Publish reports to Teams

[torel]

I see that others have posted similar questions, but I still would like to vent my frustration.  Our organisation is starting to use Teams, and when introduced to Power BI we enthusiasticly tried to use Power BI to present status information to our Teams members.  However - we just gave up, for two reasons:  It is extremely awkward/non-intuitive to publish and secondly the licensing policy just doesn't make sense.

Issue one - the practicalities.

We first tried the intuitive way - select the Power BI function in Teams.  When we managed to publish the report to the Teams site, ww then added a Power BI tab and selected the uploaded report.  However the report is only available to the person who published it.  There is no way to share or make this report available to others.  Also by looking at the net, it seems by sharing this way the viewer also needs to have a Pro license.  All in all, publishing reports and the mix of desktop versions and online versions makes this functionality far less than intuitive.  If I select Publish in the desktop version one thing happens, and if I publish in the online version of Power BI I get other options. Confusing.  However we managed to publish to WEB and by publishing that link in Teams, the report was available, which brings us to Issue two:

Issue two - licensing issues.

The licensing of Power BI doesn't make sense!  The way we would like to use Power BI is to create a report and publish that information to all our colleagues who don't have a Power BI license.  The only way to do that is to publish to WEB.  That creates a huge security issue: That link, enables others outstide the organisation, if they get hold of it, to see restricted information. The other option is to publish the report directly  to Teams, which restricts access to members of the organisation only, but they then need a Power BI license.   Why do all users need a license to view a report internally, but not when published to the WEB?

So, our conclusion is that Power BI is just not useful in connection with Teams and as a general tool for managers to present information to their own organisation.

I would be more than happy if anyone could tell me that there is something I failed to understand in the use of Power Bi.

Regards

Tore Landmark

[DaveW]

Hey Torel, I note that this is under the Report Server section but nobody has mentioned the capability of Report Server for your needs.  I use Power BI Report Server which allows me to distribute reports on an internal web page with AD access for various user folders so quite handy for a large number of users.  I've also started using Row Level Security at the report server interface.

The licensing requirement is tricky with a couple of options but you can get away with a SQL Server EE + SA license for the number of cores and then a PRO license for each of the users that will publish the reports.

No license for the users that access the report server home page.  And you don't have to mess with teams!!

The Report Server comes with its own slightly lagged version of the Desktop tool and there seems to be a sense of apathy with parity with the cloud function, but it is almost there for most fuctionality.  Still want the filters to be removed from published reports!!!! 

Enjoy:)

[NewYorkNY]

Adding a +1 to this as I am also streamlining our process for the c-suite to simply view updated dashboards from my group and are met with the same requirement for a pro license just to view a report shared within teams.  The integration as a Microsoft product seems restrictive for no reason.  I'm publishing from my trial pro license to a private shared teams workspace only to be met by requirement for a pro license just to view the report/dashboard in the shared workspace.  I sympathize with the other users here where report creators and data scientist who need the pro license, but to make the data consumable to users inside the organization is strictly prohibited.  The sales structure is pointless, either EVERYONE has a pro license or you don't use the product.  It's a shame Microsoft has these hurdles when it comes to collaboration and sharing.  

[vsfchris]

We are in the same situation where we need to share reports across department to a larger group of consumers and not willing to give everyone a pro license.

This service here looks promesing to me. No expierence so far, but it worht to try it.

https://binokula.com

[v-yulgu-msft]

Hi @torel,

Issue one - the practicalities.

1. However the report is only available to the person who published it. There is no way to share or make this report available to others. 
2. It seems by sharing this way the viewer also needs to have a Pro license. 
3. All in all, publishing reports and the mix of desktop versions and online versions makes this functionality far less than intuitive.  If I select Publish in the desktop version one thing happens, and if I publish in the online version of Power BI I get other options.

1. As Power BI service is authenticated with each user account, all reports published to My WorkSpace on service are only available by owner. If you want share reports with team members, please refer to: How should I collaborate and share dashboards and reports?  Or you can create an App WorkSpace and add all team members into this group, then, all reports published to this workspace can be accessed by members.
2. With sharing, whether you share content inside or outside your organization, you and your recipients need a Power BI Pro license, or the content needs to be in a Premium capacity. 
3. Power BI desktop is a report design tool. Power BI service is a cloud-base service which provides many features that are not supported by desktop.

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Issue two - licensing issues.

The way we would like to use Power BI is to create a report and publish that information to all our colleagues who don't have a Power BI license.  The only way to do that is to publish to WEB.  That creates a huge security issue: That link, enables others outstide the organisation.

As I mentioned above, to share a dashboard, you and recipients need a Power BI Pro license. Publish to web means users can view report through a public URL, not the service URL. But there existing some limitations when publishing to web.

Best regards,
Yuliana Gu

[torel]

Hi Yuliana

Thanks for your response, which to some extent clarifies how Power BI desktop/service is intended to be used.  From your explanation it is getting clearer to me that Power BI is not the product for our intended use.  Just to recap: we would like  management to use Power BI to produce presentations of the department's KPIs, achievements etc and making these available to all employees in the department via our intranet or via Teams and we don't intend to or want to roll our Power BI to all our employees.

I'm sorry to learn this, as I think the visualisation side of Power BI is very good.   I also don't understand the reasoning behind Microsoft's decision to make a web-enabled presentation tool, but not an intranet-enabled tool.

Regards

Tore

[GreyDob]

Hi Torel,

I totaly agree, this is not what I expected from Power BI and Teams.  The standard tool in our company is Tableau and I almost convinced Global IT that Power BI is a much easier and a better application to publish our dashboards with to Teams vs. Tableau.  Now I have my doubts about the whole Micrsoft 365 setup.  We also do not want to give everyone a Power BI PRO license and I agree because there should be no need for it.  My only solution now is cloud publishing.  I have a PRO license, but I can't even publish to Teams created by me ???

[torel]

One more point - I think the licensing policy regarding basic version and the pro version of Power BI I is confusing.  You very quickly meet the message that the Pro version is required to view this.  How do I as a report designer know whether what I have produced needs a pro og standard license for the recipient of the report. 

[v-yulgu-msft]

Hi @torel,

How do I as a report designer know whether what I have produced needs a pro og standard license for the recipient of the report. 

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Any recipient to view the shared report must have a pro license. And users can check their license on service under “Manage Personal Storage” tab by clicking the gear on the to right.

Regards,
Yuliana Gu

[torel]

The licensing policy is clean out ridiculuos for our use.  We are 1500 employes.  I would estimate that there may be 50 people who would be creating reports to be consumed by the rest.  The rest 1450 would be occasional consumers.  If I put these figures into the the Power BI Premium Calculator, it comes up with a figure of $5000 a month.  If I instead use the $9.99 per consumer, I end up with approx. $ 15,000 pr. month.  Microsoft are you serious?

[v-yulgu-msft]

Hi @torel,

If you have any concern about the price for license, you can contact the relative support team here. They can provide more professional advice about license purchase.

Regards,
Yuliana Gu