Forum Discussion
Refreshing with PowerBI Free user
Qbota Below is the summary for you.
When you go to Dataset -> Schedule Refresh you're trying to setup automatic schedule refresh which is not free and requires Pro account.
If you go Dataset, click three dots and click Refresh Now that is free and doesn't require Pro account.
In short, setting up schedule refresh requires Pro account, doing manual refresh is free.
If you have a report that is using DirectQuery feature (connecting live to on-prem data source) then it requires Pro account, in power bi desktop if you choose Import then you don't require Pro account.
Hope it is clear now.
This is actually confusing and does not answer the question.
Accessing on Premise data from the desktop version should never cost the end user if they are connecting to
their own SQL Server Analysis Server which is already licensed with Microsoft for end users to use
We do this all the time using Excel which has almost all the same features as PowerBi.
This seems to be muddying the picture more than it is helping.
The issue that is confusing things is if you are using a gateway or not.