HI Mynda,
I really enjoyed your Power BI webinar! it looks like an amazing addition to what I've already learned from your Dashboards, PowerQuery, and PowerPivot courses. I hope to sign up soon. I downloaded and installed Power BI form the link you provided but I'm confused about the login process.
I just want to use the free Power BI on my own PC to learn about it. I already have a paid subscription to Office 365 (not Pro) and I've used my Hotmail.com address for all things MS for about 3 decades but it won't accept personal email domains for user names. I have a work email address but company policy prohibits using it for anything personally related. I looked at some blog posts on this and they describe jumping through a bunch of hoops to create a "tenant" with a trial version of office pro and all sorts of steps just to create an email address that Power BI will accept. And of course the trial version of office pro is only 60 days. I don't want two subscriptions (two identities) with Microsoft, etc. just to run this.
What are the simple steps to getting going with Power BI?
Thanks,
Paul
Same for me (about the Webinar)!
Paul did you try this question at Microsoft self? They must have the answer don't they?
Thanks Fran -
Yes I searched around in MS support and the Power BI site. That's where I found this requirement.
Hi Paul,
There are two parts to Power BI:
1. The Power BI Desktop app that you download an install on your PC
2. A Power BI Service account. There are two opitions; Free and Pro ($10/mth)
You can get them both here: https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/get-started/
You can use the Power BI Desktop app without requiring a logon/account for the Power BI Service. It will ask you to login but you don't have to.
However, if you want to publish your reports from the Power BI Desktop app to the Power BI service then you will need a Power BI service account, and be logged into the Power BI Desktop app with that account before you can click the 'Publish' button.
I'd sign up for the free Power BI Service account using your work address. It won't cost anything and I'd have thought most employers wouldn't see this as a personal thing, assuming your work has something to do with Excel/reporting. I'll let you be the judge of that though.
Mynda
Hi Paul, I can confirm that it works without applying anything (so far). Also got some sample data from the Microsoft site to play around with it.
It's opening a new world to me so far. And maybe we'll need a new chapter here on the Forum especially for PowerBI 🙂
Thanks for the explanation. That helps a lot. I'm looking into into the work email option more. As so often happens, the policy was written before the subtleties of new technologies were known. Since we don't use power bi officially, even the confirmation email back and forth with ms is a problem with the way things are interpreted.
