Sharing a group workspace dashboard with Free users is working...?

[mosesofj]

As far as I can tell, sharing a dashboard that is on a group workspace (not in 'My Workspace') should only be available between 'Pro' licensed users, as per the offical documentation (https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/powerbi-power-bi-pro-content-what-is-it/).  However, I have just tried it and it seems to work!

There are no additional Pro features being used (so no on-premises / live / hourly refresh etc.), and I have not added the user to the workspace, merely shared the dashboard, however I still hadn't expected this to be allowed.  I have tried it with a separate dashboard that has custom content, not just the OOB sample, and that works too.

Can anyone, especially from the product team, confirm that the above is as expected or if I am somehow missing something?   

[adrianbravo]

Hi,

If you are in Power BI Pro, and you share some dashboard, only the members who have power bi pro can will see it.

[v-qiuyu-msft]

Hi @mosesofj,

In the article which you posted, it mentioned

Conversely, if your content contains only the following items it will be consumable by both Power BI free and Pro users:

• A dashboard or report connected to content packs for services (e.g. Dynamics CRM, Salesforce, and Google Analytics).

• A dashboard or report with data imported from files such as Excel spreadsheets, Power BI Desktop, and CSV.

The Power BI Service Samples are available as content packs, both Power BI Pro users and Free users can get those samples. So you are allowed to share the content from a group workspace to a free user and the free user can see this content.

But except the content listed above, you will be allowed to share it to a free user account, but free user can't see this content. For example, in a group workspace, if you have created a report which contains data retrieved from the SSAS database, then pin this report to a dashboard. When you share the dashboard, the below message is throwing out:

"This dashboard contains Power BI Pro content. Only users that have Power BI Pro will have access to it"

If you have any question, please feel free to ask.

Best Regards,
Qiuyun Yu

[mosesofj]

Thanks for the reply.

While I agree with what you are saying, functionally, I believe there is still a contradictory statement in that article.  It says:

If your content contains any of the following items, it's Power BI Pro content:

• Data from a direct query dataset, such as SQL Server Analysis Services tabular data, Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, or Apache Spark for HDInsight.

• Data from a dataset that refreshes more frequently than daily.

• Data from a dataset that connects to on-premises data using the Power BI Gateway - Personal or Power BI Gateway - Enterprise.

• A dashboard or report that's installed from an organizational content pack.

• A dashboard, report, or dataset that's contained in a group workspace.

• A dashboard that contains data streamed at a rate above 10k rows/hour.

In my scenario, the dashboard IS in a group workspace which, according to the above statement, would make it Pro content, irrespective of the data model (and I have tried it with a custom model using Power BI Desktop, which also works).

My testing seems to indicate that actually it is irrelevant if the dashboard is in a personal workspace or a group workspace, therefore the above statement from the article is incorrect in the context of 'sharing' (being a readonly member of the group workspace, as opposed to having it shared with you, appears to require Pro, but then this is a slightly different scenario).

[Vicky_Song]

@mosesofj, is that free user account a 'free user' account or a 'free trial of Power BI Pro' account?

After you sign up for a free account, you can go to gear icon and selecting Manage personal storage. Then select Try Pro for free on the right. After you are prompted for Power BI Pro 60 day trial, it is possible for you to share a dashboard, report, or dataset that's contained in a group workspace to that free account.