Set Up ‐ PowerBI Licensing Overview - crocusllc/Ed-Fi-Educator-Workforce-Analytics-Tool GitHub Wiki
Power BI License Sharing and Usage
Below is a generic summary of Microsoft's Power BI licensing models. It is intended to provide general guidance and may become outdated in the future. Each implementing agency should contact PowerBI directly in order to identify the correct licensing fit.
Each licensing model comes with pros and cons related to dashboard sharing. This content is intended to provide helpful guidance in a District's decision making on how to publish and distribute Educator Workforce dashboards. Recommendations on which licensing model to choose will be specific to circumstances at each District or County and are not provided here.
| License Type | Description | Sharing Within Your Org | Sharing Outside of Your Org | Educator Workforce Implications |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Power BI Free | Intended for individual use and learning. Users can create reports in their personal "My Workspace" but cannot publish to shared workspaces. | Cannot share content. Can only view content if it is hosted in a Premium or Fabric (F64+) capacity. | Cannot share content. Can only view content if it is hosted in a Premium or Fabric (F64+) capacity. | No one other than you can see the dashboard you have made. |
| Power BI Pro | This is the standard license for developers and frequent collaborators who need to publish, share, and analyze ad-hoc reports with other licensed users. | The creator and all viewers must have a Pro license to collaborate and view content in a shared workspace. | The creator and all external viewers must have a Pro license. External users are added as B2B guests to your Azure Active Directory. | Without a sophisticated Azure Active Directory set up, only other members of your organization who also have Pro License can see your dashboard when you give them the right permission. |
| Premium Per User (PPU) | A cost-effective way to access Premium features (e.g., larger models, AI features, deployment pipelines) without purchasing a full capacity. | The creator and all viewers must have a PPU license. Pro users cannot view PPU content. | The creator and all external viewers must have a PPU license. | All PPU license holders within your organization can access the dashboard. Those outside the organization will need to be added as an Entra B2B Guest so that they can be granted a guest account to your organization or otherwise cannot view the dashboard. |
| Premium Per Capacity | Ideal for large-scale distribution to many "view-only" users. Provides dedicated processing power, larger datasets, and higher refresh rates. | A Pro or PPU user publishes content to the capacity. Any user, including Free license holders, can then view the content. | A Pro or PPU user publishes content to the capacity. Any external user, including Free license holders, can then view the content. | Once your dashboard is published to a Premium Per Capacity workspace, then anyone with at least a free license can view the dashboard so long as they have been shared to it or Row Level Security gives them permission to see it. |
| Microsoft Fabric Capacity | Fabric integrates Power BI with other data services. This is the go-forward capacity model for new enterprise customers, replacing the old Power BI Premium 'P' SKUs. | Similar to Premium, but with a key difference: A Pro or PPU user publishes content. Free users can only view if the capacity is an F64 SKU or higher. For F-SKUs below F64, viewers still need a Pro license. | Same as internal sharing: External Free users can only view if the capacity is an F64 SKU or higher. Otherwise, they need a Pro license. | Once your dashboard is published to a Fabric workspace, then anyone with at least a free license can view the dashboard so long as they have been shared to it or Row Level Security gives them permission to see it. |
| Power BI Embedded | Licensed through Azure. The price is based on capacity and usage ("renders"). This is for developers building analytics into their own apps for customers. | N/A (Used for embedding in applications, not direct internal sharing via the Power BI service). | Allows users of a custom application (e.g., a customer portal) to view embedded content without needing any Power BI license. | A separate log-in and access set up will be necessary for only the correct group of people to view the dashboard. Embedding the dashboard to a non-protected webpage with no required sign-in means that your dashboard can be found by anyone who is searching the web, |
Further Reading