The trouble with data…

Planning is underway for SQLBits Cubed which will be held in Hatfield on Saturday13th Sept.

For further details see Tony Rogerson’s ramblings on SQL Server

The Data Platform Insider : Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Roadmap Clarification

Francois Ajenstat has been blogging about the SQL 2008 release roadmap. Seems we are getting a final feature complete CTP around the Feb 2008 launch with release candidate version following in Q2 and RTM in Q3.

This is somewhat later than anticipated, and makes me wonder if the delay is due to the insertion of the ubiquitous “Ribbon UI” within the new 2008 report designer tool

The CTP of Service Pack 2 is soon to be released. There are some interesting “issues” that people hoping to use the Office 2007 BI tools need to be aware of, for example

Microsoft Office 2007 requires the installation of SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services SP2 to support all of its business intelligence features. Features of Microsoft Office 2007 that require SP2 will be disabled when running against an instance of Analysis Services that does not have SP2 installed.

The full rundown of what’s coming can be found in this article here

A couple of annoying “bugs” (one introduced in SP1 (!!)) have also been fixed it seems

• You can integrate a report server instance with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or Microsoft Office 2007 SharePoint Server to store, secure, access, and manage report server items from a SharePoint site. Integration features are provided jointly through SP2 and a special Reporting Services Add-in that you download and install on an instance of the SharePoint technology you are using.The new Report Viewer Web Part is included in the Reporting Services Add-in that you install on a SharePoint technology instance. For more information about the Web Part and other integration features, see Reporting Services and SharePoint Technology Integration and Features Supported by Reporting Services in SharePoint Integration Mode.

• In SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services (SSRS), a Select All check box was automatically added when you created an available values list for a multivalue report parameter. If you upgraded to SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 1 (SP1), the Select All check box was no longer available. In SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 (SP2), the Select All check box has been restored.

Russell Christopher has caught the Sharepoint 2007 (MOSS) bug

Well, over the past week, I’ve spent quite a bit of time with the next version of SharePoint – Microsoft Office 2007 SharePoint Server (MOSS). And just like I hated to admit that blogs are actually worthwhile and that that the internets aren’t just a bunch of tubes, I gotta say, MOSS is cool as hell.

Using MOSS, I’m able to:

• Create and store Excel Reports – Excel Services ROCK!
• Store and render SQL Reporting Services Reports
• Create and display KPIs from Excel, Analysis Services and SharePoint list
• Implement a BI dashboard in about 5 minutes

…and this is coming from a guy who knew nothing about SPS and didn’t WANT to know anything about it.

All of the sudden, SPS has changed from this thing I sort of snickered about into a tool I don’t think anyone in their right mind should live without. Jeesh, I feel like a complete marketing weasel here, but MOSS is very, very cool.

Here are two great articles by MSFT C# MVP John Papa.

Designing Reports with SQL Server Reporting Services 2005

In this month’s column I will show you how to design reports effectively using Reporting Services 2005, which can manipulate, sort, and group rowsets of SQL data. However, there are times when it is beneficial to prepare the data first using SQL Server, so I’ll look at what to consider when that’s necessary. I will also show how multivalued parameters (new to Reporting Services 2005) work and how you can easily parse the multivalued parameters using a SQL Server function. In addition, I’ll discuss Report Definition Language (RDL), designer tools, and more.

and

Report Controls in SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services

SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services includes a basic chart control that handles most situations quite nicely, and third-party chart controls are available as well. The chart controls let you set categories for the x axis and data points for the y axis, and you can add one or more series to the chart.

To create a chart, you can drag a chart control onto the report designer in the Layout tab. The chart control automatically goes into “set me up” mode, letting you drag the DataSet’s fields into the category, data, and series areas.

From Tales from the Doghouse

Carl Prothman has signed-on to Microsoft as a full time employee (sucker). Carl is the man when it comes to many things, especially the collecting of connection strings. I pitch his site wherever I travel.

He is going to be working in the Community group as a Software Developer Engineer (SDE). Rumor has it that he’ll be working for Doug Seven (another community soul who went to the blue-side a few years ago).