Non licensed users cannot access report

[Anonymous]

I have build a few reports on power bi and shared it on an app I created. The app works and licensed users are able to see the reports but non licensed users are not. It keeps on spinning - "Building your app" and never loads anything.

Is there any way this can be fixed? We do not want to buy a 100 licenses, these people only want to be able to see the report. It is okay if they do not have download privileges etc.

[v-lid-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous ,

@GilbertQ  had post the right answer, as an addition , It is also mentioned in this official document:

For app consumers, there are two options.

• Option 1 The workspace for this app is not in a Power BI Premium capacity: All business users need Power BI Pro licenses to view your app.
• Option 2 The workspace for this app is in a Power BI Premium capacity: Business users without Power BI Pro licenses in your organization can view app content. However, they can't copy the reports, or create reports based on the underlying datasets. Read What is Power BI Premium? for details.

But there are is a share feature Publish to web which has many limitations you should consider.

When you use Publish to web, anyone on the Internet can view your published report or visual. This requires no authentication and includes viewing detail level data your reports aggregate. Before publishing a report, make sure it is okay for you to share the data and visualizations publicly. Do not publish confidential or proprietary information. If in doubt, check your organization's policies before publishing.

Best regards,

Community Support Team _ Dong Li
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[benjamin_sasin]

So I figured out today that I can't share reports to my peers without them having a pro license as well (which is never gonna happen because it's too pricey for just viewing reports every once in a while) or buying a premium capacity, which is just ridiculously expenseive for a SME of 200 ppl.

However, it's possible to share the reports on Sharepoint, so basically working around that issue. This is kind of perplexing however: if the reports can be shared on sharepoint, or publicly, why not just give a read access to Power Bi to all organization users? It's making it harder for the report producer and keeps potential users unexposed to Power BI.

My assumption buying a pro license was that the creator needed the license and that users could view reports, just like Tableau has a viewer and editor for instance. If I can create report and not publish them without my viewers being able to view them, then it's not much of a report.

[Anonymous]

@benjamin_sasin 

I am at a similar position. It seems too much for a small organization to buy license for everyone or to buy premium capacity. And it seems completely pointless that we need to buy licenses for people who are just gonna view the report and nothing else.

I even tried the sharepoint feature. It did not work for us. It still requires user to have pro license. Do let me know if you figure out a workaround.

Thanks,

HV

[v-lid-msft]

Hi @Anonymous ,

Based on this document, Users viewing a report in SharePoint need either a Power BI Pro license or the content needs to be in a workspace that's in a Power BI Premium capacity (EM or P SKU).

Best regards,

[GilbertQ]

To be fair spending a few dollars a month for a world class reporting platform is money well spent.

Especially if it will means either savings for people or to enable more sales within an organization, you can recover those costs by a factor of X times...

[Anonymous]

@v-lid-msft @GilbertQ 

I had a premium license so I assumed that workspaces created by me are premium and option 2 will be valid. However, I had to manually change those settings. Thanks for your help and advice both! really appreciate it.

HV

[GilbertQ]

No worries, it is always good to fully understand what is happening and how to use the correct licensing

[GilbertQ]

Hi there

The current Power BI Licensing means that anyone whom you want to share dashboards and reports with either needs a Power BI Pro license. Or the App Workspace needs to be hosted on Power BI Premium, which will then allow free Power BI Users to access the contents.