Regarding features available on Power BI PRO license and enterprise gateways

[Mathangi_S]

Hi,

I am using the Power BI free version currently and hence require some details about the PRO version. These are my questions:

1. How do I use Power BI PRO for sharing dashboard content across selected users with selected filter options? 

2. When do I require a Power BI Gateway to be installed? 

3. What are the differences between Power BI Personal Gateway and Enterprise Gateway, in terms of power bi service priveleges for both?

4. Can I use the Power BI Desktop(free version) version for enabling selected content to selected people without obtaining a pro license? If so how?
5. How do Power BI licenses work? Are they restricted to number of users or is it subcription granted on a time period basis? I ned to know this to ensure that if in case my number of users increases over time, will it be feasible for me to scale up Power BI across all the employees?

Any information(preferably a detailed explanation for each point) on this will be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

Mathangi Sridhar

[wonga · Accepted solution]

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Hello @Mathangi_S, I will try and answer most of your questions:

1. You can share dashboard content across selected users with either Free or Pro. The only difference is that if your report/dataset uses Pro features (such as DirectQuery or scheduled refresh), then both the developer and consumer of that report will need a Pro license in order to view/edit it. In regards to selected filters, the only way to implement that is to set the filters on the report itself and save it. Then any dashboard with pinned live pages from that report will reflect those selected filters which your users can change when they interact with the report in "Reading View" or if they are viewing it from the dashboard. I believe the filters will reset to what you set them as of the latest save of the report.
2. You will need a Power BI Gateway for any dataset that requires a refresh of any kind (manual, scheduled, DirectQuery). The gateway just acts as a connector between the Azure Service Bus/Power BI Service and your on-premises data (whether it be files, databases, etc.)
3. Personal Gateway is meant to be installed on your local workstation and is used for personal datasets such as Excel files, whereas Enterprise Gateway is meant to be installed on a Windows Server in your organization and is used for enterprise or organizational data sources such as SQL Server, Oracle Database, etc. A personal gateway is something that only you can configure, whereas an enterprise gateway can configured by multiple users as long as those users are added to the list of Gateway administrators.
4. Not too sure what you mean by selected content, but if it's referencing your first question about selected filters, then that shouldn't be a problem. If you are talking about things like Role Level Security (RLS; only certain users have access to certain data), then that's a different story. I believe that feature is in Preview right now, so I don't know too much about it.
5. Pro licenses are subscription based by user on annual basis I think. There's more information on their pricing page in regards to what you can and can't do with a free license vs a pro license. Basically, each user must have a pro license in order to consume reports made using pro features. In terms of scalability, you would probably need to ask their licensing department, but I'm sure they will accomodate your needs.

Hope this helps somewhat, thanks.

[Mathangi_S]

Hi Wonga,

Thanks so much for your reply! It definitely cleared most of my doubts.

However, I have 2 more questions in mind:

1. Firstly, what I mean by the filtered content is the RLS(Row Level Security) option that is available as a preview option in the desktop version of Power BI. One clarification needed on this is there any limit on the number of roles that can be created and/or number of members in each role in the preview version and same feature availabe in the licensed version?

2. Secondly, the limit of uploading a model or 1 pbix file in Power BI Online is currently 250MB. Is it the same limit if we have the PRO License also or is there any change in this limit in the licensed version? Also when they say a model in Power BI, is it the same as 1 PBix file or are they different?

Hope somebody can help me out on this!

Mathangi Sridhar

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@Mathangi_S I just wanted to throw one tidbit in here. @wonga's explanations are fantastic by the way. It sounds like you are exploring all possibilities, so it should be mentioned that with a Pro license you have access to use Direct Query against a SQL database or Live Connection to a SSAS model. In both those instances, you won't have to worry about the Desktop files size because the data is not imported into the PBI Desktop file, it is queried. So the files are extremely small.

[wonga]

Hi @Mathangi_S, my 2 cents below:

1. When a feature is in "Preview", it means its free to use for everyone regardless of license type. It's only when it gets out of "preview" where the licensing comes into play (Power BI Blog updates for both the Service and Desktop should address that when the time comes). In terms of a limit, I've personally never used RLS in any form because I myself am still in the evaluation period for this product. You can find more information about it here though; it should clear up most of your doubts about RLS: RLS for Cloud Models (Models Published to PBI Service)
   1. It's important to note that there appears to be 2 types of RLS for Power BI, one for cloud models and one for SQL Server Analysis Services.
2. According to the Power BI Idea Post Here, making the file size bigger for Pro Licensees is being worked on. So as of now, the limit of 250MB is the same for both Free and Pro. Each PBIX file is considered a "data model" because it has multiple tables derived from one or more data sourcces that can be related to each other, thus forming an interconnected data structure.

Hope this helps, thanks.

[Mathangi_S]

Hi Wonga,

Thanks so much for your reply! It definitely cleared most of my doubts.

However, I have 2 more questions in mind:

1. Firstly, what I mean by the filtered content is the RLS(Row Level Security) option that is available as a preview option in the desktop version of Power BI. One clarification needed on this is there any limit on the number of roles that can be created and/or number of members in each role in the preview version and same feature availabe in the licensed version?

2. Secondly, the limit of uploading a model or 1 pbix file in Power BI Online is currently 250MB. I