PowerBI.com dashboard from Excel Data Model? (free user)

[andrew]

Hi -

Can a free user upload an Excel workbook with a data model to PowerBI.com and build and share a dashboard with someone in the organization? I am still finding it difficult to understand what a free vs paid membership entails.

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@andrew From your description, this should work. It sounds like you are going to import the data into the Desktop and push the reports that you built in the PBIX file. 

Provided you don't apply a "Pro" feature in the creation of the report, then your end users will be able to use free accounts as well. It is only when you add something to a report that is a Pro feature where you and end users would need to have a license in order to consume the report.

[andrew]

Actually- I want to just upload the excel workbook without importing it into power bi desktop first. In pro, you can upload it as a data set and then build reports. Is this available to non-pro as well?

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@andrew I haven't played out the free user scenerio in awhile, but I fairly certain that as long as the model is self contained and doesn't connect to an on-premises data source that would be considered a "Pro" feature data source (Database, model) then it should work.

[andrew]

I guess the way I understand this is that the refresh part would not work if the data sources are on prem, but loading up the model and building reports from it would? For example, I have a model that is built using local excel files. I upload it to my free power bi workspace and can build reports from the model, butnot refresh the reports / model?

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@andrew Correct, you can't utilize a gateway. I believe you could still schedule a refresh of 1x per day, but you would have to move the file to a OneDrive or Onedrive for business.