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Power BI

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Introduce a Power BI CAL-style license

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Don Fletcher's profile image

Don Fletcher on 11 Sep 2023 06:53:04

Currently, a published report may only be viewed by a user with a Pro license or if the tenancy is a premium capacity license. Premium Capacity pricing is just too expensive for businesses with fewer than 500 users and is out of reach. Putting the onus on end users to have a Pro license is also counterintuitive and creates an unnecessary barrier to entry. While it is true that a tenant can purchase a number of Pro licenses and then issue them to individual users as needed, this creates admin overhead when users move around departments and is a problem for scenarios where only a small number of users might wish to view reports at any given time.


I propose an additional option where Pro licenses could be allocated to Workspaces or individual Reports in addition to the existing ability to allocate to individual users. This would allow a company to control the number of concurrent free-license users that are able to view reports without the need to manage individual licensing. An individual with a Pro license could open any report they have access to and would not contribute to the concurrent user count. But individuals with a free license would only be able to open a report if the total number of concurrent Pro licenses allocated to that report or workspace has not been exceeded. Concurrency could be based on requiring the user to interact with the report within a short period of time (5 - 10 mins), after which the report screen grays out or blurs. When the user tries to interact the report would then check the concurrent user count before continuing.


A solution like this would be very welcome to administrators in smaller companies.