License options for using Power Apps for org that has E3

[sswitzer]

I'm just about to launch my first Power App for our organization and I'm confused about license requirements.

We have E3 with some sort of partnership access to 100 Power BI Pro licenses.

I mention the Power BI Pro licenses because, for some reason, my users with Power BI Pro licenses are able to access my new prod environment app.  So that's the first puzzle piece to solve. I've found nothing that says Power BI Pro licenses have anything to do with Power App access, but somehow my Power BI Pro license holders can access my production Power App.

The next puzzle piece is if I want to go the route of assigning "PowerApps per app baseline access" licenses, I know about the USD$5/month/app charge... but do I need to assign one of those licenses to each potential app user? Or will the license assignment just trigger on its own?

[Pstork1]

The power bi users can access your production environment because they are registered with Dynamics 365 because of their Power BI license. Its not a licensing thing. Its just that being assigned the Power BI license gives them a role in Dynamics 365. You can add other users to the environment using the Power Platform admin center. Any user can be added. The license specifies what they can access after they are added. Your E3 license gives users access to any apps or related flows that use only standard connectors.  

Per App licenses are assigned automatically from a pool of licenses when a user without a premium license tries to access an App that requires a premium license.  Once the user accesses the app the per app license stays with them until they are removed from sharing the app or a premium per user license is assigned to them. You do not assign per app licenses to users. Its an automated process.

[sswitzer]

So if I have a user that doesn't have a Power BI Pro license, I can add them to the Power Platform environment list of users (I'm familiar with it) and as long as I share the app with the user, they should be able to access the app?

My app is a model-driven app without any other connectors other than dataverse.

[Pstork1]

The answer was Yes util you said it was a Model-driven app. Model-driven apps are Premium because they use Dataverse. So the user would need either a premium license or a per app license to use the app. E3 would not be enough.

[sswitzer]

So then how are my Power BI Pro users (as registered users in the prod environment) able to access the app?

Regarding a per app license, we just got billed USD $5 for last month for a per-app-per-user app usage. My prod environment capacity shows that I have 1 app pass with 0 passes remaining. I have no record of actually purchasing any per-app-per-user pass.

Confusing... I have at least 2 people using that prod environment (leading up the app launch), so where this 1 $5 charge came from is a mystery.

[Pstork1 · Accepted solution]

The per app license is needed per user. If you got a $5 charge that would be for one user. But you'll need one of those for each user. Not sure how the Power BI user was able to run the app without additional licensing. But licensing is a legal requirement and I have seen times where the software didn't accurately enforce the licensing requirements.  I assume that is what happened here.

[sswitzer]

@Pstork1 Thank you for your excellent help; we're now able to make some good decisions with less confusion.