New RE User --PowerBI License Level

Cara Valentine
Cara Valentine
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in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT® APIs

Newbie RE user here looking for guidance from users that are older and wiser. For those that have created an API with Power BI for elevated reporting, can you offer any advice on which Power BI license (Pro, Premium Per User or Embedded) has worked best for your team? ?

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  • Alex Wong
    Alex Wong Community All-Star
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    @Cara Valentine
    we use Pro for each user that needs to view the reports built on Power BI.

  • Vincent Bailly
    Vincent Bailly
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    @Cara Valentine We use Power BI for other reports with Pro for people who build reports and Premium capacity for users (which is Fabric capacity now).

  • Alex Wong
    Alex Wong Community All-Star
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    @Vincent Bailly
    How big of an org are you with # of users that will be consuming the power bi being built?

    From what I understand, using Preimum capacity is $3000 per month, which allows for “free” user access to reports published to the Power BI service that has the preimum capacity.

    If not using Preimum, then every user (regardless if you are creating or just consuming) will require a Power BI Pro license, which for non profit, it is $3/user/month.

    So if my understanding is correct, unless you have over 1000 users, preimum is more expansive to have.

  • Vincent Bailly
    Vincent Bailly
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    @Alex Wong without going into too much details, the Premium per capacity is better in term of performance and for sharing reports to users with the free licence. Our org is the University of Montreal and we have hundreds of users consuming reports.

  • Alex Wong
    Alex Wong Community All-Star
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    @Vincent Bailly
    That's great.

    I would love to try out the Premium capacity and check out how much more performant over Pro license is, though $3K per month isn't something my org will shell out.

    If you (or anyone) has any stat on how much better premium is, that may be helpful. (i.e. How much faster refresh is; how much faster does the most “intensive” Power BI load;)

  • Vincent Bailly
    Vincent Bailly
    Second Anniversary Name Dropper Facilitator 1

    @Alex Wong yes it can be a bit costly :) I don't have the figures right now, but I'll definitely share them if I get them!

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