Which Power BI license to acquire?

[Medmbchr]

Hi all,

I am currently working on a small Power BI project for a small/medium company willing to use PBI dashboards for its daily operations.

The issue I am facing is that public licenses of Power BI are either by user/on the cloud (they don't want a cloud solution), or on-premise (very expensive for the company).

In your opinion, what would be the best PBI license based on the following parameters:

- Company: small/medium (revenue per annum around 200K USD)

- Users: 20 

- ERP: Sage X3 with SQL Server (which I linked to Power BI)

- Power BI hosting: on-premise

Thank you

[Shahfaisal · Accepted solution]

In my opinion, the best license model based on the company information you mentioned in Power BI Pro, but you also said they don't want a cloud solution. I woud find out why and see if there are ways to address thier cloud concerns.

For Power BI on-prem (Power BI Report Server), there are different licenses: 1. Power BI Premium and 2. SQL Server Enterprise Edition with Software Assurance. I know this is expensive.

Maybe you can make it work just with SSRS (sql server reporting services?). 

[Medmbchr]

Thanks for the reply.

I don't know how to worl with SRSS, there is also PBI Report Server but don't know if it's valid for their organisation.

Regards,

[Shahfaisal]

As I mentioned before, Power BI Report Server comes in 2 different licenses: 1. Power BI Premium and 2. SQL Server Enterprise Edition with Software Assurance.

If the company has SQL Server Enterprise Edition with Software Assurance then they can use Power BI report server without any other license (though devlopers/publishers need Power BI Pro).

[Medmbchr]

Thanks for your reply, I am not very technical in terms of publishing as I used to deliver only the .pbix files and then the client do the rest, in this particular case the client has no idea what to do.

As I said, the client has Sage ERP X3 with a SQL Server database, what would be the questions/requirements to ask for in able to be able to publish the reports I've made?

Thank you

[Shahfaisal]

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@Medmbchr wrote:

As I said, the client has Sage ERP X3 with a SQL Server database, what would be the questions/requirements to ask for in able to be able to publish the reports I've made?

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You can't publish and share the pbix reports with other users without having either Power BI Pro, Power BI Premium, or Power BI Report Server. 

[Medmbchr]

Then which option is the most affordable for an on-premise license? The 5000 USD per month option is not doable for them.

[Shahfaisal]

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@Medmbchr wrote:

Then which option is the most affordable for an on-premise license? The 5000 USD per month option is not doable for them.

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I mentioned this before, if they have SQL Server Enterprise Edition with Software Assurance, this would be the best option since they don't want to go cloud. If they don't have SQL Server Enterprise Edition with Software Assurance, then I don't have any other suggestions for you since your client doesn't want to use a cloud solution.

[Medmbchr]

Hi

I have checked with them, they have SQL Server Standard Edition 2014, Do you know if that would be doable with this?

Regards,

[Shahfaisal]

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@Medmbchr wrote:

Hi

I have checked with them, they have SQL Server Standard Edition 2014, Do you know if that would be doable with this?

Regards,

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Unfortunately, no . As I mentioned before, they need SQL Server Enterprise Edition with Software Assurance.

[Medmbchr]

Then here is my plan:

- Provide them with an access to Report Server with developer mode (don't know if it allows to see reports in full screen and how many people can access them at once)

- Convince them about a cloud solution

- Provide the cloud solution

Does this sound good?

[Shahfaisal]

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@Medmbchr wrote:

Then here is my plan:

- Provide them with an access to Report Server with developer mode (don't know if it allows to see reports in full screen and how many people can access them at once)

- Convince them about a cloud solution

- Provide the cloud solution

Does this sound good?

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Option #1: I wouldn't do it. It is is not a good idea to sk end-users to use developer tools - sharing, collaboration becomes a significant maintenance overhead.

Option #2: Sounds good to me. If Power BI Pro is an option then sure. From your other post, I see that you need to refresh more than 8 times a day but the client can't afford premium. One option I can think of is to use Power BI DirectQuery - with this option, the data is always live (as it is in the database), though reports may not be as fast.

Also, please note Power BI Report server is not free. I suggest you to go through this in detail - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/report-server/get-started

Power BI Report Server is available through two different licenses: Power BI Premium and SQL Server Enterprise Edition with Software Assurance. See Microsoft Volume Licensing for details. With a Power BI Premium license, you can create a hybrid deployment mixing cloud and on-premises.

If you publish Power BI reports to Power BI Report Server, you also need a Power BI Pro license. You don't need a Power BI Pro license to view and interact with Power BI reports on Power BI Report Server.

[Medmbchr]

Hi

Thanks for your reply. I actually tried Report Server today and it seems fine. Maybe using it will convince them to buy Power BI Pro/Premium per user afterwards when those dashboards become a necessity in their organisation.

However, I still have one question? Is it possible that one organisation can have both Power BI Pro and Premium accounts. Here is why:

- Power BI Pro refreshes 8 times max and it's cheaper: this access can be used by directors/managers since they won't need that much refreshing per day.

- Power BI Premium per user: uses up to 48 refreshing times, that's an equivalent of one refresh every 15 min for a 10 hour workday, that would be mainly for operators on the field (order pickers, packers, warehousemen etc).

Also I was thinking about aggregating access so that for example a team can use one PBI Pro/Premium access.

Are those two scenarios possible? Sorry for asking a lot about this as in my country Power BI is not that well expanded and people don't like to invest much in IT.

Also, How Power BI Pro/Premium connects to a local SQL Server instance?

Regards

[Shahfaisal]

I suggest that you ask a separate question for each topic. But for your question " Is it possible that one organisation can have both Power BI Pro and Premium accounts", the answer is yes.

Please close this post and create a new question for each separate topic as it will help other forum users too.