Licensing for embedding into a web app.

[edmistj]

What type of licensing is needed when you embed a tile into a webapp? Say we wanted to embed a tile for people to view into our intranet. Is a license required for each person who can view the page?

We plan on following this guide:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt450498.aspx

[JasonDunbar · Accepted solution]

When a tile is embedded into a Web App, any users of the Web App must be authenticated in one way or another to Power BI - the user being logged in will ultimately determine whether or not they can see the dashboard tile.

I suppose you could find a way to embed a tile in such a way that utilises a common auth token, but then that's both insecure and could be considered cheating the licensing system, depending on what features you intend to use.

I suppose the most ideal scenario would be one of Single Sign On with Azure AD...

Edit: here's the APi Sandbox that I built which demonstrates the functionality you're talking about. Notice the Azure AD / Power BI Logon - http://pbiapisandbox.azurewebsites.net/

[edmistj]

I certainly don't want to cheat the system. But was hoping to make it really easy to view the tiles without having to login. The internal app would then handle security at that point.Is there any known policy on this?  Again I want to follow the rules.

[JasonDunbar]

Well, technically, I suppose it would be possible to embed an auth token in an App to make its calls, thus preventing an end user from having to authenticate. Now that's going to be far from secure... and I can't really speak of the policy on doing that.

If the dashboards are created by a Power BI licensed user (Free), then there might not be so much of an issue. But where you might struggle with licensing is when embedding a dashboard created by a Power BI Pro licensed user. Consumers of dashboards created by a Power BI Pro licensed user, must also be Power BI Pro licensed users.

Perhaps somebody with the Power BI team could shed some light on the finer points of licensing in this scenario. I'm certainly not in a position right now to confirm anything. @MiguelMartinez?

In any case, with Power BI you'll have an Azure AD instance and Azure credentials for any users you do set up. I think the most secure, robust and scalable way of doing this would be to setup your target users with Power BI licenses (thus adding them to Azure AD). Synchronise their on-premise accounts with those in Azure AD (so they'll use the same details to logon) and then take a step further and implement a something like ADFS to achieve a single sign on scenario.

I guess it boils down to your commitment to want to do this. I would start small, get those free users added - demonstrate the benefits and then take further small steps to making that experience better for them.

[WillT]

Jason's right, currently you need to be logged in and have a Power BI license for this. We are working on other ways to expose Power BI dashboards/reports without being logged in, and the appropriate licensing model to go with. Nothing to share at this time, but please stay tuned to the blog for more info!

[gervwyk]

Can we get an update on the policy status. I want to integrate power BI tiles into my web app. But I want the users to only log in once. I would be fine with securing the token in my app DB, however this might not be ideal, still trying to figure this out.

How would the licencing policy work: Say I have one power BI pro developer creating dashoards, and then 100 clients logging into my custom meteor web app to only view the tiles published by the developer. What would be the license route to follow?

[pritesho]

Use Power BI Embedded Azure Service.

[arc]

@pritesho is this still the best option? Ideally it'd be like other services, where I procure a single API key/token and license/subscription, and then my users can access tiles/dashboards as needed. From what I'm reading here, I'd need to not only authenticate them in my own app, but then make them authenticate again in power BI before they can see tiles?

@gervwyk what did you end up going with?

UPDATE:

additional info for folks who stumble on this post:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/power-bi-embedded/power-bi-embedded-app-token-flow