beta program = "non-destructive" update?

Hi all;

Apologies if this has been stated elsewhere, but:

My Nexus 6P is my first android phone - had a number of blackberry's previously that I liked to mess with a bit (betas, etc.) but I'm not super familiar with Android yet in terms of booting, flash, root, etc.

So - question: if I join the beta program and get N OTA - will that update be destructive? ie will my apps, data and settings be gone?

If I want to revert to Marshmallow at some point - is it important to root my phone before upgrading?

Thanks!

This OTA should be seamless from N beta to Nougat. If you want to go back to MM, you'll want stock recovery and just flash the OTA of the version you want for MM.

If you have your apps, contacts, calendar, photos, and so forth backed up to Google Drive, then you can restore when you finish updating. When I restore I get everything back, including my WiFi passwords, but I do have to manually restore some settings in apps, such as the locations on my weather app.

If you have any task specific software for your business you might want to ask here if others have found it compatible with the current beta of Android 7. I had minor problems with my Kindle app but Kindle had a new one out within a few days and it works now.