Licensed Power BI Pro Consumers Installation

[datavis]

I know that Power BI Pro report consumers need to have a Power BI Pro license to view Power BI reports. Do they also need to have Power BI desktop installed on their computers or should they be able to view the reports as long as they have a license? If so, do they have to do anything in Power BI server to activate their license?

Also, is there a version issue? Do you need to schedule updates so that all consumers and developers get the same updates at the same time?

[Greg_Deckler]

If you publish your reports to Power BI Report Server or Power BI Service, then your viewers should not need Power BI Desktop, just a web browser. In either case, you would schedule a refresh and the data would be up-to-date for everyone. In terms of license activation, that is all done via the Office 365 Portal typically.

[datavis]

Thanks Gregory,

Regarding the updates, I was talking about downloading the Power BI subscription updates. Is that what you were referring to? So the software updates would all have to be done at the same time in order for everyone to consume the reports and see the same thing.

[Greg_Deckler · Accepted solution]

Yes and no. If reports are published to the Service or the report server, then the Desktop does not matter, viewers just need to a web browser. And, different versions of Power BI Desktop do work with one another although you will get warnings if you open a newer report with an older Desktop version but generally it is OK as long as the versions are REALLY out of date. In terms of seeing the same thing, that depends on what features people are using.