Version of Power BI to use

[Medmbchr]

Hi,

I am currently developing a set of dashboards for a client and need your advice since I have never helped a client choose the right PBI licensing, I used to deliver only .pbix files.

My client is a small company (50 employees, 200k USD of revenue per annum) and they use SAGE X3 as their ERP with an SQL Server connexion (SQL Standard Ed. 2014) to which i connect my dashboards. 

Power BI offers 3 options and here are my comments about each:

- Pro: too slow for them as they need far more than 8 refreshes per day (needs lot of refreshes throughout the day as its for order prep, logistics so they need data refresh each 30 min).

- Premium normal: too expensive (5000 usd per month, that's a quarter of revenue value per year).

- Premium per user: too expensive too as they have lots of users (over 25 users including top management).

I recently discovered Power BI Report Server, although it's free, I don't know if that's a good solution for their case.

I also thought about letting people just use normal PBI desktop to navigate their reports, but they don't have the required computing power (each have 8 GB of ram in their machines) and there is high risk that they alter the reports.

In you opinion, what should I suggest to them? Because if there is no solution I will either suggest to limit the number of dashboards to reduce number of users since I see that PBI Premium per user is the only feasible option. Another option I thought of is combining Pro and Premium per user options, for example top management gets a Pro license, while others e.g. logistics get Premium to reduce costs as a Premium licence cost triple a Pro. Another final solution is to aggregate accounts so that many people can use only one account, but I don't know if Microsoft allows multiple connexions on the same account.

Hence, I need the most cost effective Power BI licensing option for this client.

Ps: Also I assume that Pro and Premium manage connexion to a local SQL database using a sort of connector.

Thanks

[d_gosbell · Accepted solution]

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@Medmbchr wrote:

I recently discovered Power BI Report Server, although it's free, I don't know if that's a good solution for their case.

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Power BI Report Server is not free it is either licensed by purchasing premium or through purchasing SQL Server Enterprise with Software Assurrance (which is also around 5000 USD per month) - so this is not an option for you either.

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@Medmbchr wrote:

Another option I thought of is combining Pro and Premium per user options, for example top management gets a Pro license, while others e.g. logistics get Premium to reduce costs as a Premium licence cost triple a Pro.

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Using specific licenses for specific users might be an option. Note that workspaces using a Premium per User (PPU) license cannot be accessed by users with just a pro license, but people with a PPU license can access both pro and PPU workspaces - so if this fits with your client, then this might be a good option.

Also note that PPU should only be double a pro license, not triple.

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@Medmbchr wrote:

Another final solution is to aggregate accounts so that many people can use only one account, but I don't know if Microsoft allows multiple connexions on the same account.

No, this is not an option. Power BI works on a named user licensing model, you cannot share accounts.

One other option you could look at would be to use pro licenses, but to setup your logisitics reports to use Direct Query instead of import. That way you do not need to run refreshes so the 8 per day is not an issue. But you will be putting a lot of extra load on your SQL Server instance so that would need to be factored in. And if your reports are complex the performance might be an issue.

[Medmbchr]

Hi

Thanks for your reply. My scenario about using a mix of Pro and PPU seems the most logic. Pro users will be mainly managers/directors and do not need to access PPU which will be used by warehousemen and their managers (total of 4 people).

Direct Query is the best choice for me but it doesn't give table view, while my database has 30 tables and need to add columns to it for calculations and so on, Direct Query needs a perfectly ready data source, unless I am wrong.

[d_gosbell]

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@Medmbchr wrote:

Direct Query is the best choice for me but it doesn't give table view, while my database has 30 tables and need to add columns to it for calculations and so on, Direct Query needs a perfectly ready data source, unless I am wrong.

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Yes, Direct Query works best if you do minimal transformations and there are some things like calculated columns which are not allowed.

[Medmbchr]

Yes, that's too bad. Hence i'll try to balance between Pro & Premium accounts until it fits my client's monthly maximum budget.