SQL Server Reporting Services Team Blog

Natural Interaction and Microsoft BI

Pedram Rezaei - MSFT — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 06:39:00 GMT

Today, Microsoft released the official Kinect for Windows SDK. Here is something we have been experimenting with here in the SQL Server BI product group that you might find interesting.

A while ago, at SQL PASS Summit 2011 in Seattle, WA, I demoed turning any random surface or wall into a touch screen using a single Microsoft Kinect device. I also demoed controlling Microsoft’s latest BI reporting tool which provides easy data exploration, visualization and presentation capabilities, Power View, through natural language and simple gestures.

Let’s start with a video of the above scenarios (You hear me say the word "Crescent" in the video. Crescent is the code-name for Power View):
(Please visit the site to view this video)

Using Kinect to turn any wall into a touch screen

Using the Skeletal Tracking feature of the official Kinect for Windows SDK, it is possible to track the position of “joints” such as arms and hands. The data points provided for each joint include depth. It is, therefore possible to gather enough calibration data to correctly map the position of the hand to screen coordinates. It is also possible to calculate how far the projection surface area is from the Kinect allowing for the detection of the touch gesture:

The part that is not demoed in the above video is the calibration stage. Currently it takes about a couple of minutes for one to calibrate the system by touching the wall at different locations. One could imagine advancing the algorithm to remove the need for that level of calibration.

Using Kinect and Microsoft Speech to control Power View

In the second section of the video, you saw some really interesting ways of controlling Power View through voice. As you saw, we can navigate between the views, sort different data regions, and filter the selected view based on the attributes in the semantic model.

The voice is picked up by the microphone array built into Kinect, and then passed onto Microsoft Speech for recognition. The rest is pretty straight forward: voice commands are converted to commands within Power View.

Pedram Rezaei

What’s New In Power View

Robert Bruckner — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 01:45:00 GMT

Today SQL Server 2012 RC0 was released. You can download it here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28145.

This post summarizes much of the new functionality in Power View with RC0.

Related information: TechNet page and TechNet wiki for Power View.

Multiple Views in a Single Report

You asked for it, and we are delivering it! Power View reports now support multiple views per report. The report pictured below contains a total of five views that you can see previews of to the left of the canvas.

Export to Microsoft PowerPoint

Along with the ability to create reports with multiple views, you can also export your report to PowerPoint. These are not just static images. Power View reports inside PowerPoint are fully interactive.

PowerPivot Gallery Preview Images

Power View now produces preview images in the PowerPivot Gallery, just like Excel workbooks. They are supported in all views of the PowerPivot Gallery (gallery, theater and carousel).

In addition, now that Power View reports support multiple views in a single report, when you click on a specific view of the report, Power View will launch with that view as the active view.

Multiple View Navigation

When you are presenting reports with multiple views in them, there is way to navigate the views in a report called storyboard. Just hover to preview any of the views and select the one you want to display.

Sorting

We are certain you saw this one coming, but Power View now supports sorting on all data regions. On tables and matrices, all you have to do is click on the column headers to sort. For charts, there is an area above the chart that we call the “floatie” that allows you to choose to sort the chart by a measure or its categories.

For charts that are displayed as multiples, you can sort those too. For multiples, sorting sorts the charts themselves by a subtotal, and of course, it’s just a click away via the floatie as well.

More Chart Features

Power View has added more functionality to charts. In particular, charts now support
•    more than 20 series,
•    multiple measures,
•    and color (series) in scatter and bubble charts.
The chart below shows multiple measures in action, depicting the average win percentage of major league baseball both at home and on the road over a set of years.

In the next chart, you can see colors assigned on the scatterplot.

Of course, the feature works with legend highlighting as well. Select a market size from the legend and all of the points associated with that entry will be highlighted in the chart.

Chart Highlighting Enhancements

There is also significant change to the highlighting feature with charts. When your column and bar charts contain non additive data, Power View will now display the highlighted values with a thinner column that is overlaid on top of the previous values. This is done to make it possible to see the previous values, regardless of the highlighted values.
It also makes it possible to see cases where the selected item from another visual has no representation in the chart. For example, in the chart below, not only can we see how Expressjet compares against the average of all carriers for flights delayed by carrier, but we also can see that Expressjet did not operate any routes greater than 1,500 miles.

Number Formatting for Tables and Matrix

Power View now supports number formatting on both tables and matrix.

Slicers Cross Filter Other Slicers

When you have multiple slicers on a view now, if you select an entry in one slicer, the other slicers in the view are filtered by it.

Per Data Region Filtering

Filtering improvements are available in RC0. Power View now supports filters on each data region. The picture below shows the chart region filter selected in the filter pane. If you want to switch to filtering the entire view, just hover over the grey “view” text and select it and you’ll be on your way to filtering the entire view.

Measure Filters and Filter Restatement

There are two other new features in the filter pane depicted above as well. The filter pane now supports measure filters and will also restate your filters even when a specific filter is in its collapsed state.

Search in Filters

But we’re not done yet. Have a long list of categories that you don’t want to wade through, use the search feature.

Drag Your Data to the Canvas

You can now drag fields directly to the canvas from the model explorer. If you hover the field over the canvas, it will create a new table. If you hover the field over an existing visualization, it will add that field to the next logical location in the visualization.

Print it!

You can now print your current view. Print is “what you see is what you get”.

Support for DirectQuery mode

DirectQuery mode for Analysis Services tabular models allows you to keep your data in a SQL Server relational database and still get the benefits of interactive reporting with Power View. You can read all about direct query mode here.

Database Image Support

Power View now supports database images stored directly in the model.

Show Items with No Data

Often referred to as “outer join”, Power View now supports the ability to display items with no data. The table below shows this feature in action.

And just like everything else in Power View, this feature is just a click away in the field well.

Measures as Non-Measures

PowerView also supports the ability to treat measures as non-measures (i.e. as categories). To do this, you just go to the field well and choose the option on the field to “Do Not Summarize” as shown below.

Below is an example of a report showing the count of airline flights by minutes late. Minutes late is a measure in the table on the left. The table on the right is the same table with the “Do Not Summarize” feature turned on.

All New Canvas Look

We’ve changed the overall look of the canvas and many of the items that you can place on the canvas. Here are a couple of examples of the new look in action.

In addition we have now added the ability to allow data region overlap.

This means you can easily annotate dataregion with comments or overlay a chart onto another chart while fully keeping interactivity between them. This opens a whole new generation of report design....

Have fun playing with RC0, and dont forget to report issues or features suggestion to MSConnect.

SSRS Team

Power View, PASS and Mobile

Thierry Dhers — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 18:05:00 GMT

Yesterday was Day 1 at PASS, and it was full of event.

We officially announced the new name for Project Crescent.
Project Crescent shall now be known as “Power View”. I was told I need to emphasize
the empty space between the two words. It apparently is critical, so here you
go. We had PowerPivot and we now have Power View to complete the second phase
of our Self Service BI investment.

We also showed and unveiled many of the new capability that
will be made available at RTM. Amongst which, a couple seemed to be very much appreciated
by the audience: Multi-View and Export to PowerPoint.

We also showed the New Self Service Alerting capability that
will provide a lot of additional value to existing operational scenarios that
use Report Builder and BIDS reports today.

We got lots of traffic to our booth, lots of excited
customers and lots of very nice comments to the team for a job well done on the
Power View design. Thank you very much to all of you for the warm comments. It
goes straight to the heart of the team who has put so many days, nights and
weekends of effort on finalizing our design and feature set. We all look
forward to release any day now…

So what else happened yesterday?

Well Amir, our new Technical
Fellow, and Ted Kummert our Vice-President unveiled our Mobile BI strategy and
showed some prototypes of some of the work that is in development. It seems
that we didn’t do an ideal job clearly communicating our strategy, so let me
decompose it here for the benefit of all…

After looking at market trends and industry expectations, we
crafted our long term Mobile BI strategy that covers all of the Microsoft BI
assets. It is a 3 phase strategy:

Phase 1 - 1HCY12:

Enable our existing SharePoint based BI assets (SSRS Operational report, Excel Services,
Performance Point) to run on various browsers (including IOS). This was
actually not shown on stage during the keynote but is pretty straight forward
to picture.

Phase 2 – 2HCY12:

Provide touch based and touch optimized experiences on multiple devices. Prototypes
of these were shown by Amir on stage on a set of WP7, Android and iPad devices.
Some in the audience have assumed that this
demo did mean that this capability would be available with Denali as a result.
That is NOT the case. We announced a timeline for it, not a release
vehicle. At this point, we are also not disclosing the technology choices we
are making in order to enable these experiences.

Phase 3 – Windows 8 Wave:

Provide an immersive experience on Windows 8 device. A prototype of
what this experience could look like was shown by Amir on stage during the keynote. Again this demo DID
NOT suggest that this would be available in the Denali timeframe. Timeline
is TBD on this as we will look to align with Windows 8 itself. We are also at
this point not disclosing the technology choices we are making in order to
enable this immersive experience on Win8 devices.

Now Customers looking to deploy and use Microsoft BI on mobile
devices today have a broad host of Microsoft partners available to them. These
partner solutions support a broad range of mobile devices and are built off of
the Microsoft BI solution stack.

Examples include:

Decision Support Panel http://www.prweb.com/releases/DSPanel/iPad/prweb4351514.htm.
RoamBI www.roambi.com.
Extended Results http://www.extendedresults.com/products/pushbi.aspx
Install Free http://www.installfree.com/
MobiWeave http://www.mobiweave.com/Products/BI/SSRS.aspx

The official press release can be found at: http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2011/oct11/10-12PASS1PR.mspx

This is important to highlight that we have now stated our commitment
toward timeline and deliverables and are working aggressively toward those.
Meanwhile please enjoy SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services new capabilities and remember
to provide us feedback on Connect so that we can appropriately plan our next
set of investments…

Thierry D'Hers

SQL Server codename "Denali" CTP3, including Project "Crescent" is now publically available

Thierry Dhers — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 04:16:00 GMT

This morning, Satya Nadella, President of Server and Tools Business group, announced during his keynote the public availability of the CTP3 of Microsoft SQL Server Code Name “Denali”.

https://www.microsoft.com/betaexperience/pd/SQLDCTP3CTA/enus/default.aspx

One of the key scenarios for Microsoft SQL Server Code Name “Denali” is the continuation of our self Service BI story which we introduced in SQL Server 2008 R2 with the introduction of PowerPivot for Excel and SharePoint.

If you haven’t had a chance to attend or view it live, I recommend you review Satya’s keynote: http://sessions.digitalwpc.com/topic/list?keyword=VIS03

With Microsoft SQL Server Code Name “Denali”, we are proud to announce the availability of Self Service Alerting and Self Service Reporting (Project Crescent).

Self Service Alerting:

Alerting is a new capability that we are adding to Reporting Services. As soon as the report server is upgraded to Microsoft SQL Server Code Name “Denali”, it will enable any user that can access reports previously built with SSRS 2005, SSRS 2008 or SSRS 2008 R2 whether in Report Builder or BIDS, to setup alert rules and be alerted when report data changes occur that match a set of rules. No changes are required to the existing reports. You’ll need to have SSRS integrated with SharePoint in order to take advantage of this new capability (the reports must also use stored credentials data sources, similar to subscriptions). Management of alerts is also enabled through SharePoint through a common interface.

Project “Crescent”:

Project Crescent is not the final name of this capability, but is the current code name used to refer to the new Self Service Reporting capability.

Project Crescent is part of Reporting Services toolset and is an extension to the existing IT Professional and Power User tools.

Project Crescent is Reporting Services’ new reporting tool targeted at data consumers to visually explore their data and answer ad-hoc questions with ease. It complements our existing set of at IT Professionals, BI Developers and power users Report design tools (Report Builder 3.0 and BIDS), which are optimized for operational and pixel perfect report design scenarios.

Project Crescent is replacing Report Builder 1.0, which had been our initial entry in the Adhoc reporting space back in SQL Server 2005. Report Builder 1.0 shall subsequently stop shipping in the box starting with Microsoft SQL Server Code Name “Denali” release.

Report Builder 3.0 is now renamed Report Builder. Report Designer is still the name of the report design experience available in BI development studio and Visual Studio.

Project Crescent is an ad-hoc reporting and visual exploration experience for casual and experienced users alike, to collaborate and present with others within a SharePoint environment.

Project Crescent runs in the browser and is working against a BI Semantic Model (BISM). BI Semantic Model is available on the client through the Excel based Power pivot modeling tool or on the server through Analysis Services Tabular project with SQL Server Denali. For more information on BI Semantic Model, please consult the Analysis Services team blog at: http://blogs.msdn.com/analysisservices

Unlike Report Builder 3.0 or BIDS, which are tools optimized for report printing and report design by Power users and IT pros to publish for End users to consume, Project Crescent is optimized for design and online screen consumption and interactivity by End users for End users…

But beyond Self Service Reporting (Crescent) and Self Service Alerting, SQL Server codename Denali has many more enhancements for our other Reporting scenarios….

The team has worked hard over the last 2 years to provide new benefits to customers in the area of Self-Service BI (with Crescent and Alerting), Corporate BI, Embedded BI and the new rising Cloud BI space:

Corporate BI:

With CTP3, new Excel and Word 2007/2010 renderers are introduced. They provide a means to export directly to these Open XML Office format and take advantage of some of the new Office capabilities (like Export up to a 1 million rows in Excel)
SharePoint Shared Service: One of the most common requests is a better (meaning easier) integration with SharePoint for the Administrator. Starting with Microsoft SQL Server Code Name “Denali”, SSRS SharePoint mode runs as a SharePoint shared service. This means that it now fully benefits from being a SharePoint service application that supports Claims, built-in Scale with load balancing, PowerShell commandlets, and cross-farm report consumption. Additionally, Configuration, Deployment, Monitoring, Backup - Restore, and Management tasks are now done entirely through the SharePoint Central Administration like any other Shared Service application. Furthermore, the report viewing performance in SharePoint has been improved significantly. Last but not least, this forms the platform for “Denali” Self-Service BI comprising Alerting and Crescent, which are available in SharePoint mode only.
BI Development Studio moved to Visual Studio 2010. During this release cycle we not only moved our BI development studio to the Visual Studio 2010 environment and shell but we also re-architected our Visual Studio integration so that we can almost sim-ship features in SQL Server Box and Visual Studio Box. For example we expect BI development Studio to be available in future versions of Visual Studio, weeks after the availability of the release, instead of having to wait for the next release of SQL server to update it. This was one of the most requested capabilities by our developer community.

Embedded BI

RDLC Designer and Report Viewer Control: Have been upgraded with Reporting Services “DENALI” code base (Including support for DOCX, XLSX Export, Map functionality, RDL 2010 schema support…). Starting with the next release of Visual Studio, RDLC and Report Viewer will ship with the same level of functionality of the most current release of SQL Server.

Cloud BI

SQL Azure Reporting: While not technically part of the Microsoft SQL Server Code Name “Denali” product installation, most of the work for our Reporting Services Corporate scenarios in Denali will eventually find their way into our Cloud BI offerings as well as appropriate. For now, you can test SQL Azure Reporting at http://connect.microsoft.com/sqlazurectps.

How can you learn more about Crescent and SSRS in Microsoft SQL Server Code Name “Denali”?

Over the next 2 to 3 months we will make a lot of information available around Crescent (including sample models and reports), Self Service Alerting, Reporting SharePoint Share services and Office renderers so stay tuned….

How to get started with Denali CTP3 Crescent and Alerting

Crescent sample Models

How to best provide feedback on the Product to the Product team

How to make your Crescent report look great? Top 10 tricks...

Step by step to embellish your reports with Pictures?

Making your reports more insightful by using Play axis and Chart Multiples

Taking full advantage of the new Denali Alerting capabilities

If you have questions on Microsoft SQL Server Code Name “Denali” Reporting Services new features, you can find some answers and help at…

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/project-crescent-overview.aspx

If you are encountering an issue, please follow the regular support channel as they full support and assist with issues in Microsoft SQL Server Code Name “Denali” CTP3.

For peer discussion and exchange of information, all discussion around Reporting Services in Denali should now be posted on our Reporting Services forums:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sqldenreportingservices/threads

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sqlreportingservices/threads

Or use your local Reporting Services forum if you are in a different geographical region and locale.

Call to action:

Install and try the CTP,
provide us feedback through the Microsoft Connect site,
And let us know what you think of the release…

And do not hesitate to leave us a comment here in this blog. Be assured that it will be seen, responded to if needed and incorporated in our planning cycle for Reporting Services V.Next….

Enjoy this CTP...

Thierry D’Hers (Group Program Manager, SQL Server Reporting Services)

Thierry.dhers@microsoft.com

A Glimpse at Project Crescent

Robert Bruckner — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 02:00:00 GMT

It has been a great day - just in case you missed it, we are super excited to tell you about Project “Crescent”! Your data has a story to tell, and we can’t wait to help you tell it.

Today at PASS Summit 2010, the single largest gathering of Microsoft SQL Server professionals in the world, an exclusive audience of 3500+ PASS attendees were introduced to Project “Crescent”, a stunning new data visualization experience coming in the SQL “Denali”. Amir Netz demonstrated some of the new and exciting user experiences that Project “Crescent” will enable. At the heart of this capability is enabling users to have fun with data, exploring and discovering new insights, and presenting this information in new and exciting ways, letting the data tell a story about your business.

Click on the Crescent logo below to play the Project "Crescent" teaser video and experience Project “Crescent” from the Microsoft Company meeting where we originally showed over 70’000 people for the first time this unique ability to bring data to life:

See the complete keynote at PASS Summit 2010 here: http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/na2010/

We have been busy since the release of SQL Server 2008R2 working to bring this capability to you in our next release. As part of the Microsoft Business Intelligence platform, these exciting new capabilities will transform the way you use Business Intelligence. As Ted Kummert mentioned in his keynote…”Data is where the business lives.” Your data definitely has a story to tell about your business. Microsoft Business Intelligence capabilities – including SQL Server, SharePoint, Excel, PowerPivot, and soon Project “Crescent” will help you bring life to that story.

Here are a just few comments that we captured on Twitter during and after the keynote:

“Project Crescent is the coolest BI tool EVER! It is truly amazing. Can I have it today instead of 2011-2012. Please?”

“The next big step in experiencing your data!”

“Let the data tell you the story of the business!”

“Wat een applaus voor Amir!!!”

Project “Crescent” Commonly Asked Questions

Q: I missed the keynote demonstration at PASS. Will it be made available to view online?

A: Yes. You can access the recording of the keynote demo on the PASS website.

Q: What is Project “Crescent”?

A: Project “Crescent” expands on the Self-Service BI capabilities delivered with PowerPivot for Excel by enabling customers to visualize and interact with the modeled data in a fun and meaningful way using highly interactive visualizations, animations and smart querying and present and share insights with others in the organization through rich storyboard presentation capabilities.

Q: What are some of the key scenarios that Project “Crescent” will enable?

A: Project “Crescent” will provide a fun, visual, and powerful drag-and-drop ad hoc reporting experience. Transformation of the “shape” of data in a single click is a key design tenet as is rich interactivity and the unique ability to tell and share a story with the data.

Q: When is it available?

A: Project “Crescent” will be included in the release of SQL Server Code-named “Denali”.

Q: Is Project “Crescent” included in the Denali CTP1 that was released today?

A: No.

Q: What’s in the Denali CTP1?

A: The first Community Technology Preview (CTP) for SQL Server Code-named “Denali” will include:
· Select capabilities of SQL Server AlwaysOn, a new integrated high availability solution including availability groups for faster application-centric failover, active secondary for offloading read workloads and multi-site clustering
· Flexible server roles to allow administrators to create custom roles to enhance separation of duties
· Simplified development and standardized deployment, configuration and management for SQL Server Integration Services

You can download SQL Server code-named “Denali” CTP1 here today!

Q: When can we expect a CTP for Project Crescent?

A: The first public CTP for Project “Crescent” is currently planned for the first half of calendar year 2011.

Q: When will SQL Server code-named Denali ship?

A: We have not disclosed a public timeframe for the release of “Denali.” Microsoft remains committed to delivering major releases of SQL Server every 24-36 months.

Q: Where can I get more information on Project “Crescent”?
A: We will disclose more information on Project “Crescent” as we get closer to the first public CTP. In the meantime, you can contact your Microsoft sales rep to arrange for a deeper NDA discussion on Project Crescent.

SQL Azure Reporting

Robert Bruckner — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 17:45:00 GMT

SQL Azure Reporting was announced at the PDC 2010 keynote!

SQL Azure Reporting enables developers to embed operational reports on information stored in a SQL Azure database, using ReportViewer in remote mode in your applications, with the cloud at your service, and no need to manage or maintain your own reporting infrastructure.

SQL Azure Reporting provides many of the features you know from SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 R2 to create your reports with tablices, charts, maps, gauges, sparklines, and more using the familiar Business Intelligence Studio, and deploy them on-premise or in the cloud. Literally take your report anywhere, and scale when and how you need it. Check out the webpage for more info, and sign up for the CTP.

You can get more details in this PDC video and this related blog post.

Enjoy!

Frequently Asked Questions – Dundas Visualizations Acquired by Microsoft

Robert Bruckner — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 16:00:00 GMT

Dundas Data Visualization, Inc. has been producing data visualization components for Microsoft technologies for many years. In 2007, Microsoft acquired the codebase for these components to deliver data visualization directly within Microsoft’s products.

As part of the agreement, Microsoft enabled Dundas to continue to sell, enhance, update and support the components for a specified duration as a service to their existing customers. This agreement will expire as of October 31, 2010.

Dundas has communicated this information directly to their customer base. The purpose of this post is to answer any questions related to the components/capabilities that have been released as part of the Microsoft Product Roadmap and how you can get access to them.

Q. When did the acquisition occur?
A. The acquisition of the Dundas components was finalized in 2007. The In 2007 Microsoft acquired the code base for several of the Dundas visualizations.

Q. What technologies were included in the acquisition?
A. Microsoft acquired the codebase for the following Dundas products:

Dundas Chart for ASP.NET (Professional and Enterprise)
Dundas Chart for Window Forms (Professional and Enterprise)
Dundas Chart for SharePoint
Dundas Chart for SQL Server Reporting Services
Dundas Chart for OLAP Services
Dundas Gauge for ASP.NET
Dundas Gauge for Windows Forms
Dundas Gauge for SharePoint
Dundas Gauge for SQL Server Reporting Services
Dundas Map for ASP.NET
Dundas Map for Windows Forms
Dundas Map for SQL Server Reporting Services
Dundas Calendar for SQL Server Reporting Services

Q. Are all these capabilities available in Microsoft products now?
A. As per our technology roadmap, many of these capabilities have been released (for no additional charge) in several Microsoft solutions including SQL Server Reporting Services, ASP.NET, and SharePoint technologies.

Q. Can Dundas customers purchase licenses for the Dundas software directly from Microsoft?
A. No. As part of the agreement, Microsoft enabled Dundas to continue to sell licenses of the technology for a specified period of time to support existing customers. Existing Dundas customers wishing to purchase additional licenses of the Dundas components will need to do so by October 31, 2010.

Q. How do I get access to the Chart Controls for Reporting Services?
A. With the release of SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 R2, Microsoft introduced the charting capabilities directly in Reporting Services including charts, maps, gauges, sparklines and databars. Visit www.sqlserverlaunch.com to learn more about the new capabilities and how to evaluate the latest release of SQL Server.

Q. How do I get access to the ASP.NET Chart Controls from Microsoft?
A. The ASP.NET Chart Control is a free, full featured chart control package which enables developers to easily add rich data visualization to ASP.NET and Windows Forms applications. You can download the ASP.NET Chart Controls here.

Q. Where can I learn more about the capabilities release in the Microsoft solutions resulting from the acquisition?
A. You can learn more about the charting capabilities in Reporting Services, SharePoint, and ASP.NET by visiting TechNet or MSDN. To read about the release of the ASP.NET Chart Controls, check out Scott Gutherie’s blog. To learn more about the Chart Controls released in SQL Server Reporting Services, check out the Reporting Services team blog.

Thank you for your active community participation… Yes someone is actually listening!

Thierry Dhers — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 05:31:00 GMT

It is not often that I blog, as a matter of fact it might even be my first time blogging on the RS team blog. But Robert (Bruckner) and I had felt for a while that we needed to get back to you the community about the impact and importance of your contribution.

First, I really want to express a warm "Thank you" for your contribution and feedback on our product. It goes a long way to influence us and the overall product directions.

We know you might often have wondered what happens to your connect post? You might find out if your bug was fixed, by trying the next CU (cumulative update) or major release, but what about DCR (Design Change request), what happens to them? We heard from some of you some frustration about the black hole that MS connect seem to be for you. And we are trying, through conferences and events, with the MVP alias, or any other venue that we have, to share some of the stuff that is going on in the RS team, but I don’t think we are doing it hardly enough.

So this might lead some of you to wonder if anyone is listening on the other side?

Well let me tell you a few things. First, we are listening; not only that, we are actually monitoring the Reporting Services forums and Connect site on a daily basis. We are then analyzing and reviewing monthly trend on vote count every month with the entire Reporting Services leadership team (All Managers and PMs).

So how much has the product benefited from your feedback and posts. Let’s look at a few stats and insights that Robert and I put together, taken since the beginning of MSConnect on May 2007.

Insight 1: We fixed 489 issues with a split of 395 bugs and 79 DCRs.

Insight 2: 157 customers reported 296 of these 489 issues. The highest number of issue reported by a single customer is 52, the second highest is 25. 193 fixed issues didn’t have specific customer details associated with them in Connect. It doesn’t mean it didn’t originate from a customer, it is just that we do not have the customer information for it.

Insight 3: Vote count does matter: we fixed 95% of issues that had more than 1 count. But we also fixed issues even if they have 1 or no vote count. We fixed 120 issue with a single vote and 281 with no vote at all.

Below you will the top 10 list of issues we have resolved over the last 3 years based on customer count:

Feedback ID	Title	Customer Vote Count
487628	Reporting Services 2008 Export To Excel Margins	30
357620	PDF/Print: Exception or missing data when page breaks in textbox whitespace	29
235985	Naming Worksheets for Excel Export from Reporting Services	21
124528	Rendering Extension for Word	20
281612	Multi-Value Cascading Parameters Don't Update Correctly in Sharepoint Integrated Reporting Services	16
170430	Provide a way to determine if the current report is being printed/ exported (aka expose current rendering format to on-demand expressions)	15
127160	DCR: Support field aggregates in the page header and footer	14
308979	UserID returns the SharePoint application pool user when running in integration mode	14
278056	RS 2005 SP2 in Sharepoint integrated mode with forms authentication	12
403736	SSRS Query Designer Parameters Dialog generates bad MDX	12
127049	Add ResetPageNumber to Grouping	10

Insight 4: Fixes found their way to various release: SQL2005 SP1, SP2, SP3, SP4, SQL 2008, SP1, VS 2008, VS 2010, SQL 2008 R2

Insight 5: We are fixing issues in all areas of the product: Controls (40), Data Visualization (22), Documentation (9), Management Tools (26), Report Creation tools (111), Processing and Rendering (211), Server (45), Setup (12), Sharepoint (11)

Processing and Rendering Examples include (with connect ids):

· Expression-based page break: 127050, 125417

· Reset page number on group: 127049, 282569, 426406

· Inline HTML: 127076, 127164

· Renderer-based formatting/expressions: 125384

· Page header: 331435, 231622, 540921

· Shared datasets: 282518

· PDF font embedding: 343496, 125435, 357637

· Excel naming worksheets: 235985, 552982

About 110 of the bug fixes and feature enhancements are related to the report authoring experience and report design environment, such as Report Builder, BIDS, query designers. Some of those are also about simplifying certain types of report designs and improving usability of the client tools.

If I can leave you with one thought from this post: it is that YOU are making a difference and you have a direct influence and contribution on the product quality and future by reporting issues, proposing enhancements and more than everything else by voting on your own issues or other existing issues. So please keep posting, voting and telling your friends to vote….

On behalf of the reporting services team: Thank You!

Thierry D'hers | Group Program Manaer | Reporting Services | SQL Server Business Intelligence | Microsoft Corporation

(thierry.dhers@microsoft.com)

Report Builder 3.0 & Portal

Robert Bruckner — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 05:10:00 GMT

Due to popular demand, we are posting the download information for the small stand-alone installer package for Report Builder 3.0 separately as well: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=d3173a87-7c0d-40cc-a408-3d1a43ae4e33

Report Builder 3.0 is also part of the SQL Server 2008 R2 Feature Pack.

If you are you looking for …

how to get started with Report Builder 3.0?
videos and tutorials of how to create report parts?
news about and downloads for Report Builder?
pointers about Report Builder report design capabilities, such as sparklines and data bars, gauges, indicators, maps, creating drillthrough reports, subreports, page layout and rendering?

… then you should check out the new Report Builder portal on TechNet!

You can also read about several of the new features and scenarios enabled with Report Builder 3.0 and RDL Version 2010, and take a look at the documentation overview for the latest version of Report Builder.

Enjoy and Happy Reporting!

SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 R2

Robert Bruckner — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 05:00:00 GMT

SQL Server 2008 R2 is a big release, with new “editions” (MSDN contains the detailed feature by edition matrix), and includes also significant enhancements in Reporting Services. The stand-alone download package for Report Builder 3.0 is available as well.

More details about Reporting Services 2008 R2 and Report Builder 3.0 can be found here:

Reporting Services 2008 R2 Overview
http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/reporting.aspx
Report Builder 3.0 Portal
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/ff657833.aspx
Summaries of many of those new Reporting Services features are covered in related postings: additions in August CTP, additions in November CTP, 2008 R2 RTM, as well as other related postings.

Enjoy!

Looking for a Career with Invigorating Challenges?

Robert Bruckner — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 07:00:00 GMT

In the past you may have provided valuable feedback through MSDN forums, Connect, blogs, conferences, and perhaps even discussed your ideas directly with members of the SQL Server Reporting Services product team. We appreciate all your suggestions, feedback and input we have received!

If you want to have an even bigger impact on shaping the future of SQL Server Reporting Services, we have several great opportunities for talented Software Design Engineers in Test and Program Managers to work on invigorating challenges and deliver on the promise of our vision. We are brimming with ideas and excitement and need your help to make them happen. If you are looking for that next, fresh challenging step in their career, please review our job postings and contact us through the Microsoft Careers site to see if we are the right fit for you.

Software Design Engineer in Test positions:

In addition, we are looking for a Program Manager in the Reporting Services engine:

https://careers.microsoft.com\JobDetails.aspx?jid=12677

SQL Server 2008 R2 November CTP – What’s New In Reporting Services?

Robert Bruckner — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:55:00 GMT

[Cross-posting from my own blog]

The November CTP download is available for MSDN and TechNet subscribers. The public download is available here. A small stand-alone MSI for Report Builder 3.0, November CTP, is now available for download here. The feature pack download is also available and includes Report Builder 3.0 as well as the RS add-ins for SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010.

The Data Platform Insider blog provides an overview of what's new in CTP release for SQL Server 2008 R2. If you are reading this blog, you are probably interested in knowing what’s specifically new compared to the previous August CTP in Reporting Services 2008 R2 November CTP:

Report Part Gallery
The ability for report items / data regions to be published to the report server and made available to other report authors to re-use. Report authors can publish and share these report components from either BIDS or Report Builder 3.0. Information workers can use Report Builder to mash these report components together into their own unique views by simple drag & drop. This includes notifications when a report part was updated on the report server in the meantime.
Shared Data Sets
Datasets can now be shared, stored, processed and cached externally from the report. Cache refresh plans let you cache reports or shared dataset query results on first use or from a schedule.
Enhanced SharePoint Integration for SharePoint 2007 and SharePoint 2010
This includes support for multiple SharePoint Zones, the SharePoint Universal Logging service, and Report Parts. We added a new SharePoint List data extension with query designer support. Furthermore, support for right-to-left text with Arabic and Hebrew was added in the SharePoint user interface.
New Data Visualization Report Items
Data Bars - each bar is scaled based on the maximum value of the immediate group (a default which can be adjusted).
Sparklines are data-intense, word-sized graphics. These visualizations make it possible for report consumers to quickly see things like trends over time at a glance.
Indicators are small icons that are often used to depict the status or trend for a given value. Setting up indicators based on a number of pre-configured sets is now very easy.
Furthermore, this CTP includes improvements to the Map wizard.
Enhanced Business Intelligence Development Studio
Support for 2008 and 2008 R2 versions of reports and report projects.
Aggregates of Aggregates
This enables report authors to nest RDL aggregate expressions inside other RDL aggregate expressions with unlimited nesting levels. For example, the expression =Avg(Sum(Sales, "Month"), "Year") would compute the average total monthly sales.
Other RDL Expression Language enhancements
- Writing expressions that take into account the current rendering format (=Globals!RenderFormat.Name)
- Naming pages, including naming of Excel worksheets for Excel export
- Group.DomainScope is quite useful for synchronizing data visually across different charts / sparklines and in tablix even if data is only available at disparate granularities.
- Read/Write report variables with automatic serialization/persistence; these are quite useful to avoid managing your own custom code variables.
- Rotating Text 270 Degrees, which is frequently needed for narrow column layouts.
- Dynamic page breaks, as well as resetting page number of page breaks
New 2010 SOAP Endpoint
While the existing 2005/2006 SOAP endpoints are still supported, the 2010 endpoint unifies support of both native & SharePoint integrated servers and adds functionality for new areas such as shared datasets, cache refresh plans, and report parts.
Improved Browser and Standards Mode Support

Enjoy!

We look forward to hearing your feedback on Reporting Services 2008 R2 November CTP in the dedicated MSDN discussion forum.

Report Builder 3.0, August CTP

Robert Bruckner — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 19:20:00 GMT

A small stand-alone MSI for Report Builder 3.0, August CTP, is now available for download here: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=160384

Download packages for SQL Server 2008 R2 August CTP are available here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e19689bd-38dd-46c4-8645-f58ca4d61d1f

Enjoy!

Update: Report Builder 3.0 was released as RTM version in the meantime. Please check this related Report Builder blog post for more details.

SQL Server 2008 R2 August CTP – What’s New In Reporting Services?

Robert Bruckner — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 20:50:00 GMT

[Cross-posting from my own blog]

The August CTP download is available for MSDN and TechNet subscribers. The public download is now also active here.

The Data Platform Insider blog provides an overview of what's new in this first public CTP release for SQL Server 2008 R2. If you are reading this blog, you are probably interested in knowing what’s new in Reporting Services 2008 R2, and already in August CTP:

Map and spatial data visualization
We provided sneak previews of this functionality at past conferences, including a popular “BI Power Hour” demo. Maps can be very powerful visualizations. They can consume and visualize geospatial and geometry data directly (as shown by Ed Katibah here), “regular” data, and combine multiple datasets using map layers. Maps can integrate ESRI shape files, as well as directly integrate with Bing Maps.
Report Builder 3.0
The most notable new Report Builder feature area already available in the August CTP is the so-called "server mode":
- An edit session concept enables support for embedded data source credentials, relative references, and subreport references when connected to a report server.
- Dataset results are cached when connected to a report server, which speeds up making layout changes and previewing the new report.
ATOM data feeds
Reports are now also available in the ATOM standard compliant format that can be consumed by Gemini and other tools.
AJAX Report Viewer
The August CTP provides a preview of some of the functionality that will be available in the stand-alone report viewer control with the upcoming Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 release. You will notice a more fluid navigation experience in August CTP.
Report Manager
Report Manager received visual and functional improvements with SharePoint-like interaction and menus.
RDL Expression Language enhancements
We added direct geospatial data & function support, as well as three types of Lookup functions (Lookup, LookupSet, MultiLookup).

On top of that, there are several more new Reporting Services and RDL features available in August CTP, including a few in combination with Gemini and SharePoint in a limited CTP program only. During the next weeks and months we plan to cover more details on the major areas listed above in further blog postings, e.g. on Robert Bruckner's blog.

Enjoy!

We look forward to hearing your feedback on Reporting Services 2008 R2 August CTP in the dedicated new MSDN discussion forum.

Some help with Report Builder 2.0 ClickOnce

craigg — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 01:11:00 GMT

While Service Pack 1 for SQL Server 2008 did add support for Report Builder 2.0 ClickOnce, not all of the instructions have made it online yet. The following should help users get going until the online content has all been published.

Report Builder 2.0 is made available in three ways:

1. Standalone .MSI
See existing download page .

2. Native mode ClickOnce deployment:
If you are using SQL Server 2008 SP1 in native mode, you simply change the "Custom Action URL" given in the Site Settings page to /ReportBuilder/ReportBuilder_2_0_0_0.application

3. Sharepoint mode ClickOnce deployment:
After you have installed the updated Sharepoint add-in bits, following the directions in the readme to change the Custom Action URL to /_vti_bin/ReportBuilder/ReportBuilder_2_0_0_0.application will change the default Report Builder link on your Sharepoint site to RB2.

By using the Custom Action URL for Report Builder 2 in ClickOnce mode, we allow users to keep using Report Builder 1.0 or any other ClickOnce tool if they wish.

Things to note:

1. ClickOnce install packs include all available languages, the one used at runtime being determined by the client's display language.
2. Client machines need .NET 3.5 SP1 to run the RB2 ClickOnce package.
3. The next update for SQL Server Books Online will include more information on these topics and should be available soon..

SQL Server 2008 SP1 and Report Builder Update

Robert Bruckner — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 08:35:00 GMT

Service Pack 1 for SQL Server 2008 is now available for download. The service pack is primarily a roll-up of Cumulative Updates 1, 2, and 3 and minor fixes made in response to requests reported through the SQL Server community.

While there are no new features in this service pack, a notable addition from a Reporting Services point of view is the ability to configure Click Once deployment to either launch Report Builder 1.0 or the updated Report Builder 2.0, directly from Report Manager (native mode) or SharePoint. If you run Reporting Services in SharePoint integrated mode, make sure to also install the updated RS add-in for SharePoint.

Furthermore, the April 2009 Feature Pack is now available and includes an updated version of Report Builder 2.0. You can get it either as Report Builder 2.0 stand-alone download, or via click once deployment from a Report Server with SQL Server 2008 SP1 applied.

Summary of download links:

Other download resources:

Enjoy!

Reporting Services Information Aggregator

Robert Bruckner — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 01:00:00 GMT

Want to get an overview, recommendations for good books and other resources, and the latest information about Reporting Services 2008? Check out our MSDN aggregation page for Reporting Services. Looking for the latest downloads for Reporting Services 2008? Take a look at the RS 2008 resources page. Furthermore, research and ask questions on the updated MSDN forums for Reporting Services.

Happy Holidays!

Recent whitepapers

craigg — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 23:41:00 GMT

I hope December is treating everyone well.

I wanted to post a quick summary of new resources related to some of the SSRS data sources.

Teradata

Support for Teradata was added to SQL Server Reporting Services in 2008. The focus of the work was on Report Model projects (vs Report Server Projects).

This white paper discusses the functionality in detail. As noted in the document, the .Net provider is required and can be downloaded from Teradata.

Using SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services with the .NET Framework Data Provider for Teradata

The core Report Model support with Teradata was also implemented in the just released Service Pack 3 (SP3) for the 2005 version of SQL Server. Note that some manual configuration is required to turn things ‘on’ as well as you need to install the .Net provider from Teradata.

Readme for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 SP3 and the actual Download Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3.

Note: More details on configuring connectivity with Teradata's .NET data provider can be found in Robert Bruckner's blog posting.

SAP BI

Some updates to the functionality shipped with SQL Server Reporting Services 2008. This included a toggle for showing technical names in the UI and support for SSO connectivity. The recently published whitepaper covers these topics and has been re-written with additional background, getting started, and troubleshooting information.

Using SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services with SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence

Lastly, the higher level page for all the SQL Server 2008 white papers…

All SQL Server 2008 White Papers

Microsoft Chart Controls for .NET Framework 3.5 Released!

Robert Bruckner — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 05:30:00 GMT

[Cross-posting from my own blog]

One of the projects the data visualization group within the Reporting Services team has been working on is building stand-alone ASP.NET and Windows Forms Chart Controls for the .NET Framework 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008, similar to what has been already available as built-in chart functionality in SQL Server Reporting Services 2008.

These stand-alone chart controls can be easily integrated into your existing applications and have a very rich API. We are excited that they are now available on Microsoft Download Center! Congratulations to our data visualization group! To get a quick overview of a subset of the available chart types in the stand-alone controls, take a look at the image below:

Important download links:

Microsoft Chart Controls for Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5
This installs the ASP.NET and Windows Forms Controls. The assemblies will be installed in the GAC as well as in the "%Program File%\Microsoft Chart Controls\Assemblies" folder. If you build an application using the controls, your setup and deployment should add MSChart.exe installer as a pre-requisite.
Language Pack for Microsoft Chart Controls
This installs the language pack for the Chart Controls. It is available in 23 .NET Framework languages.
Microsoft Chart Controls Add-on for Visual Studio 2008
This installs the IntelliSense file in English for the controls and also adds the controls to the toolbox for ASP.NET and Windows Forms.
Documentation for Microsoft Chart Controls

Samples to get your development started are available on MSDN (http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/mschart). Furthermore, if you have questions or suggestions, or just want to share your excitement, please visit our newly created MSDN forum for Windows Forms and ASP.NET Chart Controls.

Enjoy!

Report Builder 2.0 Released!

Robert Bruckner — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 04:59:00 GMT

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Report Builder 2.0 RTM (build 10.00.1600.60) is now available on Microsoft Download Center as stand-alone installer in more than 20 languages.

Report Builder 2.0 provides an intuitive report authoring environment for business and power users. It supports the full capabilities of SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services including flexible data layout, data visualizations, and richly formatted text features. Compared to Business Intelligence Development Studio 2008, Report Builder 2.0 includes a number of additional features:

Easy to use wizards for creating table, matrix and chart data regions
Support for directly opening and editing reports stored on the report server
Support for using server resources such as shared data sources

Enjoy!

Report Builder 2.0 - RC1 Release

Robert Bruckner — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:40:00 GMT

Report Builder 2.0 RC1 is now available on Microsoft Download Center. Use this link for download. RC1 delivers improvements in the following areas compared to RC0:

Easy to use wizards for creating table, matrix and chart data regions.
Support for directly opening and editing reports stored on the report server.
Support for using server resources such as shared data sources.
A query designer for Microsoft SQL Server data sources.
Enhancements to the Report Builder 2.0 ribbon.

Please direct your feedback to the main Reporting Services MSDN forum, or to http://connect.microsoft.com/.

Thanks,
Robert

Report Builder 2.0 Release Plan Update

Robert Bruckner — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 03:10:00 GMT

With SQL Server 2008 RTM announced, we wanted to give you an update on the release plans for Report Builder 2.0.

Report Builder 2.0 will ship as part of the updated feature pack for SQL Server 2008 in fall of this year. It will be, as it was in RC0, a web download only. It will be available from the SQL Server feature pack download page. At release, Report Builder will be available in 21 languages similar to the Reporting Services SharePoint Add-in. The ClickOnce version of Report Builder 2.0 will not be supported in this timeframe and we are actively looking at releasing it as soon as possible after Report Builder 2.0 release.

An RC1 release will be made available, tentatively at the end of August. This build will contain all of the final features for Report Builder 2.0 and will only be in English. We’ll post a link as soon as it is available.

As always, we look forward to your feedback on Report Builder. Please provide feedback directly at: http://connect.microsoft.com/. Thank you.

Report Variables and Group Variables in Reporting Services 2008

Robert Bruckner — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 05:30:00 GMT

Note: this posting provides an overview of when to consider using Report Variables and/or Group Variables for general report design patterns. There is also a detailed blog posting that describes a particular report design pattern (custom aggregation) report authors may have been using in Reporting Services 2005, which requires group variables in Reporting Services 2008.

On-Demand Report Processing

Reporting Services 2008 features an on-demand report processing engine. This on-demand architecture has a number of key advantages over the processing engine design that existed in previous releases. The most significant benefits are improvements to report engine scalability and performance (you can read a bit more about it here). Because of this fundamental change from previous versions, there are some specific design patterns that have changed.

The new processing engine in Reporting Services 2008 still retrieves datasets upfront, but only pre-computes certain invariants, such as grouping, sorting, filter expressions, aggregates, subreport parameters and queries. Everything else are "on-demand" evaluated expressions at the time a particular page is rendered; most notably, textbox values, and style expressions.

As a result, the internal execution order of expressions in Reporting Services 2008 might be vastly different compared to previous releases. If your reports make custom code / custom assembly calls with side-effects relying on undocumented expression evaluation order (e.g. accumulating state via an expression in a table detail section, and relying on the state being fully populated in a "later" expression), the report may not work as before when upgrading it to Reporting Services 2008. Report and group variables were introduced to address this scenario.

Report and Group Variables

In Reporting Services 2008, one can declare variables that are global throughout the report or local to particular group scopes and refer to them in expressions. Report and group variables can only be set/initialized once and have a read-only semantics.

Typical use cases for variables include:

Caching values / expensive calculations:
Report/group variables can be used to make an expensive call to an external assembly once, cache the result, and then reference the variable value from other expressions in the report (to avoid re-evaluating the original expression repeatedly during on-demand report processing).
Time-dependent calculations:
For example, retrieve a currency conversion value and store it in a report/group variable to be applied consistently during the lifetime of the rendering session.
Specific execution-order semantics:
Achieve particular expression execution order semantics that is independent of the rendering extension used later for generating the report output. This use case is not as common, but also a bit more complex. It is discussed in detail in another blog posting titled Using Group Variables In Reporting Services 2008 for Custom Aggregation. That posting also includes sample reports and step-by-step instructions.

-- Robert

Building the new builder.

craigg — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 22:10:00 GMT

As you have likely read through various avenues, including the past several CTP releases of SQL Server 2008, the SQl Server Reporting Services team has been working on the next phase of our Report Builder application. The new end user report authoring tool for SQL Server 2008 is Report Builder 2.0 and you can download the latest version from the SQL 2008 RC0 Feature pack.

In total, there are three report authoring tools in Reporting Services for SQL Server 2008:

· Report Designer – Our report developer-focused tool offering the full functionality of the Report Definition Language (RDL) in the Visual Studio environment.

· Report Builder 2.0 – Our Information worker-focus report authoring environment also offering the full functionality of RDL with a Microsoft Office look and feel.

· Report Builder 1.0 – Our ad hoc reporting tool from SQL Server 2005 with full report model support and limited RDL support.

The name for what is now Report Builder 2.0 has evolved during the full SQL Server 2008 development cycle and it has created some confusion. It was originally called the ‘Report Designer Preview’ in several of the SQL Server 2008 CTPs. Some of the reason(s) for the approach were to allow for iterations of development and customer feedback. This is why the whole 'preview' name existed to begin with, to make it clear it was not a finished product, to get feedback on specific features/usability, as well as test the waters for 'fit' of the product within the user workflow.

While we moved RB2.0 forward, we were also working on the developer design experience in BIDs, migrating it to the VS 2008 infrastructure under the hoods and updating portions of the design environment so there was similarity/parity with RB2.0. If you compare the core areas inside the two tools, you will see things are the same. For example, the grouping pane, data pane, and dialogs have the same functionality between the BIDs Report Designer and Report Builder 2.0. This shared component approach willl allow for improved long term maintenance of the report design environments and we feel it will be more 'familiar' for users who use/move between tools.

· RB2.0: The general release will be a separate download, like the current RC0 release noted above.

· RB1.0: The traditional Report Builder will ship with SSRS 2008 but with the “1.0” attached to its name., and its functionality is more or less the same as what was in SSRS 2005. This is intentional as you likely can infer from all the above notes, our efforts are going into the new RB2.0 experience but we wanted to provide the 1.0 experience to help customers transition from the 1.0 experience to the 2.0 experience. Full support for report models will be added to Report Builder 2.0 in a future release.

Regarding Licensing, it will be the same/similar to Report Builder 1.0 and SSRS 2005 licensing.

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/howtobuy/howtolicensers.mspx

I command thee...

craigg — Fri, 30 May 2008 22:45:00 GMT

A, not uncommon request from SQL Server Reporting Services customers is the ability to use command line switches wtih Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) like you would with a standard\out of the box Visual Studio experience. Well, I am happy to say, we have done some work in this area for SQL Server Reporting Services 2008, and the RC0 release due very soon. I wanted to show a few samples so you can see whats coming and because its not a visual feature, your not likely to see it at the upcomming Tech Ed, for the many which will attend. Tech Ed North America 2008. Surprisingly, command line output does not draw the same crowd as cool new data visualization or richly formatted text features. Go figure.

As background, the samples I did here were with a fresh install of SQL Server 2008, so I had not installed Visual Studio 2008. Also, I should note there is lots of documentation on MSDN for using the Visual Studio command line but I found some of the samples differ in syntax. So, I based mine on what I read wih the command line help, or 'devenv /?'. A word of wisdom, when dealing with file paths which contain spaces. The double quotes are the standard, however be aware of the character difference when you are copyin/pasting between applications. Someone, could in theory, waste a lot of time trying to get command line operations to work, and swear they had the syntax proper, but there is difference between " and “

Also, I am generally lazy so to make make things easier I added the path to the folder containing DEVENV to my OS environment path, so
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE

Deploy: Well, the clear winner and main desire folks are after with the command line, is the ability to deploy to their servers....

devenv "C:\Documents and Settings\myuser\My Documents\Visual Studio 2008\projects\Aworks\Aworks.sln" /deploy myconfig

Which spits back the following, looking like what you see in Output window inside BIDs. Notice it includes the warning for the data source, and indeed in the Project Proeprties dialog in BIDs, I set 'OverwriteDataSources' to false.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Microsoft (R) Visual Studio Version 9.0.30428.1.
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp. All rights reserved.
------ Build started: Project: Aworks, Configuration: myconfig ------
Build complete -- 0 errors, 0 warnings
------ Deploy started: Project: Aworks, Configuration: myconfig ------
Deploying to http://theservername/reportserver
Deploying data source '/aworks/aworks_shared'.
Warning : Cannot deploy data source aworks_shared to the server because it already exists and OverwriteDataSources is not specified.
Deploying report '/aworks/aworks_salesorderdetail'.
Deploying report '/aworks/salesandterritory'.
Deploy complete -- 0 errors, 1 warnings
========== Build: 1 succeeded or up-to-date, 0 failed, 0 skipped ==========
========== Deploy: 1 succeeded, 0 failed, 0 skipped ==========

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Log the output: Add the /Out switch and redirect to a file (cumulative).

devenv "C:\Documents and Settings\myuser\My Documents\Visual Studio 2008\projects\Aworks\Aworks.sln" /deploy myconfig /out c:\mybuildlog.txt

Build: to check for errors, but nothing is deployed.

devenv "C:\Documents and Settings\myuser\My Documents\Visual Studio 2008\projects\Aworks\Aworks.sln" /build