Two basic questions about initial setup

[JamieM]

Hello, Apologies to ask some two rudimentary questions, but there's no definitive answers that I can find on these topics.

Quick context: We are a company with an Office365 business licence. We've built a data warehouse and we're looking to use Power BI as dashboard tool (alongside SSRS). We want to roll out Power BI to select employees in different departments, as well as obviously a couple of developers. Can anyone help with the following:

1. What version is best to use? Desktop / Web free / Web pro -
I know the difference between what you get with paid vs the free (O365 inclusive) subscriptions, but I'm confused about the Desktop / web difference and how this would affect rollout and what we need it for. Is desktop simply a testing / trail environment?

2. Does our O365 license mean we have to pay for Power BI as they say that the Power BI for Office 365 experience has been deprecated?

Many thanks on helping! Jamie

[JamieM]

Many thanks. Very clear.

[ankitpatira · Accepted solution]

@JamieM

1. Power bi desktop is a designer tool that you use to build reports from. Even though you can build reports straight in power bi service it doesn't have full capabilities as desktop has. So in your case I would suggest for your roll out you have desktop being used by developers while for your users provide them way to access reports via power bi service.

2. I think it depends on your O365 subscription such as E3 or E5. You will need to check that with your O365 administrator.

[martynhale]

Hi Ankit,

Would you please provide links to address the following questions:

1. I have a client who is using O365 and wants to assign Power BI licences to certain employees - is this done through O365 Admin centre?

2. How would a non-O365 business assign licences to its employees?

Many thanks

Martyn Hale

PUG East Midlands Power BI, UK