SQL Azure and Power BI

[Caitlin_Knox]

Hoping for some feedback and clarification on licensing. I have a Customer who has on premises SQL Database but wants to instead push one Table to a SQL Azure environment and then Query that Table in an authoring client. To me, it seems like this would enable us to utilize the Free version of Power BI, but wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything. I realize the other features of Pro would not be available. Thanks in advance.

[v-caliao-msft]

Hi @Caitlin_Knox,

You can connect to Azure SQL database with Power BI free. How you setup your data refresh mechanism will depend on if you require Pro or Free.

With power bi free, you can connect to Azure SQL DB and build reports (using power bi desktop) but data refresh is once daily by itself.

You will need power bi pro for that because that will use DirectQuery to connect live to Azure SQL DB. Or if you want to setup schedule refresh (max 8 times a day) you will need Pro account.

Regards,

Charlie Liao

[bcadile]

Is this no longer the case? I had been using this solution for about a year. Sometime in December/January, all my users started getting prompted with "Pro Only" content messages. If this is the case, I'm now being faced with being forced to buy 1000+ PBi pro licenses - or scrap PBi all together.

[bcadile]

Is this no longer the case? I had been using this solution for about a year. Sometime in December/January, all my users started getting prompted with "Pro Only" content messages. If this is the case, I'm now being faced with being forced to buy 1000+ PBi pro licenses - or scrap PBi all together.

[Greg_Deckler · Accepted solution]

In that specific scenario, unless you end up using another Pro feature, you should not need a Pro license.