Power BI license for refreshing

[wokn]

Hi

I have some questions regarding licensing for PowerBI. 
We have some PowerBI reports made (made using Power BI Pro) for internal use, these reports get refreshed at set intervals. The users who just have to check these reports have a Power BI Free license. I discovered the name of this license changed to Fabric Free. There's some scenarios in which these reports need to be refreshed outside of the set intervals.

Previously, users with a Power BI Free or Fabric Free license were able to refresh the reports. 

Now these users aren't able to open the workspace without getting prompted to start a 60 day Power BI Pro trial, if they cancel out nothing happens. 
Did Microsoft change anything in how the Free licenses work? Is there any way around this problem or someone else having this issue? 
For context, we're a non profit organisation so not viable to have all users have a Power BI Pro license.

Thanks!

[selimovd · Accepted solution]

Hello @wokn ,

when you're working in a Pro-Workspace, every user also needs a pro license. That has always been like that and never changed.

What probably happened is that you used a Fabric Trial license. This was more or less a P1 capacity (or F64 with the new Fabric capacities). In this case a user can have a free license to view content. If that's the case and the trial license expired you have two options:

1. You keep the content in a pro workspace and all users get a pro license.

2. You buy a F64 capacity and the users can view content with a free license. Keep in mind a F64 starts at about 5'000 USD per month.

If you're a NGO, get in contace with Microsoft as different prices apply as far as I know.

If you need any help please let me know.
If I answered your question I would be happy if you could mark my post as a solution ✔️ and give it a thumbs up 👍

Best regards
Denis

Blog: WhatTheFact.bi
Follow me: twitter.com/DenSelimovic
Connect with me: LinkedIn

[v-kaiyue-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @wokn ,

Users with free licenses can use the Power BI service to connect to data and create reports and dashboards for their own use. They can't use the Power BI sharing or collaborating features with others, or publish content to other people's workspaces. However, Pro and PPU users can share content and collaborate with free users if the content is saved in workspaces hosted in Premium capacity or Fabric F64 or greater capacity. 

More detailed information can be found in the documentation: Power BI service features by license type - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

If you're already using the Power BI service, you now also have Fabric and all of its extra workloads and capabilities. There's nothing to migrate from Power BI to Fabric. All of your Power BI content is available in Fabric. Your workspaces are still there. Your reports are still in your workspaces. The user interface for Power BI is unchanged. The same capabilities are there. Use Power BI the same way in Fabric as you did when it was a standalone service.

If you have a Power BI or Microsoft 365 account, you can sign in to Fabric. For new users, create your first item in Fabric, and Fabric auto enrolls you in a free trial. The only license you need for all of Fabric is a Fabric (Free) license. If your organization doesn't yet have a Fabric capacity, sign up for a free trial capacity as well. Fabric is yours to explore at no cost. And, signing up takes only a few clicks.

More detailed information can be found in the documentation: What is Power BI? What is Fabric? - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

If your Current Period does not refer to this, please clarify in a follow-up reply.

Best Regards,

Clara Gong

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

[suparnababu8]

Hi @wokn 

You can go through the below URLs.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/fundamentals/service-self-service-signup-purchase-for-pow...

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/fundamentals/service-features-license-type

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/fundamentals/service-self-service-sign-up-help

[selimovd · Accepted solution]

Hello @wokn ,

when you're working in a Pro-Workspace, every user also needs a pro license. That has always been like that and never changed.

What probably happened is that you used a Fabric Trial license. This was more or less a P1 capacity (or F64 with the new Fabric capacities). In this case a user can have a free license to view content. If that's the case and the trial license expired you have two options:

1. You keep the content in a pro workspace and all users get a pro license.

2. You buy a F64 capacity and the users can view content with a free license. Keep in mind a F64 starts at about 5'000 USD per month.

If you're a NGO, get in contace with Microsoft as different prices apply as far as I know.

If you need any help please let me know.
If I answered your question I would be happy if you could mark my post as a solution ✔️ and give it a thumbs up 👍

Best regards
Denis

Blog: WhatTheFact.bi
Follow me: twitter.com/DenSelimovic
Connect with me: LinkedIn

[wokn]

It seems indeed it's because of the trial license. It gets automatically assigned to the user and isn't visible in the admin center, hence why I didn't notice it...

[selimovd]

@wokn yes, that's a valid explanation. Sorry for the additoinal costs though.

If I answered your question I would be happy if you could mark my post as a solution ✔️ and give it a thumbs up 👍

Best regards
Denis

[Gabry]

Hello Wokn,

I’m not entirely sure I understood your question completely.

If you’re using Power BI Desktop, you don’t need any license—it's completely free.

However, if you want to use the Power BI service to share reports with other users, you’ll need at least a Power BI Pro license.

I don’t believe there have been any changes to Microsoft's licensing, but it’s possible that your free trial has expired.

Link for reference: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform

[wokn]

Hi!
Thanks for your reply. The report itself is published to be embeded in a website. The users are using the webversion (app.powerbi.com) to do a manual refresh. 
It seems when the user first tries to connect to the report, he has to accept a trial (which lasts 60 days) to open the report. When this trial ends, the user no longer has acces. As an admin, it's impossible to see the user has started a trial outside of the preassigned free license.

Kind regards