Power BI PRO - How the most used Power BI license in companies works

Hey guys!
In this article, I will share with you more information about the Power BI PRO licensing, the same one that costs R$64.00 on the Microsoft website, and is the most used by companies.

Summary of all Power BI license types:

Power BI PRO (Most used in companies)

Summary

This is the Power BI license most used in companies, it costs 10 dollars per month (R$ 54.90 buying with a partner or R$ 65.00 directly with Microsoft), for each user, and is recommended for small and medium-sized companies, which need to share reports among employees or even with people outside the organization (Azure B2B).

You will be able download Power BI Desktop on the Microsoft website and start developing your reports and dashboards and publishing them to workspaces shared with other users in Power BI.

The Power BI PRO license is REQUIRED for both those who only view reports and those who publish reports. It's the same license. There is no view-only license.

There is no TECHNICAL limitation that blocks more than one person from using the same Power BI PRO account, but the Microsoft contract It is very clear when specifying that the account is INDIVIDUAL and should not be shared. Furthermore, for security reasons, it is a bad practice to share credentials between multiple people:
– You lose traceability of actions (Who accessed or performed a certain action?)
– There is no possibility to define different access levels and profiles
– RLS/OLS will not work
– If a person who has the password leaves the company, what action will be taken? (Are you going to change your password or pretend there's no risk in that?)

The contracting method for this license is through Office 365.

Comparison table

Security

If you have permission in your organization settings, you can create new workspaces to share reports with other users in your company.

Workspace, report, and dataset-level permissions can be managed to define who can view and reshare reports.

You can also configure a feature called Row-level security (RLS), which allows two people to open the same report, but view different data depending on their access profile.

Sharing & Embedded

To share reports, you can create apps to make permissions management easier.

Sharing reports is done in a SECURE way, as when accessing the report, the user will be asked to be logged into their Power BI account or a login screen will be shown. Only those with permission will be able to view the report.

You can also use a PRO account to integrate with the Power BI API and even generate a LIMITED amount of tokens to Embed reports in applications and websites. I.e, for testing and developmentYES, you CAN use a PRO license for this, but from the moment you are getting ready to move to production, you MUST hire dedicated capacity (Premium, Fabric or Embedded).

You can also create a secure link, which allows you to insert this link on a page and, when trying to access the report, a “Sign in” button will be shown if the user is not logged into their Power BI account. When accessing this report inserted on a page (Intranet, Internet, Sharepoint, etc.), permissions are checked to ensure that the person actually has access to the report. RLS is applied as well.

You can also share reports by generating a public link using the “Publish to Web” option, which allows anyone who has access to the link to view the reports. Only use this option for public data, as even without sharing the link with anyone, the report will be public and visible through simple Google searches.

Even in Premium, Fabric, Embedded or even Power BI Report Server (on-premises) capabilities, you will still need to have a PRO license for EACH PERSON who will publish reports.

Features and Limitations

What you can do with this license:

• Download Power BI Desktop (always free, even without an account)
• Create reports, connecting to any data source
• Publish reports to your personal workspace and shared workspaces
• Share reports with PRO and PPU (Premium Per User) users
• Use data streaming
• Configure personal and enterprise data gateway to update local data up to 8x per day (for each dataset)
• Use tokens and API to Embed a LIMITED amount of reports in third-party applications
• Use the feature Publish to the web (CAUTION: Use ONLY with PUBLIC data. NEVER, EVER use this feature with private data)
• Subscription to report by email (Whoever is going to receive it needs a PRO account)
• Use the generate secure link feature to Insert report on Website or Portal
• Use Dataflows
• Access or create applications
• Use paginated reports
• Use incremental update

What you CANNOT do with this license:

• Share reports with users with a free Power BI license
• Use datasets larger than 1 GB
• Have workspaces larger than 10 GB
• Update datasets more than 8 times per day
• Subscription to report by email WITHOUT needing a PRO account (Whoever is going to receive it needs a PRO account)
• Use Incremental update of Dataflows
• Use hybrid tables (Import + DirectQuery)
• Use Datamarts
• Use XLMA Endpoint
• Use deployment pipelines (DevOps)
• Use integration with GIT

Can I use Power BI Pro or Premium per User for Embeddar?

Yes, it is possible to generate tokens to Embed reports in a Pro or Premium capacity per User, but depending on the official Microsoft documentation:

“Tokens embedded with Pro or Premium Per User License (PPU) are for development testing, so a Power BI Master or Service Principal account can only generate a limited number of tokens.

Acquire a capability for incorporation into a production environment. There is no limit to how many embedded tokens you can generate when purchasing a capacity.

In development testing, you can use free embedded trial tokens with a Pro license. To embed in a production environment, you must purchase a capability.”

Support materials

Slides used in the presentation
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So that's it, folks!
I hope you enjoyed this post and follow the series where I will explore all types of Power BI licensing!