Forum Discussion
Share App for external users
I have a Power BI Pro Licence.
About one year ago I've made a test sharing for external users. Test account got trial Pro Licence and I was able to share app for test account. Everything was warking fine.
Now I'm trying to make the same operation but stick at Fabric Account. My Client has same Power BI Pro Licence (or higher) but when he try to access my app then is redirected to create Free Fabric Account.
So, I repeat the same test as year ago. I created test account outside my organisation and get the same issue: loop for creating Fabric Free Account.
Finally I found Office Admin Portal (previously I was using Azure Admin Portal) and I noticed the external users are marked as non licence. Even my Client, who has Power BI Pro Licence.
https://portal.office.com/AdminPortal/Home#/homepage
After I assigned Fabric Free Licence (which I belive is time limited) to my test account got access to my app.
Is it possible just share app from one Power Bi user to another without Fabric Account? Can anyone explain me how to achive the goal: share app from one Power Bi user to another? Acctualy I don't need Fabric and I would like to use the system the same way as year ago.
No, no, no. I have Pro licence (Provider side) and as my client has Pro too (consumer side). I share the app. I used trial licence only to test purpose at consumer side.
Now problem is fixed. First of all I didn't notice that my account has enabled Fabric. In this scenario (as I suspected) I have to assign fabric free licence to the clients who hasn't own Fabric licence. This problem causes another one. System asked my client to create new fabric account and he did this. It made new issue: two separated accounts with the same email address: one with Pro licence and another without.
But finally I decided to another scenario to fix the issue. I turned of Fabric at my account. After propagation time of changes, my client had to properly logout from this no licence account. Then we made new clear login and accepted invitation again.
6 Replies
Hi, RadekS
You can share your apps with your external users by referring to the minimum license requirements below and the tutorial according to the documentation. Because Power BI is constantly evolving, some of the previous rules may not apply in the current Power BI Service.
In the following figure, different licenses are supported for external users when your app workspace is different and the app provider has different licenses.Distribute content to external guest users with Microsoft Entra B2B - Power BI | Microsoft Learn
You can adjust your license based on your actual situation.Best Regards
Jianpeng Li
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.
No, no, no. I have Pro licence (Provider side) and as my client has Pro too (consumer side). I share the app. I used trial licence only to test purpose at consumer side.
Now problem is fixed. First of all I didn't notice that my account has enabled Fabric. In this scenario (as I suspected) I have to assign fabric free licence to the clients who hasn't own Fabric licence. This problem causes another one. System asked my client to create new fabric account and he did this. It made new issue: two separated accounts with the same email address: one with Pro licence and another without.
But finally I decided to another scenario to fix the issue. I turned of Fabric at my account. After propagation time of changes, my client had to properly logout from this no licence account. Then we made new clear login and accepted invitation again.
Hi, RadekS
Thank you very much for your reply, and for sharing the workaround. You can mark your reply as a solution so that other community members can quickly find the current solution if they encounter a similar problem. Thanks again for sharing.
Best Regards
Jianpeng Li
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.
It seems to me that the link provided is outdated. Active Directory is now called Entra ID. Besides this, I sent the the invitation exactly the way is described.
According to the table and previous tests, sharing Power BI Pro -> Power BI Pro should be possible. However, when receivers are trying to accept the invitation, the system asks for a Fabric account.
I granted a free Fabric license to the client and the test account. The test account after run trial pro license has access to the application now. I wonder if Fabric account is really nessesery?
The client has a different problem. It turns out that the system has created a shadow account with the same email address but no license.
How can I send an invitation for a specific account if the email address is not sufficient to recognize the account?
Hi, RadekS
Thank you very much for your reply. The account you are sharing needs to be able to sign in to Power BI Service normally. Have you tested whether your test account is able to access Power BI Service normally?
Best Regards
Jianpeng Li
