1.4 Introduce Power BI release cycles - Video Tutorials & Practice Problems

<v ->Okay, so in this sub lesson</v> we're gonna introduce the Power BI release cycles. And this is important to understand as you work with Power BI, because you're gonna find that it is a continuously changing and evolving environment. And all that change is actually for the good because the product is consistently and constantly improving. But we do want to make sure we understand and educate you on how all of this works. Okay, so first we're gonna focus on the Power BI Desktop and Service. So, the Power BI Desktop and Service they are updated up to monthly. If you want, you can go to the following website to take a look at the various release cycles and what has changed in these. These websites are fantastic for actually keeping up with what is changing in the desktop because there's great videos, great blogs around all the new features that are coming in, if I've been introduced into the product. We'll show you what those websites look like momentarily. Plus, I'm actually gonna show you how to look at which version of Power BI Desktop you're actually using. Down below is the Power BI Mobile app. It also gets an update up to monthly and the website down below is where you can go take a look at what's new in the mobile apps. And there's a history of all the different things that have changed in the mobile app over the course of time. So, both of these websites here will give you all the information you need to see what is changing in the product. And give you a lot of different examples and blogs on how to actually take advantage of that functionality. Very rich websites, very well maintained, and kept up to date. All right, so let's go ahead and actually show you how to take a look at the version of the Power BI Desktop that you're actually using and actually show you these two websites. Okay, so first let's take a look at what version of the Power BI Desktop we're using. We can see up here in the top bar, it says, "Untitled - Power BI Desktop" that lets me know that I'm actually on the desktop itself. So if I want, I can go to the file tab up here. I can go down to the very bottom of this navigation menu, click on "About". And we're gonna see that a information box pops up that is actually showing us which version we're using. And this course here was all recorded and done using the March, 2021 release of the Power BI Desktop. So here's how to go and take a look at which one of the desktop version you're using. Now, when we actually eventually go to show you how to download the Power BI Desktop and bring it in for use in this class. You will end up going to get the latest version of Power BI Desktop and you'll be able to follow along in the menuing and commands, are all gonna look the same. So that's where you go to look at the Power BI Desktop version. So next, let's go out and actually show you the two websites that are key in terms of keeping up to date and what's changed inside the product. Okay, so here is the website that actually talks about what is new inside of Power BI. In this website as it stands right now is referring to the latest release being the March, 2021 release which is what I have on my machine here. So if we actually scroll down this website a little bit, we will see here that is broken into two pieces. This is what's new in the Power BI Desktop. And here's, what's actually new in the service. If we actually go down through all these different parts of the page here, we're gonna see all kinds of different features that have been introduced in the, break it down here on the desktop by reporting, analytics modeling, and all kinds of different things. If you click on these things, you'll notice here, for example, where it says "Download the PBIX installed for template apps". There's actually a video that goes along with. This will actually show you the features and there's actually a blog. So, this website is really rich in terms of keeping you up to date and all the things that are actually happening in the Power BI Desktop or the Power BI Service. The next one we want to show you here is, what's new in the mobile device. So, this is the website that is for mobile. So we can see that down here. The latest release for the mobile is March, 2021. And it will go through once again all the different features that have been introduced in March. And if we scroll through this here and take a look down the right hand side. You can go back and take a look at all the previous releases of the mobile device. To see what has been added into the product over the course of time. Okay, so this sub lesson is complete. All we want to do here is just introduce you into taking a look at what version of Power BI Desktop you're using and then where to go start keeping up with the changes in the actual product itself.