The choice between only having either Power BI Pro and Power BI Premium and whether you need to run them together boils down to your assessment of your organisations size and consumption needs i.e. how many need to create reports, how many need to review / access those reports and how many simply need a dashboard / at-a-glance style of reporting. This is because if you’re a large company with more users that need to consume your reports than create them, Power BI Premium is the optimal choice, and you can purchase a lesser amount of Pro licenses for your self-service team.
However, in the case that you have more self-service BI users that need to be able to create reports than those who actually need to view them, Power BI Pro’s individual licensing model on its own may be more cost-effective BI option. In this case you simply need to share directly the reports you make with those that need to view them.
A good way to explain the above scenarios is through a business case example used by Microsoft to help illustrate Power BI Pro vs. Premium suitability:
- If an organisation consists of 200 total users – 50 are engaging in self-service BI, while the remaining 150 are limited to viewing BI content
- Deployment Power BI Pro is an economical option for all users within the organisation.
- However, if the organisation consists of 700 total users – 100 are engaging in self-service BI, while the remaining 600 occasionally view BI content
- Deploy Power BI Pro for the 100 users engaging in self-service BI
- Deploy Power BI Premium for the 600 seeking occasional access to view BI content.
- If the organisation instead consists of 5,000 total users – 4,000 are engaging in self-service BI, while the remaining 1,000 occasionally view BI content
- Deploy Power BI Pro for the 4,000 users engaging in self-service BI
- Deploy Power BI Premium for the 1,000 seeking occasional access to view BI content.
Conclusion
In summary, take the time to properly assess each tier of Power BI currently available and determine how it fits you best.. You need to identify exactly how many users in your organisation need to build reports and view them, and examine your current databases to see whether you can properly take advantage of Power BI’s features and benefits.
Furthermore, there are a number of benefits to be had from using Power BI:
- As Analysts
- Quickly go from data to insight to action. Connect to hundreds of sources, prep data with ease, and create beautiful reports.
- For IT professionals / department
- Simplify management, achieve compliance, and keep data secure while giving people access to the insights they need.
- For developers
- Bring your apps to life with data. Easily embed interactive data visuals and deliver compelling reports on any device.