Impact of updating the report server

[123Ggd]

I have a question about Power BI report server update. The company I work use the Power BI Report Server of january/2021 and we all use the Power BI desktop for this version (jan/2021) However, some users have updated Power BI desktop to the 2022 version and after that, they are no longer able to publish a report on the server. My question is about the impact of updating the report server if this will impact reports that already exist on the server.

[d_gosbell · Accepted solution]

Report Server is backward compatible so old report work fine. Updating the server is usually quick and relatively painless, but you should always make sure you have a backup of the database and encryption keys just in case you do run into any issues or if you need to roll back.

But if you are running Report Server you cannot just have people run any version of Desktop that they like. They need to run the version specific for your report server or they will run into issues. If they download the cloud version of Power BI Desktop they risk using features that are not supported on the Report Server so their reports will still not work.

If you have existing reports that you need to down grade there are a couple of options you can try here https://darren.gosbell.com/2022/10/power-bi-report-server-fixing-cant-upload-this-report/ 

(but it's still a good idea to update the server as Jan 21 is now well out of support and there are new features/functionality that you are missing out on)