Creating Power BI report with data from Azure SQL using direct query - Power BI asks for Pro licence

[prokurors]

Can I make reports (publish, share) from Azure SQL with Power BI free edition? https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/powerbi-refresh-data/ From this post it seems that using Power BI with Azure SQL is only for Pro licence users? Is that really so? And if this requires Pro licence - is it for each user who needs to access this report, or is it only for the user who creates/publishes/shares this report?

[ankitpatira · Accepted solution]

@prokurors I'll break it down for you.

No you don't need power bi pro to be able to use Azure SQL DB. How you setup your data refresh mechanism will depend on if you require Pro or Free.

Since you've posted this in Service forum, I am going to assume you will click Get Data in app.powerbi.com and connect to Azure SQL DB that way (You will need power bi pro for that because that will use DirectQuery to connect live to Azure SQL DB). With power bi free, you can connect to Azure SQL DB and build reports (using power bi desktop) but data refresh is once daily by itself. If you want to setup schedule refresh (max 8 times a day) you will need Pro account.

Hope that helps. Do let me know if it isn't clear.

[prokurors]

@ankitpatira

Ok, Thanks clear now!

"Streaming data in your dashboards and reports using Microsoft Power BI REST API or Microsoft Stream Analytics." for free edition is 10K rows/ hour

One question then - how can I estimate if this 10K rows / hour for my solution is sufficient?

[ankitpatira]

@prokurors you will find that out by using your reports. If you notice they take long to load plus you see refresh spinning wheel more often then most likely 10k rows/hour is not enough. Just use your reports for few days and you will find out.

[Greg_Deckler]

I believe the key words in that document are "live data source".  If you do not connect "live" (in other words scheduled refresh and use Azure SQL, you should not need a pro license. If you do need a pro license, everyone needs to have a pro license to edit or view it.

[jPinhao]

@Greg_Deckler - I've just recently changed my desktop report to hit against an Azure SQL Database - the connection is set to 'Import' rather than 'DirectQuery', and I set-up a daily refresh in the online portal. It now tells me that the report has Pro content. From your answer here it makes it sound as it shouldn't - do you know if this has changed?