Understanding Premium Per User and Pro licensing

[idaugh]

Hi all,

My company has Power BI pro licenses dished out on a per-user basis. 

We have an "administrative" account that we have given a Premium Per User license to. I used this account to create a workspace that is in a Premium Per User license mode. My personal Pro account is unable to access this workspace, which makes sense.

Using the admin account with a PPU license, I then created a paginated report and published it to the Premium Per User workspace. I then created an app for that PPU workspace, and in the permissions for the app, I gave access to my personal Pro account.

I am able to access this paginated report. I've tested with other users, and they are also able to access this paginated report. All of the documentation I have been reading from microsoft says that this shouldn't be allowed...yet, it seems like it is. This page explicitly states that "Users must have a Premium Per User (PPU) license to access content in a Premium Per User (PPU) workspace or app. " When I publish the app to users without a PPU license however there is a message that says "This app will be created in a Power BI Premium workspace. As long as the workspace remains a Premium workspace, anyone in your organization can be given access to it." This seems like conflicting information.

This is honestly great news, however, it seems too good to be true. I am hesitant to publish paginated reports to this app and give users access only for one day them to get a message saying that access is no longer allowed.

My question is - is this a valid concern? Or is this operating as it should be? For some reason I can't make heads or tails on who should be able to access what features with the pro/ppu licensing.

Thanks for any help!

[Greg_Deckler · Accepted solution]

@idaugh The way it is supposed to work is that if you put a report in a PPU workspace then only users with a PPU license can access it. If you put the report in a Premium (non-PPU) workspace then anyone can access it. If you are running into a situation where you have a report in a PPU workspace and have Pro-only users or Free users accessing it then don't bet that the situation won't be corrected. 

And, right after posting this, I found this about Apps: Publish an app in Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Docs

[Shandar]

The plot thickens, I have a PPU licence; my colleaguehas a Power BI Pro licence.

I've setup a PPU (not premium capacity) workspace and my colleague is able to acces the workspace (I assigned him the contributor role) and is able to create reports. 

Therefor it now seems that Pro licence users are able to work in PPU workspaces, anyone else experiencing this? 

[idaugh]

Thanks @Greg_Deckler ! When I'm looking at the workspace that is in the Premium Per User license mode, it states that the workspace is in a Premium Per User - Reserved capacity in the PP3 SKU tier. MIght that have something to do with Pro users being able to access? Or does this still say to you "Pro users should not be able to access this app"?

Thanks again!

[Greg_Deckler]

@idaugh Actually, according to the link if you scroll down and read through the Apps portion and licensing it indicates that Pro users can access a published App. It was always my understanding that everyone needed PPU in a PPU workspace but apparently Apps are an exception?

[idaugh]

@Greg_Deckler Ah ha! I missed your update. Yeah, whoa, that documentation says to me that not only can pro users access apps that are from a premium workspace, but free users can access those apps too. All of our users are pro users, and all of our users only access reports via apps, and since I am the only one who publishes reports, what is to stop me from making all workspaces premium, getting rid of pro licenses for users and save a lot of money? I think more testing is needed. Thanks for the back and forth and I appreciate the helpful link!