Power BI is designed so that each person within an organization can have the level of access required to execute their job and get the information they need, when they need it.
How you use Power BI within your organization depends on your role on a project or team. For example, if you are a data analyst, you likely spend a lot of time crunching numbers. In a case like this, Power BI Desktop would allow you to organize and analyze data, and then publish reports to the Power BI service to make them accessible to the right users within your company.
People in other departments would then be able to access the information they need. The CEO may receive an automated Power BI report that illustrates key metrics and performance markers. A salesperson may use the Power BI mobile app to access incoming opportunities and drill into reports for lead details and other information on the go.
As you can see, different roles in an organization can and will use Power BI in completely different ways.
Now, let’s look at the individual roles and how they use Power BI.
Power BI is a business intelligence software solution that meets the demands of many. That being said, it’s the IT department and developers who are typically tasked with integrating Power BI as a solution within the organization. While the C-suite, managers and other people in the business will rely on the software, making sure it is working how needed is the job of the CTO and his downstream team. In mid-size companies or a small business, a developer or consultant is likely the one responsible for setting up Power BI.
Most businesses will want to create custom visualizations to view their data in a unique and tailored way.
If you are a developer, you might use Power BI APIs to push data into data sets, or to embed dashboards and reports into your own custom applications. This would allow you to synthesize information from multiple systems and data sets into easily understandable visual models that you can display however you need to meet the requirements of the project.
The outcome is that stakeholders, management, employees and customers (or anyone else) can receive reports and dashboards. Both reports and dashboards can be scheduled, accessible via password or be part of data-driven subscription.
Users with this level of access often only need to view and interact with the data to retrieve information for making business decisions, notifications or fulfilling the function of their job.
A Power BI user with this type of role would not have full access to the software, which is fine because their only need is getting the information they need when they need it, whether through an automated Power BI report, custom dashboard or self-service BI.
Admins are another important role, and serve the function of managing the Power BI tenant, usage monitoring, provisioning of licenses, governance policies and company resources. Their function is solely to manage who has access to the software.
There are three different Power BI licenses, each with its own level of pricing, functionality and use.
Perfect for individual users that want to analyze data for free without the need to share data with others.
A cloud-based Microsoft service that allows users to easily share information and collaborate in the cloud.
An on-premise, enterprise-level solution for large organizations that want full control and governance
Here's how you can send UNLIMITED reports to UNLIMITED users with ONLY ONE Power BI license — in any format.
As you can see, Power BI pricing varies greatly depending on the license you choose.
The pricing strategy varies just as much between products. While the free version gives you all of the dashboards and connections you would need, it’s limited when it comes to sharing — you won’t be able to collaborate or share reports with others. Other than that, Power Bi Desktop has all of the features that you’ll find in Power BI Pro.
Power BI Pro removes the limitations of Power BI Desktop and allows you to share your data, reports and dashboards. Pricing is based on per user, which works for small to midsize organizations. Those that have high capacity demands and the need an on-premise solution for data governance and security must rely on Power BI Premium.
Some of the advantages of Power BI Premium include:
You can use the Power BI calculator to get an example of costs.
While Power BI does offer a robust business intelligence solution and a great self-service analytics tool, there is no built-in feature that allows users or administrators to schedule and automate reports.
For large organizations, this can be a huge drawback, for two reasons:
In order for users to collaborate and access data you are required to pay for a license for every user that needs access to the software, whether they will be a regular user or not.
If your organization has a need to schedule and automate Power BI reports to different user groups (C-suite, management, employees, vendors, customers) or send reports in specific formats (Word, Excel, PDF, PowerPoint) to specific destinations (Printer, Fax, Email, FTP, Dropbox, Google Drive) then you won’t be able to accomplish this with Power BI alone.
The Microsoft online service does have scheduling capabilities, it can only be used in two ways:
Here's how you can send UNLIMITED reports to UNLIMITED users with ONLY ONE Power BI license — in any format.
If you are familiar with SSRS scheduling then scheduling reports with PBRS will be familiar territory.
With PBRS, you’re able to do data-driven subscriptions and scheduling for any number of Power BI reports and dashboards.
Export Power BI and SSRS to XLSX, PDF and CSV. Send to email, Google Sheets, Dropbox, Folder, Printer and FTP.
Power BI Export to Excel
Export Power BI data to Excel is as a single file or combine multiple workbooks into encrypted files ready for distribution. Choose the destination, the recipients and the schedule, and you’re done.
Power BI Export to PDF
Send scheduled reports to a printer or fax, or email a password-protected PDF, to unlimited people with one license as many times as you like to whoever you need to.
Power BI Export to PowerPoint
Share PowerPoint presentations with shareholders, management or anyone you choose. No need for multiple licenses. You can do it all with one. Simple and flexible. In the cloud or on-premise.
Power BI Export to Word
Automate the export of Word docs to your team or customers however you want. Reports can be scheduled, automated or sent using triggered events. Data-driven subscriptions are here.
Power BI Export to Sharepoint
