Power BI Ideas Admin on 26 Nov 2014 09:59:47
Power BI is a great tool for those that need to analyze data, but not all users are equal in their knowledge of PowerPivot, Excel or the underlying data sources. Some users just want to see and act on data. In the current model, users have to have a PowerBI license to even see a report.
So, instead of building or buying a separate visualization layer to go over SSAS or SSRS, why not make PowerView extensible? Give me a very economical or even free limited user tier that can only consume web reports, but no Excel access. You can even assume these users are E2/E3 subscribers.
Haydn Richardson (administrator) on 20 Jan 2023 01:33:37
Power BI provides two ways to provide content to internal or external users without requiring those users to have paid per user licenses.
1) Content hosted in Power BI Premium capacity can be viewed by any user with a Power BI free license as long as they have Viewer role on the workspace. See Feature availability for users with Free licenses in the Power BI service - Power BI | Microsoft Learn
2) For content which is public facing we offer Publish to Web Publish to web from Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Learn
- Comments (30)
RE: Create an read-only and external license tier
We definitely need the ability to have our E3 licensed users also have read-only access to group workspaces.
It's hard to compete with on-prem Tableau server offerings that can be served to an entire company with a single server license without this.
RE: Create an read-only and external license tier
2 years since this went under review - wonder if anyone is even looking into this ? This is absolutely essential to allow us to give read-only access to extend the user base
RE: Create an read-only and external license tier
I'm very interested in the grey 'UNDER REVIEW'
This is not only a fantastic suggestion but a strategically essential one unless the pro restrictions come off
E5 SKU is a non-starter so the only other route is pro licencing to have people merely view which is overkill
Providing that 'viewer' can be used in the same way via mobile apps this is essential
RE: Create an read-only and external license tier
And the row level security incorporated into this is obviously essential
RE: Create an read-only and external license tier
I am very surprised that this has been under review for almost 2 years with no update. This is a much needed feature, especially within larger companies.
RE: Create an read-only and external license tier
I would agree with all that has been said here. For us it's not about the cost, it's about the access. We want to be able to restrict certain users to only consume the charts and visualizations provided to them, no more. We would love a "Read Only" license option. Thank you!
RE: Create an read-only and external license tier
This is an essential feature that is available on other products (Qlikview). The majority of our users need to view dashboards through our intranet / dynamics CRM on premise, using SSAS. Unfortunately the Free License does not allow to use the enterprise gateway, and we are not prepared to pay 500 users licences.
RE: Create an read-only and external license tier
A feature of the licensing model that allows a company to use Power BI to host externally (or customer) facing reports (and charts, dashboards, etc.) via their own extranet/portal would be a great addition. Currently each of our customers would need to sign-up as a PowerBI.com user and we'd be obligated to pay for it. But that is untenable. The old HTML/ASP rendered reports cost only a developer's time...what is the modern equivalent/replacement (that still allows us to standardize on tools and platforms)?
RE: Create an read-only and external license tier
This is an important feature that will keep power bi competitive with on-prem installs like tableau server or qlik sense. We are still evaluating and those two products can be licensed on a core-model. As we start to move from disconnected BI towards embedding BI within line of business applications, this becomes even more important for large organizations.
RE: Create an read-only and external license tier
We would love to have something that lets us take read-only reports and/or dashboards and share them with clients. But we don't want them to have to go through any lengthy sign-up process or to really even have to know or care what PowerBI is. It would be great if sharing a report or dashboard were as easy as sharing a document from Office 365 (SharePoint/OneDrive For Business), with a URL they get and a simple sign-in process (and maybe a revocable obscure URL like OneDrive supports).
Even if we had to pay more, or pay for the number of reports/dashboards we share (or how many external people or links are allowed), that would be fine so long as it's reasonably priced.
This would obviously combine well with other suggestions here like being able to embed reports or charts in web pages (or in our own web app's client-facing dashboard, for example).