Power BI & Fabric
How They Fit Together
Power BI is Microsoft's business analytics platform that helps turn data into actionable insights. Whether you're a business user, report creator, or developer, Power BI offers integrated tools and services to connect, visualize, and share data across UT.
Microsoft Fabric is an all-in-one analytics platform that includes Power BI as one of its core workloads. Fabric adds additional capability to the default Power BI service, at additional cost.
Licensing
There are several Power BI & Fabric license versions, each version has different collaboration and sharing requirements. It’s important to understand the audience (internal / external) & whether your data can be accessed publicly by anyone on the web or whether your data is private before selecting a license tier.
Staff and Faculty with Microsoft A5 licensing receive Power BI Pro by default. Microsoft A1 license holders can self-service a Power BI Pro or Fabric Trial. By default in our environment, users who are not eligible for Power BI Pro have access to the Power BI service with a severely restricted feature set.
Power BI licenses are assigned to individual users whereas Fabric capacity is assigned to a workspace (the container that holds your solution).
Trials
Self-service Power BI and Fabric Trials are available for a 60 day period which allows UT employees to sign up for Power BI Pro, Premium (PPU), or Fabric Capacity (F4 or F64). Sign up for a free 60 day Fabric trial here and you can choose your trial Power BI & Fabric licensing tier. Alternatively, sign in to https://app.powerbi.com, click on your M365 profile icon in the top right corner, and then ‘Start Power BI Trial’ or ‘Start Fabric Trial.’
Purchasing User-Assigned Licenses
Current students who need Power BI Pro for a class or assignment can purchase Power BI Pro at the Campus Computer Store.
Staff and Faculty can make add-on purchases from TRECS.
Azure Subscriptions for Fabric Capacity
An Azure subscription is required for Fabric capacity licensing. Your group or department will need to request an Azure subscription if you do not already have one. Once configured, an Azure subscription is associated with your department's IDT and will be billed quarterly. You can find the Owners / Contributors of Azure subscriptions you are associated with by navigating to https://portal.azure.com/#view/Microsoft_Azure_Billing/SubscriptionsBladeV2 while signed in with your UT EID identity.
In order for Fabric capacity to be linked with your Azure subscription & workspace, your Azure subscription Owner must also be the Administrator of the workspace needing capacity. Alternatively, the Azure subscription Owner can make a workspace Administrator an Azure subscription ‘Contributor’ which also grants the appropriate permission to link a subscription to a workspace. Read how to manage Azure subscription identity roles.
If you want Fabric capacity and don’t have an Azure Subscription, start the Azure Subscription request process. In the meantime, activate 60-day Power BI Pro / Fabric trials for initial access.
Once the Azure subscription and qualifying Fabric capacity is provisioned, the existing trial workspace can be assigned capacity, removing trial status.
Capacity Cost
Microsoft has two pricing models – pay as you go or reservation. Up to date pricing is available for each SKU on their website.
Important Information for Sharing
F64 capacity is the minimum capacity required to share content with unlicensed viewers. To avoid interruption in service, ensure that capacity is provisioned before the trial expires. Even with F64 capacity assigned, authors and publishers still require Power Bi Pro or PPU. In our environment, only Staff and Faculty with Microsoft A5 licenses are assigned Power BI Pro by default.
Version Table
License / Version | Notes | Cost Model | Publishing/Sharing Limitations | UT Resources | Microsoft Resources |
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Power BI Desktop for Windows | Not available for Mac or Linux OS | No cost |
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Power BI Pro | Licensed per-user | Included with staff A5 license, students and non-A5 holders can purchase a license |
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Power BI Premium Per User (PPU) | Licensed per-user | Annual Subscription |
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Fabric Trial | Microsoft Fabric 60 Day Trial includes access to Power BI Pro or Power BI Premium (PPU) features | Trial |
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Fabric (F2-F32) Capacity | F2-F8: Intended for Dev / Testing / Proof of Concepts F16-F32: Suitable for production workloads with moderate concurrency, smaller semantic models, and routine scheduled data refreshes | Pay-as-you-go or Reservation |
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Fabric (F64+) Capacity | F64+: Enterprise-grade compute power and unlimited organizational viewing access for Microsoft Fabric and Power BI workloads Free report viewing without a Pro or Premium license | Pay-as-you-go or Reservation |
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Power BI Embedded | Two options: Embed for your customers (App owns the data) or Embed for your organization (user owns the data) | Yes, licensed by capacity |
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Fabric Workspace & Azure Subscription Management
In order to link an Azure subscription with a Fabric workspace, you must have privileged roles in both the Azure subscription and the Fabric workspace.
You need to be assigned either Owner or Contributor role in the Azure Subscription. You also need to be a Workspace Administrator of the workspace being assigned capacity.
Navigate to https://app.fabric.microsoft.com/onelake/govern/manage-capacities?experience=fabric-developer
Click “new capacity” and select your capacity type
You will need to provide a Capacity name, select your Azure subscription, select an existing or create a new Resource group, as well as the region and Size. Your region should be Central US
You will be assigned Capacity admin by default. Assign any other users Capacity admin role (People who can change capacity settings, add contributors, and add or remove workspaces from the capacity)
Hit apply… Congrats, your capacity has been created!
Link a Workspace that you administrate by clicking on your newly created capacity and then the “Assign Workspace” button
Search for the workspace you administrate to link to capacity and hit apply
After creation, admins can manage capacity and linked workspaces using the same self-service tool: https://app.fabric.microsoft.com/onelake/govern/manage-capacities?experience=fabric-developer
Azure subscription Owners, Contributors, and Cost Management Contributors can create automatic alerting and spending policies: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cost-management-billing/costs/tutorial-acm-create-budgets?tabs=psbudget
Additional Microsoft Resources