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Why can’t I submit a Power BI Support Request via O365?

Headshot of article author Adam Saxton

This question has been coming up about once a week, so I thought I would get something out there to explain the behavior.  The premise is that the user wants to create a Support Request for Power BI via the Office 365 Admin Portal.  When they go to the Support section, click on Service Requests and hit the +, they don’t see Power BI for Office 365 in the list of available items to file a support request for.

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Here is what it should look like.

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This all comes down to licensing.  Even if you are designated as a Global Admin within O365, if you don’t have the Power BI for Office 365 license assigned, you won’t see this show up. Having the subscription and licenses available within the Tenant itself is not enough.  You are only entitled if you have the license assigned to your user.

I’ll show this by way of my guyinacube.com tenant for two different admin users.

asaxton (as the license assigned)

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Here we can see that the license is assigned within the

johndoe (does not have license assigned)

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Here the option is not available because the license is not assigned to johndoe.  Assigning the license would then allow it to appear.

Hopefully this helps clear things up.  Of note, this is not specific to Power BI.  Anything that has a subscription/license would have the same behavior.  So, CRM for example would have that behavior.

**** UPDATE – 7/27/2015 ****

With the GA of Power BI last Friday, we had some changes go in to accommodate the new licenses.  However, there is currently an issue with creating Service Requests that may not seem obvious.

This all comes down to license assignment on the account trying to create a Service Request.  If you want to create a service request currently, you should only have Power BI for Office 365 on your account.  You will need to remove Power BI (Free) and/or Power BI Pro to be able to see the option.  After you create the Service Request, you can put the Power BI (Free) and/or Power BI Pro license back in place.

I will update this blog post when the changes are in place.

Current Behavior

License
Service Request Option
Power BI (Free)
Nothing
Power BI for Office 365
Power BI for Office 365
Power BI (Free) + Power BI for Office 365
Nothing
Power BI (Free) + Power BI Pro
Nothing
Power BI (Free) + Power BI for Office 365 + Power BI Pro
Nothing
Power BI Pro + Power BI for Office 365
Nothing
Power BI Pro
Nothing

Expected Behavior (working to get this in place)

License
Service Request Option
Power BI (Free)
Nothing
Power BI for Office 365
Power BI for Office 365
Power BI (Free) + Power BI for Office 365
Power BI for Office 365
Power BI (Free) + Power BI Pro
Power BI Pro
Power BI (Free) + Power BI for Office 365 + Power BI Pro
Power BI Pro
Power BI Pro + Power BI for Office 365
Power BI Pro
Power BI Pro
Power BI Pro

Adam W. Saxton | Microsoft Business Intelligence Support – Escalation Services@GuyInACube | YouTube | Facebook.com\guyinacube