Microsoft Power BI Desktop is a companion desktop application to Power BI. With Power BI Desktop, you can: Get data The Power BI Desktop makes discovering data easy. You can import data from a wide variety of data sources. After you connect to a data source, you can shape the data to match your analysis and reporting needs. Microsoft Power BI Desktop (free download) This course is designed for PC/Windows users (currently not available for Mac) Experience with Excel Power Query, Power Pivot & DAX is a plus, but not required.
Power BI is the leader of the pack when it comes to Business Intelligence tools. It has several different licence types, depending on how users want to use and interact with it.
If you’re thinking about using Power BI business analytics tools to deliver insights throughout your organisation, or if you’ve been provided a licence by your company, you’ll need to understand what these licences are, how they work and what facilities each offer.
Update: In December 2020 Microsoft Announced their new 'Premium Per User' Licence I've written about it here Power BI Licences, what is Premium Per User ?
Update: We cover licencing in our Youtube Video,
Comparison table
| Power BI Licence | Free | Pro | Premium |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free | £7.50/u/m | > £3100/m/Licenced by Capacity |
| Data Capacity Limit | 10GB | 10GB | 100TB (102,400GB) |
| Maximum size of a DataModel | 1GB | 1GB | 10GB |
| Create and View Dashboards & Reports | Y | Y | View Only |
| Share Dashboards & reports with other BI Users | N | Y | |
| Power BI Desktop | Y | Y | |
| Access via mobile Devices | Y | Y | |
| Consume Curated Content Packs (Dynamics, Salesforce, Google Analytics) | Y | Y | |
| Import from Excel, CSV, and Power BI desktop Files | Y | Y | |
| Publish to Web | Y | Y | |
| Export to PowerPoint/CSV | N | Y | |
| Publish to Sharepoint | N | Y | |
| Publish to Premium | N | Y | |
| Power BI Report Server (On Premise Server) | N | Premium | Y |
| Data Refresh | |||
| Scheduled Refresh | 8 per day | 8 Per Day | 48 Per Day |
| Minimum Time Between Refreshes | 30min | 30min | 1min |
| Streaming Data (per hour) | 1M Rows/hour | 1M rows/hour | |
| Live Data Sources | N | Y | |
| Access on-premises data via Gateways (Personal & Enterprise) | Y | Y | |
| Collaboration | |||
| Use Office 365 Groups in Power BI | N | Y | |
| Create & Publish Apps | N | Y | N |
| Consume Apps | N | Y | Y |
| Manage access control through Active Directory Groups | N | Y | N |
Our in depth look at each shows exactly how they differ and will help you make the right decision:
Power BI desktop – free software
Before getting in to licence detail, it’s worth mentioning one element of Power BI that does not need a licence. The Power BI desktop application is a free download from Microsoft, you can get it here.
Power BI Desktop lets you create Data Models and build Reports, but does not need a Power BI licence. However, once you’ve built your Report, in order to share it with others, export it to PowerPoint or simply print the Report you’ll need a Power BI account in the cloud. To access Power BI in the cloud you’ll need a licence, either Free or Pro.
Power BI Free Licence
The Power BI Free licence is the entry-level licence for Power BI. Users can sign up for one simply by registering here. A Power BI Free licence gives the user 10GB of storage in the cloud that can be used for hosting Power BI reports, or Excel workbooks.
The maximum size of a Power BI report that can be hosted in the cloud is 1GB. These reports can be refreshed up to 8 times a day, with a minimum of 30 minutes between each refresh.
Power BI Free Limitations
Although powerful, the Power BI free licence has several limitations. The most obvious is that Free licences cannot share Reports or Dashboards with other users, neither can they view Reports or Dashboards shared from other Pro licence users.
The only method of sharing a Report open to Free licence users is to publish the Report to the Web. This makes the report publicly available on app.powerbi.com. This publish to web is great for sharing reports with everybody on the internet, but remember it’s not secure and should not be used for data you don’t want to make public, which is pretty much any corporate data, which should be kept confidential.
Other limitations mean you cannot integrate with Office 365 or export reports to PowerPoint or report data to CSV’s.
Best for
- Small businesses and start-ups
- Businesses with less data to analyse
- Businesses without a budget for intelligence tools
Power BI Pro
The Pro licence is a chargeable, per user licence which is currently £7.50 per user per month. It is usually bought as a standalone or add-on licence to office 365. The office 365 E5 licence is the only office 365 licence that includes a Power BI Pro licence as part of it, all others need an add-on licence.
A Pro licence has all the feature of the free licence, 10GB of storage, maximum 1GB report size, 8 automated refreshes per day, with a minimum 30 minutes between refreshes etc. But the big difference is that Pro users can share Reports and Dashboards with other Pro users.
Pro licence holders can also integrate with Office 365 Groups and Teams, use collaborative workspaces and set up email subscriptions to Reports and Dashboards. Often called a “Creator” or “Author” licence, the Pro licence is the most common Power BI licence and in small to medium sized enterprises is it common to have a Pro licence for each user that wants to use Power BI.
Best for
- Medium to larger businesses
- Corporations with big data
- Multi-site businesses
Power BI Premium
The Power BI Premium licence is not a per-user licence like a Free or Pro Licence. Instead a Premium licence provides a dedicated capacity for all users in the organisation. This dedicated capacity, a “Premium Workspace” can be used to host large datasets, up to 50GB in size and offers a total of 100TB of data storage.
It allows Reports and Dashboards to be wrapped up in an “app” and shared with users. These users then only need a free licence to view the app. It also allows Reports and Dashboards on a Premium Workspace to be shared with users having a free licence.
Multiple workspaces can be marked as “Premium” and each can be use to create apps or share with free licence users. A Power BI Premium licence is very much a “consumer” licence, allowing users with only a free licence the ability to view and interact with Reports and Dashboards hosted on a Premium workspace. To create these reports and dashboards in the first place you need a “Pro” licence.
How do you know what Licence you have?
If you want to know what licence you have for Power BI, from your Power BI Workspace on the web, click on the “Gearwheel” on the menu top right. From there click on “Manage Personal Storage” Power BI will show your login name and the licence type at the top of the screen.
To find out if you have a Premium licence, look at the Workspaces available to you. Premium workspaces have a diamond icon next to them. Alternatively, when creating a Workspace you can designate it as “Dedicated Capacity”, which is only available with a Premium licence.
Figure 1 Diamond Icon signifying Premium Workspace
Things to note
- There is no anonymous secure viewer for Power BI, if you publish a report to the Web, it is made public, and anyone on the internet can potentially search and find the data. Try putting “site:app.powerbi.com burningsuit” into google to find our public reports, or worse still try “site:app.powerbi.com confidential”!
- To securely share a Report, a Pro user can share with another Pro user, or place the Report on a Premium Workspace and share it with Free licence users.
- Emailing Power BI Desktop files around is not secure, the recipient gets ALL the data in the data model and can edit the resulting report. Of course, the recipient also needs a copy of PowerBI Desktop to open the .pbix file.
- When you first sign up for Power BI free you have the option of trialling a Pro licence for 30 days without charge.
- Internal Administrators can block signup to Power BI Free or Pro, so that they can administer the licences for the organisation.
Training for all versions
Whether you choose to go with the free or pro version of Power BI, or update to premium, we can help you get the most out of it for your business in our Power BI Training courses.
Our team of experts are at the cutting edge of all things Power BI, due to our close partnership with Microsoft, giving you the most up-to-date training and information of the platform.
Get in contact with our expert team to find out more or, visit our Power BI page to book your place on one of our courses.
-->To create Power BI reports for Power BI Report Server, you need to download and install the version of Power BI Desktop that's optimized for Power BI Report Server. This release is different from the Power BI Desktop used with the Power BI service. For example, the version of Power BI Desktop for the Power BI service includes preview features. Those features aren't in the Power BI Report Server version until they're generally available. Using this release makes sure that the report server can interact with a known version of the reports and model.
Not to worry. You can install Power BI Desktop, and Power BI Desktop optimized for Power BI Report Server, side by side on the same computer.
Download and install Power BI Desktop
The easiest way to be sure you have the most up-to-date version of Power BI Desktop optimized for Power BI Report Server is to start from the web portal of your report server.
In the report server web portal, select the Download arrow > Power BI Desktop.
Or go to the Power BI Report Server home page and select Advanced download options.
In the Download Center page, select a language, then select Download.
Depending on your computer, select:
- PBIDesktopRS.msi (the 32-bit version) or
- PBIDesktopRS_x64.msi (the 64-bit version).
After you download the installer, run the Power BI Desktop Setup Wizard.
At the end of the installation, select Launch Power BI Desktop.
It starts automatically and you're ready to go.
Verify you're using the correct version
It's easy to verify that you're using the correct Power BI Desktop: Look at the launch screen or title bar within Power BI Desktop. You can tell you have the right version because Power BI Desktop (October 2020) is in the title bar. Also, the Power BI logo colors are reversed, yellow on black instead of black on yellow.
The version of Power BI Desktop for the Power BI service doesn't have the month and year in the title bar.
File extension association
Say you've installed both Power BI Desktop and Power BI Desktop optimized for Power BI Report Server on the same machine. Your most recent installation of Power BI Desktop has the file association with .pbix files. Thus, when you double-click a .pbix file, it launches the Power BI Desktop you installed most recently.
If you have Power BI Desktop and then install Power BI Desktop optimized for Power BI Report Server, all .pbix files open in Power BI Desktop optimized for Power BI Report Server by default. If you would rather have Power BI Desktop be the default to launch when opening a .pbix file, reinstall Power BI Desktop from the Microsoft Store.
You can always open the version of Power BI Desktop you want to use first. And then open the file from within Power BI Desktop.
Here's the safest way to always open the correct version of Power BI Desktop. Start editing a Power BI report from within Power BI Report Server, or create a new Power BI report from the Power BI service.
Considerations and limitations
Power BI reports in Power BI Report Server, in the Power BI service (https://app.powerbi.com), and in the Power BI mobile apps act almost exactly the same, but a few features are different.
Selecting a language
For Power BI Desktop optimized for Power BI Report Server, you select the language when you install the app. You can't change it after, but you can install a version in another language.
Report visuals in a browser
Power BI Report Server reports support almost all visualizations, including Power BI visuals. Power BI Report Server reports don’t support:
- R visuals
- ArcGIS maps
- Breadcrumbs
- Power BI Desktop preview features
Reports in the Power BI mobile apps
Power BI Report Server reports support all the basic functionality in the Power BI mobile apps, including:
Phone report layout: You can optimize a report for the Power BI mobile apps. On your mobile phone, optimized reports have a special icon , and layout.
Power BI Report Server reports don’t support these features in the Power BI mobile apps:
- R visuals
- ArcGIS maps
- Power BI visuals
- Breadcrumbs
- Geo filtering or bar codes
Free Microsoft Power Bi Download
Custom Security
Power BI Desktop optimized for Power BI Report Server does not support custom security. If your Power BI Report Server is configured with a custom security extension, you can't save a Power BI report from Power BI Desktop (optimized for Power BI Report Server) to the Power BI Report Server instance. You need to save the .pbix report file from Power BI Desktop and upload it to the Power BI Report Server portal site.
Saving reports to a Power BI Report Server in a different domain
When you save a Power BI report to Power BI Report Server, your Windows credentials are used. Saving directly to a report server in a different domain to your Windows credentials is not supported. You can use a web browser to view the report server and manually upload the file from your machine instead.
Power Bi Desktop Download
Next steps
Now that you have Power BI Desktop installed, you can start creating Power BI reports.
Create a Power BI report for Power BI Report Server
What is Power BI Report Server?
Microsoft Power Bi Desktop Download
More questions? Try asking the Power BI Community