Clarification on Quicksight Session Capacity Pricing for anonymous embedding

As per the article it says that, The embedded dashboard opened for 30 min will be considered a session.
What if user refresh the page multiple times in span of 30 min.

  1. Will it create different embed URLs each time.?
  2. Will it consider the session as multiple sessions (equal to number of refreshes)

Hi @yogendrasgautam

To my understanding refreshes are not considered another session.

You can confirm by looking into the api on your network tab / if you have logging.

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Hi @yogendrasgautam - You can embed dashboards for registered users or anonymous users.

  1. For registered user, the session lasts for 30 min. If you refresh the page multiple times in a span of 30 min, it is still considered a single session. Please note that embed url is generated by the host application. If the page refresh activity triggers the application to regenerate the url and that is within the 30 min of the session, you are still considered within the single session. Note that for user based pricing, it is caped at max of $5 and no charges after that for any number of sessions consumed.

  2. For anonymous user, the session lasts for 30 min. You can interact with the dashboard without the generation of a new session within the 30 min span. However, if you refresh the page, which results the host application to regenerate the embed url, a new session is created.

Please note that whenever the host application calls the generate embed url api, it creates a new url. However, for registered user, QuickSight can track the session based on the user ARN provided. For anonymous user, every time a different anonymous user ARN is created.

source: QuickSight pricing

When does a Reader Session start and end? A Reader Session starts with user-initiated action (e.g., login, dashboard load, page refresh, drill-down or filtering) and runs for next 30-minutes. Keeping Amazon QuickSight open in a background browser window/tab does not result in active sessions until the Reader initiates action on page.

Will a Reader be logged out after a 30-minute session? No, Reader sessions are transparent to the QuickSight Reader. Reader sessions will be automatically renewed in 30-minute intervals, and time out 30 minutes after start upon inactivity. Readers will only be logged out of QuickSight when their authentication expires, which is dependent on the authentication scheme in place (can be one of QuickSight-only users, SAML/Open ID Connect or Active Directory).

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Thanks @debapc for posting this solution, and welcome to the QuickSight Community! :slight_smile:

Hi,

I have one QuickSight user to build the dashboard. Can I embed dashboards for registered users for my internal website with User based pricing? The website can be accessed by employees in the company. Is that okay when use only one QuickSight account for the internal website?

Hi @xoapit - welcome to the QuickSight community! Thanks for your question.

Yes, you can embed dashboards for registered users with user based pricing.

  • Here is the documentation on Embedding dashboards for registered users.
  • User based pricing is $0.30/session with $5 max/user/month. Please refer to the QuickSight Embedded section of the Pricing page.
  • When you call the generate_embed_url_for_registered_user API, you need to provide the AWS Account ID and Dashboard ID
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Yes, I know I can call that API. But is that ok if I use only 1 QuickSight user to generate the embed URL and use it to load in the web application used by many internal users?

Hi @xoapit - there are 3 principals we are talking about:

  1. Author, who will create the analysis and dashboard. It can be 1 QuickSight user as per your requirement

  2. IAM Role that is assumed by your application to generate the embed URL. Please refer to Step 1: Set up permissions

  3. Readers, these are the registered QuickSight users, who want to access the dashboard. In your case, your internal users need to be registered as QuickSight readers. When you call the generate embed url for registered user API, you need to pass the User ARN of the registered user. Please refer to Step 2: Generate the URL with the authentication code attached

Yes, I know. I created 1 QS user and created an API and passed 1 userArn from that user to QS API to generate the URL. When calling the API from our application API, I always use only 1 userArn but that API serves many application users in the internal web application. I want to know whether if having any problem with QS license if I apply like that.

Hi @xoapit - you need to use user-specific ARNs. You shouldn’t be using single ARN for all the users.

Why shouldn’t? Are there any problems with that?

Hi @xoapit - This is in violation with QuickSight licensing terms. There are internal mechanisms built-in to track the violations.

@debapc Could you give me the document about that?

@debapc I asked AWS support and they said that it depends on the use case. If I only embed 1 dashboard to the internal website used by many app users, I still can use a single QuickSight user. There are not any issues with that. If I need to use other embedded features like QS Console, I need to change the approach.

Hi @xoapit - I have brought this up with the QuickSight service team to comment. Looping in @agmayan and @Srikanth_Baheti.

One request, given that your query is different from the original topic of this post, can you please re-post your query as a new question and link to this thread? This will also prioritize the question, as (a) it is a new question; (b) we prioritize 0 reply questions; (c) we prioritize unsolved questions.

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@debapc, thank you for tagging us.
Hi @xoapit,

As mentioned by Debu, it is violation of our licensing model to use single user for embedded scenarios, to control miss use of our licensing we have throttling in place if we see patterns of misuse based on our monitoring. This is not part of our documentation as such as of today.

Can you please share the support ticket so that I can take a look at the response and provide my insight into it. And like @debapc mentioned, please create a new question every time you have something new that comes up to get priority and incases where the Question is already marked as answer, there are highly likely no chances of getting traction.

Thanks,
Sri