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Power BI Pro VS Premium-1

Power BI Pro vs Premium – Understand The Differences In Licensing

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Power BI is a data analysis and visualization tool that helps businesses make better-informed decisions by getting insights from the data. Microsoft offers Pro and Premium are paid licensing options for Power BI. There is usually some confusion about Power BI Pro vs Premium licensing and which one to choose.

Companies are sometimes unsure about which paid option to go for when using Power BI. We have explained the differences, advantages, and what each licensing version of Power BI offers below. You can get a clear understanding of Power BI Pro and Premium versions; this will help you decide your business’s perfect option.

What Does Power BI Pro Offers?

It is essential to know what each plan offers individually before knowing Power BI Pro vs Premium differences.

The Power BI Pro is for individual users. In simple terms, if you have ten users in your organization, you will have to buy ten different Power BI Pro licenses. The users with Pro license can create, share and consume the reports. It gives you access to the full functionality and capabilities of Power BI.

With Power BI Pro licensing, the users can access all the supported data sources that are available on the cloud and on-premises. The maximum storage allowed is 10 GB per user. You can perform ad-hoc analysis, share dashboards, and do other report related tasks with Power BI Pro.

What Does Power BI Premium Offer?

The Power BI Premium is not for individual users; instead, it is a licensing for the organization’s content, including dashboards, datasets, and reports. All the organization users with Power BI Premium can view the reports but cannot create one. There is no per-user cost once the business takes Power BI Premium licensing.

The users in your organization can view reports on the dashboard, mobile apps, or embedded in the organization’s portal. The maximum storage capacity allowed is 100 TB. There is a Power BI Report Server available with Premium licensing.

You can deploy and share the reports within the organization’s firewall with the help on-premises server known as Power BI Report Server.

Power BI Pro vs Premium

Both the licensing plans offered by Microsoft are very different from each other, making them suitable for all types of businesses. The Power BI Pro is for individual users, while the Premium is for content related to the organization.

The organization that opted for Premium licensing may also need Pro to create reports and access dashboards for a specific set of users. Even the pricing of both is quite different.

 

power bi pro vs premium

Power BI Premium vs Pro Pricing

Power BI Pro is available for USD 9.99/user per month, and Power BI Premium is available for USD 4995/month.

The Premium version has larger storage sizes, higher refresh rates, and other features like the pin to memory, geo-distribution, and read-only replicas. If you are looking for Power BI licensing where more users just view the reports rather than creating them, you need Power BI Premium.

However, if you are looking for a situation that is another way around, where more users are accessing datasets and creating reports, you need a Pro plan.

The choice of Power BI Pro vs Premium depends on the organization’s strength, needs, and usage of the Power BI tool.

Advantages And Limitation Of Power BI Pro And Premium

The Pro and Premium versions have some advantages and limitations that can help any organization choose the licensing that suits their business needs.

Advantages of Power BI Pro

  • Can embed Power BI reports into Apps.
  • Integration with Azure Data Services and other Microsoft solutions
  • Allows one to create an App workspace
  • Easy to share datasets, reports, and dashboards with other Pro users

Limitations of Power BI Pro

  • Need to purchase individual licensing for every user in the same organization

Advantages of Power BI Premium

  • A larger storage capacity is available.
  • Has Power BI Report Server
  • Maximum performance
  • Easy to view/consumer reports through mobile apps, dashboards, and company’s portal

Limitation of Power BI Premium

  • You cannot create reports or manage dashboards using this licensing.
  • Need to purchase Pro user licenses separately for the users who create reports for the organization

Now, you know the strengths and weaknesses of each of Microsoft’s licenses for Power BI.

Power BI Pro vs Premium: Which One Is For Your Organization?

Power BI Pro and Premium

The final call about licensing depends on the decision-makers of your organization. We can help you pick one depending on the different scenarios. You can go through the scenarios given below and know which plan goes where.

Scenario 1: If there are ten employees in your company, out of which seven employees need to create reports and access data sets. You should opt for Power BI Pro licensing for all ten users because the Premium license here won’t be useful and can become costly too.

Scenario 2: If there are 3000 employees in the organization and around 1000 users need a Pro license for report creation. You can purchase a combination of Pro and Premium licenses. The Premium license can be useful for other 2000 employees to view the reports.

You can check out the calculator provided by Microsoft to give you an estimation about licensing required in your company.

Final Thoughts

The Power BI Pro vs Premium licensing debate ends on the needs and requirements of the organization. Each business has different sets of operations their employees perform, which, in turn, decides their licensing option. The Power BI Pro license gives you the full Power BI capabilities, but this license needs to be purchased for individual users separately.

On the other hand, Power BI Premium can be purchased for the entire organization, with many users consuming the reports, but it does not allow you to create reports. There are pros and cons for both the licensing option of Power BI; you need to opt for the one that fits your business.

Power BI Gateway

Power BI Gateway – Everything You Need To Know

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Power BI lets you connect to a variety of data sources, irrespective of where they are stored. You can have data sources on the cloud or office premises, and still Power BI can connect to it without putting much effort and money on infrastructure.

It is always easy to connect to the data source stored in the cloud. However, when it comes to on-premises data sources, the Microsoft cloud services, like Power BI, require a Power BI gateway to get connected.

With the help of a gateway, Power BI can access data from locally stored databases quickly and securely.

What is the Power BI Gateway?

Power BI gateway is a software that can connect and access the data sources stored locally on-premises. It can help the businesses who keep the data in the local databases behind the firewall but wish to use Microsoft cloud services.

With the help of an on-premises gateway, you can not only connect Power BI to local databases but can also connect other Microsoft services like PowerApps, Azure Analysis Services, Power Automate, and Azure Logic Apps.

Power BI gateway acts as a bridge between Power BI and the local databases of the company. However, you need the right credentials to bypass this gateway and access the database.

Types of Gateway

Microsoft offers two types of gateway, but there is a difference between them. One gateway type is the standard mode, and another is the personal mode.

On-premises data gateway (Standard Mode)

With standard mode gateway, multiple people are allowed to access multiple local databases. If you have multiple developer environments that need to access the databases, the standard mode is recommended.

You can install a single gateway and connect Power BI, Azure Logic Apps, Azure Analysis Services, Microsoft Flow, and PowerApps to on-premises databases.

The standard mode is for complex environments where you have multiple users working on multiple on-premises data stores.

On-premises data gateway (Personal Mode)

With personal mode Power BI gateway, only one user can access the local databases. You can only connect Power BI to on-premises data sources with this mode of the gateway.

If you have an environment where only a single person accesses the data source to analyze the data and generate reports, the personal mode is recommended.

Installing and configuring on-premises data gateway personal mode is easier than standard mode because of its single user allowance. The privileges cannot be shared among multiple users in personal mode, hence the name.

Standard Mode vs. Personal Mode

There is not only the difference in the number of users allowed in both the mode, but few more things make them different from each other.

 

Standard Mode Personal Mode
Can work with Power BI, Azure Logic Apps, Power Apps, Azure Analysis Services, Power Automate, Dataflows Can work with only Power BI
Can allow multiple users to access local data sources Can allow only one user to access local data sources
Supports DirectQuery Doesn’t support DirectQuery
Cannot run as an app for users who do not have administrator privileges Can run as an app for users who do not have administrator privileges

Caption: Table of difference between standard mode and personal mode on-premises data gateway

Power BI Gateway Architecture

The Power BI data gateway works in a particular flow whenever there is a request to access on-premises data sources from the cloud services and web apps.

Power BI gateway

Power BI gateway architecture (Image Source)

The entire flow is divided into six steps.

Step 1: Power BI creates a query that requires access to the local data source. This query, along with encrypted credentials, is sent to Gateway Cloud Service.

Step 2: The Gateway Cloud Service analyzes and processes the request and forwards it to Azure Service Bus.

Step 3: Azure Service Bus, then sends the request to the on-premises data gateway.

Step 4: When the on-premises data gateway gets the request, it decrypts the credentials and connects to the required data sources depending on the query.

Step 5: The Power BI gateway forwards the query to the connected data sources so that it can be executed there.

Step 6: The results given by data sources are forwarded to the gateway. The on-premises gateway then sends the results back to Power BI.

If there is a large amount of data to be returned from data sources, it is temporarily saved on the gateway machine. Once all the result is collected from the data source, it is forwarded to the cloud service (Power BI in our case).

How to Use Power BI Gateway?

It is very easy to get started with using Power BI data gateway in your setup by following the below steps.

Step 1: Download the Power BI gateway, depending on the type you want, and install it on your computer.

Step 2: Once you installed the gateway, configure it depending on your business environment.

Step 3: Add gateway admins to administer and manage the data sources along with network requirements.

Step 4: Refresh the local data source by using the on-premises gateway and keep the Power BI report up-to-date.

You can troubleshoot the gateway if there are any issues in connecting local data sources via the gateway.

Conclusion

Power BI gateway makes it easy to connect Microsoft cloud services to a local database behind the firewall in your organization. As every business doesn’t store their data on the cloud, it is necessary to have software like the on-premises gateway to help connect to the local data repositories.

Microsoft provides two types of gateways. You can opt for any one depending on the needs of the business. The article explains many things about the Power BI gateway, which can help you understand the gateway concept and know how it works with Microsoft services and data sources.

 

Understanding power pivot

What Is Power Pivot And 3 Reasons To Use It With Microsoft Excel

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Excel is used to handle data in businesses, irrespective of the company’s size. However, when the business data increases, it becomes difficult to analyze it and get insights with Excel. People opt for VLOOKUP and Pivot tables to handle data, but it is a tedious task to do with Excel’s limitations.

This is where the Power Pivot comes to the rescue. If you have heard of it before and are wondering ‘what is Power Pivot,’ you are at the right place, as we have answered it in detail below.

What is Power Pivot?

Well, what is Power Pivot? It is an add-in for Excel introduced by Microsoft in 2010. It can help you work around data in a sophisticated way. With Power Pivot’s help, you can work with the data beyond 1,048,576 rows, which is Excel’s limitations.

Power Pivot creates the data model (data related to each other) by collecting data from different sources. It also helps you to perform complex calculations to analyze data and present insights in a readable form.

You don’t have to rely on VLOOKUP to collect data and analyze it once you know how to work with Power Pivot. Also, the Power Pivot doesn’t require special training and infrastructure to start working with it.

You can just add it to your Excel and start analyzing your data.

Features of Power Pivot

After finding out what is Power Pivot, time to check some exciting features that make it so popular among data analysts and people who handle large volumes of data.

1. Work on Data from Different Data Sources

Power Pivot allows you to combine data from multiple sources in the form of a table, where each table can have relationships. You can have this data in a single Excel workbook. It allows you to collect information from SharePoint and SQL with few clicks.

2. Load Large Data Sets in Memory

Power Pivot uses the xVelocity engine to store large data sets in the memory. It usually compresses the data so that it can be compact and stored in the memory easily.

This also assures faster-processing speed on the calculations you want to run on the data sets.

3. Analytical Models

You can create visual models on Excel to present the analyzed data in the readable format with the help of Power Pivot. It allows you to create PivotTable, Chart and Table, PivotChart, Four Charts, Two Charts, and Flattened PivotTable.

You can also save the data model diagram view in the high-resolution form.

4. Security and Management

The IT administrators can manage and monitor the applications shared by using Power Pivot Management Dashboard to make sure there is security, performance, and high availability.

5. Faster Processing

With the help of a multi-core processor and gigabytes of memory, you can achieve faster processing of data models in the case of Power Pivot.

6. Data Analysis Expressions (DAX)

The formula language used by Power Pivot is Data Analysis Expressions, popularly known as DAX. You can perform complex calculations, grouping, and analysis with this language. It also increased data manipulation capabilities in Excel.

The syntax of DAX is similar to that of Excel formulas, making it easy to understand and perform calculations.

Power Pivot in Excel

What Is Power Pivot

Image Source

Power Pivot is a good fit for Excel, especially if you are dealing with bulk data. However, there is always confusion about which versions of Excel have Power Pivot and where to find it. The below section solves both the queries.

Where to Find Power Pivot in Excel?

You can find Power Pivot in different places based on the Office version you are using. As mentioned above, Power Pivot was introduced in 2010, so it is available in all the versions after that.

Excel 2010 – You need to download Power Pivot explicitly to work with Excel 2010

Excel 2013 and 2016 – You can find Power Pivot built-in in these versions of Excel. All you need to do is enable Power Pivot COM Add-in, and you can use it to create data models in your excel.

You can also find Power Pivot in Office Professional 2019, Office Home & Business 2019, Office Home & Students 2019, and Office 2013/2016 Professional Plus.

3 Benefits of Using Power Pivot in Excel

  1. No new learning –
    One of the major plus points of adding Power Pivot in Excel is that you don’t need to learn anything new to use it. Power Pivot just adds new features and options to traditional Excel, so if you are used to the Excel environment, you can get started with Power Pivot in no time.
  2. In-built formulas –
    There are professional-grade formulas available in Power Pivot, which makes it possible to do complex calculations.
  3. Free to use –
    All the features in the Power Pivot are free; you don’t need to pay a penny more to use any special features in Excel. With Power Pivot, you get to work on large data files at a fantastic speed. The above benefits explain what is Power Pivot and what makes it an absolute must-have.

Conclusion

As per Bill Jelen, Founder of MrExcel.com, ‘Power Pivot is the best new feature to happen to Excel in twenty years.’ and we couldn’t agree more with him. Power Pivot is a blessing for people who have to deal with the bulk of data in Excel sheets using VLOOKUP and Pivot tables.

With Power Pivot, you can deal with large volumes of data without settings up any infrastructure on your computer.

The article explains what is Power Pivot along with its features. You can also know where to find it in different versions of Excel. If you are looking for how to use Power Pivot in Excel, keep following as we will be coming up with it in the upcoming blogs.

what is powerapps

What Is PowerApps And How You Can Use It For Your Business?

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PowerApps is a Microsoft product, and its public preview was launched in April 2016. Over the years, Microsoft has improved the tool in such a way that any business can make the most of it. At present, if you are thinking, ‘what is PowerApps?’, the simple answer to this is ‘an app development tool.’

However, there is much more to this app development tool that Microsoft offers. You can leverage PowerApps features and functionalities to build powerful internal applications, and automate and simplify processes and services. Let’s dive into more details.

What is PowerApps?

what is powerapps

Image Source

PowerApps is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) that allows one to create apps for Windows, Android, and iOS, along with web applications. The templates and drag-drop functionality can help non-developers to create useful custom apps for their business. Azure Cloud is used to build the capabilities of PowerApps.

You can transform the manual business work to automation without more coding by using the apps created by PowerApps. Running a single app on multiple platforms is taken care of by the PowerApps platform by handling the requirements of the underlying operating system. All you need to do is create an app, and the rest all is handled.

How Can You Make the Most Out Of PowerApps?

Why are more businesses relying on PowerApps to build applications? This is a question on the mind of every person looking for business tools. PowerApps offers a range of features that can help businesses increase productivity, Return on Investment (ROI) and decrease app development costs, time, and efforts.

Here’s how you can make the best of the PowerApps platform for your business.

1. Easily Integrate Microsoft and Third-party Applications

You can easily connect to Microsoft services like Office 365 Outlook, OneDrive, SharePoint, Excel, and much more. The PowerApps also supports third-party connectors like Google Calendar, Google Drive, Dropbox, Salesforce, Oracle, and SAP.

2. Leverage Common Data Service (CDS)

The Common Data Service (CDS) can help you access, manage, and store data from different sources of business applications. CDS stores the data in the entity format and in a secured way. You can control the access to the database by setting permissions and levels based on your business workflow.

3. Cost and Time Effective Development

When it comes to app development, all businesses think of lots of time and cost involved. However, with PowerApps, you can save both of them. You can make a single app at 10 USD with the help of this app development tool.

The ready-made templates, no coding, and drag-drop can help non-tech users develop applications. It is also perfect for businesses who don’t have a development team on board but wish to automate parts of their business through apps.

4. Make Canvas and Model-Driven Applications

The Canvas apps are simple and use case-specific. They are created using a no-code interface and drag and drop functionality offered by PowerApps to carry out specific tasks like submitting a report or creating a record. You can integrate it to Microsoft and non-Microsoft services.

The Model-Driven apps are a bit complex and are built using Dynamics 365 framework. You can carry out more multiple tasks using this kind of application. In this type of application, you can only connect to CDS for the data source.

5. Easily Share Created Applications

Sharing the created apps among the coworkers is very easy with PowerApps.

All the above points can help you make the most of the PowerApps for your businesses. You can build apps without compromising with the help of this powerful tool provided by Microsoft. And if you are already a developer, you can add more value to your application by enhancing it using PowerApps.

Pros and Cons of PowerApps

There are some pros and cons of PowerApps experienced by a range of users while using it for app development.

Pros

  • Integration with PowerBI and Flow makes it easy to analyze, act, and automate the business process
  • Data can be connected with a variety of data sources
  • Can be integrated with most of Microsoft services as well as some third-party applications
  • Clutterless user interface
  • Does not require coding knowledge to build apps
  • Model driver PowerApps can be implemented quickly with the help of pre-packed forms and views
  • Makes it easy to automate business processes, especially the areas like accounting and sales

Cons

  • The learning curve for users from non-technical backgrounds
  • Makes it difficult to share applications outside the business
  • Cannot publish applications on any stores; Apple, Play Store, and Microsoft Store
  • Cannot create applications for consumer consumptions
  • Limited opportunities to edit code, which can be an issue for more advanced users

Why Should You Use PowerApps?

With all the above features, you will be already interested in using PowerApps to design apps for your business automation. However, there is one more reason that makes it necessary to use PowerApps – using PowerApps with SharePoint.

The InfoPath forms services in SharePoint will be discontinued after April 2023. You will have to use PowerApps instead of InfoPath, post that to work with SharePoint. Also, there are no updates to InfoPath after the 2013 version release, so you have to use whatever features currently available. With PowerApps, you get a new product which Microsoft is pushing to its audience.

You can expect evolving features and bug-fixes with each new version. This makes PowerApps the right tool to adopt when it comes to web and mobile app development for multiple platforms and browsers.

Conclusion

PowerApps itself is quite powerful, and it also works well with other tools from Microsoft. With the integration of PowerBI, Flow, and cloud-based services like Azure and Dropbox, you can easily get more work done via the app created by PowerApps.

Now that you know what is PowerApps and how it can help you in your business to increase overall productivity, let’s look at some stats.

When apps are created using PowerApps, as per Microsoft, there is 188% ROI over three years and 74% reduction in app development cost. These are excellent numbers for businesses of any size, and a reason why you should consider using PowerApps.