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Power BI Report Server release timing update

Headshot of article author Christopher Finlan

Power BI Report Server was first launched in June 2017 as our on-premises server product, giving customers the ability to adopt Power BI today while preserving their flexibility to move to the Power BI cloud service in the future. Since then, we’ve seen customers rapidly adopt and rollout this product in their organizations. We’ve delivered three additional updates containing numerous new features, including a roll-up of all the new report capabilities found in the version of Power BI Desktop we ship alongside each server release. These included frequently requested features like report themes, bookmarks, and even support for report page tooltips a month before it was available in the Power BI service!

We’ve heard from you that these regular updates several times a year provide a lot of value, and you want to get them out to your organization faster and more efficiently. To help with this, today, we’re pleased to announce our new, more transparent release cadence. Starting in 2019, we will be shipping a new release of Power BI Report Server in January, May and September each year. This will not only give customers the kind of release certainty they’ve been requesting, it will make sure we’re continuing to align the Modern Lifecycle Policy, assuring customers they’ll be running a supported version of the product provided they update at least once each year. We’ll be shipping out the next release of PBIRS in January to align with this new schedule, and yes, it will include one of the most highly anticipated features, support for row level security in your Power BI reports.

We’re thrilled to see the continued excitement around Power BI Report Server, and we’re committed to the success of the product and our customers using it going forward. Thanks!