - see here for more information.

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So what good does that do us if we have a new employee some time during that free year? Basically it pulls the rug out from under us.

[freswood]

Today I received an email regarding the new changes. In the email it says:

If you’re interested in an extended Power BI Pro trial that will run from 1 June 2017, to 31 May 2018, simply sign in as normal on or after 1 June 2017, and get going. Contact us to learn more about Power BI Pro.

I'm currently on a free 2 month Pro trial. In the T&C for the extended Pro trial it says:

• Eligibility: Users who registered for the free Power BI service on or before May 2, 2017 and have signed into the service at least once between May 2, 2016 and May 2, 2017 are eligible for the Offer.
• Exclusions: Power BI Pro and Power BI Pro trial users are not eligible for the Offer.

Could you please help clarify whether I'm eligible for the extended Pro trial? I assumed that since I received a targeted email inviting me to extend the trial that I would be eligible. However according to the T&C it sounds like I'm not.

[MiguelMartinez]

Hi @freswood,

Thanks for asking this question. We needed to go back and make sure our T&C would cover this. The answer is 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. Please refer back to the extended Power BI Pro trial terms and conditions.

[Rvn86]

Hi.

Does this change also apply to the possibility to embed reports/dashbaord from Power BI in D365 Operations?

Thats means, will you be able to view a embedded report/dashboard created in Power BI if you do not have a Pro-user?

Thanks! 🙂