on 09 May 2017 00:25:49
Power BI should have a Lite License for people that only consume dashboards or reports every now and then. This is for people that don't create reports but need to see the dashboards and may need to use the "report level" to be able to export output to PowerPoint (since you can't export the dashboard to PowerPoint but can only do it at Report level).
Administrator on 22 Oct 2017 01:35:52
With the introduction of Power BI Premium earlier this year, there are now two licensing options for Power BI: Power BI Pro and Power BI Premium. This provides the flexibility to select the model that best meets the needs of individual users and entire organizations – whether that’s equipping users with access to self-service BI, broadening the reach of BI content for users occasionally viewing dashboards and reports, or elevating storage sizes, increasing refresh rates and introducing other performance capabilities based on workload requirements. The right choice, Pro or Premium, depends on your particular situation. We've been listening to your questions on UserVoice, the community, and other forums about what option to choose, and have developed a FAQ on our blog that answers the most common questions. Check it out at https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/power-bi-pro-power-bi-premium-flexibility-to-choose-the-licensing-best-for-you-and-your-organization/.
- Comments (139)
RE: Power BI Lite License
I'm a free user (formerly Pro user at my old job) and I took advantage of the enhanced abilities of the free account, built reports and dashboard in my personal workspace and share these at meetings. People LOVE IT. But the licensing model kills them. I can't even justify a pro license for myself and a few select people, because it's still so limited.
To be sure, they like Power BI more than Tableau--and a other business groups within my company are using Tableau. I like Power BI better than Tableau. I've been using it since 2015.
To echo everyone else here, most people aren't authoring. I find that a lot of people are either intimidated by DAX, don't have an interest in learning the tool, or have no real analytics background to put it all together--even if they know what type of KPI is important to them or their business group. They are interested in having access to the reports, monitoring them, or just being able to take a report I created and bring it into their meetings with their stakeholders and bosses.
Maybe this feature doesn't need to be free, but I feel a dramatically reduced product to "view only", should at least be an option--maybe rolled up into the E3 license, or maybe a local file report reader that I can download from my published report and give them--complete with filters and click interactive graphics--or maybe even not that, but something. The ability to do this with report server or Premium is still far too great for a lot of companies to commit to.
The dashboarding, the collaboration, the sharing of the datasets, consuming apps--those are clear cost-worthy features of Pro licensing--reading is just fundamental. Keep premium and report server for those who want to added features of those products, and do something for just read-only. They aren't bad ideas--just not suitable solutions for a lot of companies that have already invested and bought into the benefits of Power BI.
RE: Power BI Lite License
Come on WAKE UP Microsoft - There are plenty of methods to recover investment costs in this product - I've been selling this to my public sector gov org for 2 years and its really disappointing money gets in the way - we are rolling out O365 and now the reporting strategy is turning away due to the license overheads - A consumer read only license is a must which is affordable - those organisations serving the public sector should also get this at a discount - Sorry for the rant but I am one of your many sales reps around the world! Invest in us and you'll still make money!
RE: Power BI Lite License
This feels like another Microsoft Gotcha. I've been using and have loved Power BI since it started. It's been hard to keep up with the updates but I've done my best to watch every update video and implement changes to my model. I was very disappointed that the ability to share was yanked and replaced by a fairly expensive option that doesn't have a good ROI.
RE: Power BI Lite License
Agree. Specially for medium scaled organizations. Or you should come up with a pricing model for regions.
RE: Power BI Lite License
I really confused with all the un-needed complexity in the new pricing model, this alone needs a certificate!
I do have a sensitive data that cant get out of my organization, was searching in PowerBI products for a full on-premises solution, couldn't find but PowerBI premium which wont allow me to utilize my in-house server infrastructure, it is good to offer cloud service, but dont take out the option to host your own solution run by my own infrastructure!
RE: Power BI Lite License
Power BI immediately came off the table for our organization once we learned that in order to even have simple view rights on a report you required a license. This is ridiculous and not only prevents us from using internally but makes it nearly impossible to share these externally. Rethink this.
a "view only" license for like 1 or 2 bucks a month is required.
RE: Power BI Lite License
They already have a licensing model for Flow and PowerApps that includes a limited usage license with most Office 365 plans. Why not do the same for Power BI? Even if it was a 'read only' license that would allow users to only view shared Power BI content, it would be a lot better than requiring a full Pro license for the occasional, view only user.
RE: Power BI Lite License
Agree - the only way that smaller organizations can use this product. Everyone sharing data is not within large corporations that can afford the premium pricing.
RE: Power BI Lite License
AGREE!!
RE: Power BI Lite License
microsoft, microsoft, why do you ignore this Item??
Solution is very simple: Ok, pro user pay teo build on lin and share, but
Just give the people with a 365 pro license the possibility to view , what the Pro users have build !!. They allready payed for a miscrosoft product.