I've built a great report using R scripts for advanced forecasting. Everything runs perfectly in Power BI Desktop on my local machine, but as soon as I publish it to the Power BI Service, the visuals don't render or I get permission errors.
What specific licenses and workspace roles do my users need just to view these R visuals? Also, for the scripts that actually transform data in Power Query, do I need to set up a Gateway? I’m seeing mixed info about "Public" privacy levels—is that still a requirement for the Service to execute the R code?
3 answers
Kimberly covered the "who," but you also need to look at the Workspace Roles. If a user only has the Viewer role, they can see the output, but they cannot trigger a "Refresh" if the R script is part of the data ingestion process.
In 2026, the licensing for R in the Power BI Service is quite strict. To author or publish reports with R visuals, you absolutely need a Power BI Pro or Premium Per User (PPU) license.
For your end-users (the "consumers"), the rules depend on where the report is hosted:
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Pro/PPU Workspace: Viewers also need a Pro/PPU license to see the R visuals.
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Premium Capacity (F64 or higher): Users with a Free license can view the R visuals, provided the workspace is backed by that capacity.
One technical detail often missed: the Power BI Service uses its own sandboxed R engine (currently R 4.3.3 for 2026).
Exactly, Steven. If your local script uses a package that isn't on the official Power BI supported list, it will work on your Desktop but fail in the Service. To fix "broken" visuals, check if your script hits the 60-second execution limit or the 150,000-row limit. If the script takes too long to compute, the Service will simply kill the process and show a generic "Permission" or "Script Error."
For R scripts used in Power Query (data transformation), you must have an On-premises data gateway (personal mode) installed on the machine where R is running. The standard "Enterprise" gateway does not support R scripts for data refresh. Additionally, your Data Source Privacy levels for all sources involved in the R script must be set to Public. If even one source is "Private" or "Organizational," the Service will block the script execution for security reasons to prevent data leakage between sources.