Strugging to understand limitation on Daily Refresh Power BI app

[masplin]

We are using the free version of power Bi and have a large number of potential users who might consume reports in future. for that reason we really do not want to have to go down the Pro route. 

I have built an excel model that uses 2 sources of data. Firstly a number of sql queries through Power Query to the transactional database (This is Microsoft NAV). i guess this database is being constantly updated.  Secondly a number of static excel tables also linked through power Query.  I have then connected power BI app to ths workbook as a data source using a personal gateway.

If i turn on the daily refresh i get  warning saying this contain Pro features. What exactly is the pro feature we are using here and any way to avoid it?  I'm very famialir with powerpivot having been using it for years, but compeltely new to Power BI so apolgise if a daft question.

Thanks for any Advice

mike

[Seth_C_Bauer · Accepted solution]

@masplin You are using a gateway. This is a Pro feature. The only acceptable daily refresh can come from a cloud data source, not on premises. I've seen others currently using a gateway and manually refreshing and still able to use it with "free", but since the gateway is stated as a "Pro" feature, I wouldn't rely on that working forever.

Since you have on premises data, and a gateway is required, that is a Pro feature.

"Free" is designed to give you an idea of how the product works, not designed to have you be able to build a full reporting solution for free. As a further point, I would suggest that if there are a large number of users that you reach out to your local MSFT rep to discuss what the actual price would be per user as you can negotiate that.