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.

[tbolon]

Regarding the migration from Power BI Embedded.

Our company have an Azure Enterprise Agreement. With Power BI Embedded, our credits could be used to subscribe Power BI Embedded.

With the new Power BI Premium offer, will we able to use our Azure EA credits to pay for the subscription or not ?

More generally, how will Power BI Premium be billed ? using Office 365 subscription or Azure subscription (or both ?)

Regards,

[Anonymous]

Hello,

we've been using Pro Trial in our organization, but right now, noone can access Pro Trial. Even though we get information about succes of activation the trial (see picture, although it's in czech) users can't access dashboards. Any idea what to do?

Thanks

MV

[DawidMichna]

Hello @MiguelMartinez

I was a free user of PowerBI for some time, until yesterday when I accidentally clicked on Start 60 Pro Trial version butto several hours ago. So I am now a 'Pro Trial version: 59 days to end' user now.

Does it mean I have to forget about a possibility to participate in extended 12 month trial from June?

[mistretta]

I read Power BI Premium's external sharing will be through Azure B2B, but is there any support for B2C planned? Our organization operates under a federated structure and have preferred using B2C in order to enable entire franchises by just their domain name; also allowing them to use their own local login credentials.

We also currently have a form based authentication in front of our SSRS, can we use that to authenticate Power BI Premium?

[mahimabedi]

Under premium capacity; can i add free users to workspaces?? I know i can share a dashboard and an app, but can i add them to a workspace (as a read only member)??

[wonga]

Are your free users able access your dashboards because you "shared" it with them? If so, then as of June 1st, that "sharing" will not work with free users.

Sharing and collaboration functionality will be limited to Pro license users only (unless your organization uses Power BI Premium and Power BI Apps).

[Pozols]

What error message are the "free" licensed users who are consuming shared dashboards going to see on their screen on June 1?

Trying to prep my users.

[djnww]

@Anonymous,

FYI, I do not work for Microsoft. There are 2 answers to your question:

1. If you DO NOT have a Premium subscription, then the individuals in your organisation must be PRO in order to access the dashboards that you have shared with them on Powerbi.com

2. If you have PREMIUM, then the individuals in your organisation DO NOT need to be PRO users in order to access the dashboards that you have shared with them on Powerbi.com

D

[enavarro]

Honestly, from a really fan of Power BI... you are going bananas with that many princing and modeling changes. For sure you are losing users as you go. 

From here, it looks like you are making up your way as you walk so I have the feeling of not knowing what Power BI would be in a couple of months. 

Besides this pricing model just for consume content, just wow.

[augustindelaf]

Hi,

In my Data Set I implemented Row Level Security and then Power BI Pro is required.

Is Row Level Security going to be included in the new free Power BI service?

thanks in advance.

[anuarmn]

---

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

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

---

So if I have Power BI Premium license, does the free user can use the export PowerPoint, export to CSV/Excel or other Pro Features? Or the free user can only view the Pro Content?

[Michiel]

Perhaps slightly off-topic, but important nevertheless: I was informed that many users in my organization received an email from Microsoft about changes in Power BI Free. This has led to many worried users and questions. It seems that this email has been sent to anyone who has had Power BI Free lately, even when they have been upgraded to Power BI Pro by now (I didn't receive the email myself, probably because I have worked on Power BI Pro from the start - I don't know).

What is the policy on sending unsollicited emails to Power BI users? Can a Power BI admin block direct emails to Power BI users in their tenant? Having to services hundreds or more users on something that just comes out of the blue is, well, a nuisance.

Excited about Power BI Premium, by the way.

[Anonymous]

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 ?