https://www.sikich.com

What to Know about the Power BI Embedded License

Rob Dowsett

Nov 6 2017

2 min read

Adam Wilson over at Microsoft recently published a great blog detailing the differences between Power BI Pro and Premium licenses. It is a great article, but it left off one important detail for Dynamics 365 for Operations customers—Power BI Embedded.

What is Power BI Embedded?

The Power BI Embedded license type is intended for application developers to ship a product with embedded data visualization and is included with D365O licenses. What does that mean for D365O? It means we have Analytical workspaces.

What can you do with a Power BI Embedded License?

The Power BI Embedded license allows you to view analytical workspaces within D365O. These visuals can be customized using Power BI Desktop and incorporated back in to the application by a developer in Visual Studio and Life Cycle Services. Drill down functionality is supported, as is role based security via menu items. You can also filter data based on a users current context in the application.

Details on how to customize and author new reports can be found here:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/unified-operations/dev-itpro/analytics/author-distribute-power-bi-reports

What Can’t You Do with Power BI Embedded?

There are a few things you might want to do that will push you to the Power BI Pro or Premium license.

Data mashup scenarios are not supported. You can only query D365O via direct query. No other data sources can be uses.

As soon as you move from viewing content in D365 to PowerBI.com, you need to have a Power BI Pro or Premium license. This is likely if you have power users developing reports and dashboards on their own and using Power BI Desktop and then publishing those to PowerBI.com for distribution across your organization.

And this leads us back to Adam’s blog post, on deciding which version is right for you. It is also worth noting that Power BI Embedded is not supported for those deploying D365O on-premises.

This publication contains general information only and Sikich is not, by means of this publication, rendering accounting, business, financial, investment, legal, tax, or any other professional advice or services. This publication is not a substitute for such professional advice or services, nor should you use it as a basis for any decision, action or omission that may affect you or your business. Before making any decision, taking any action or omitting an action that may affect you or your business, you should consult a qualified professional advisor. In addition, this publication may contain certain content generated by an artificial intelligence (AI) language model. You acknowledge that Sikich shall not be responsible for any loss sustained by you or any person who relies on this publication.

About the Author

Rob Dowsett

Rob has worked in the Microsoft Dynamics channel for over 15 years, with expertise in Dynamics 365 Enterprise. Throughout his career, Rob helped build a thriving Dynamics AX practice with a team of over 20 and gained multiple Microsoft President Club awards.