I have been continuing my SQL Server 2008 testing and embarked on evaluating the new version of Reporting Services. You may remember that this part of the product caused some concern on my part during the Beta (CTP) program as the new Report Designer seemed to be re-inventing the wheel in addition to being somewhat premature compared to the rest of the product. Well, according to subsequent comments, I am glad that Microsoft took a more conservative approach to the Report Designer within Visual Studio 2008 and as mentioned in a recent blog entry, I am very pleased with the new version. So let’s take a look at Report Builder…
If you have used Report Builder in SQL Server 2005, you will know that it’s a powerful tool for quickly generating sophisticated reports from templates stored in a “Report Model”. The original idea was that end users could develop their own reports, but it turned out a pretty good productivity tool for us report developers too. We could roll this product out to the end-users (“but you haven’t met our end-users…”) or we could keep the tool in our back pocket and impress the powers-that-be with the rapid development of complex reports. The best part of the product was the “infinite click-through” feature that would provide dynamic hyperlinks between reports automatically (as long as you were using the Enterprise edition). Testing out Report Builder in SQL Server 2008 RTM proved uneventful. The good news was that everything worked, even after an in-place upgrade. The bad news was that it had the same look and feel as its predecessor. Launching the tool would now give a new splash screen showing “Report Builder 1.0”, but under the hood it looks and feels the same as in 2005.
In late August, just weeks after the RTM date, Microsoft made available Report Builder 2.0 RC1 adding more fuel to the fire that I lit regarding the absence of a general RC1 after RC0. But maybe this was the one component holding everything else back…it does look a bit suspicious. So I downloaded and installed this version and tested it out. As we had seen before, Microsoft had insisted on going with the Office 2007 / Vista look-and-feel with the new style buttons and ribbons. That’s OK, I can live with that, I suppose.
I tested out a new Matrix Report and the new Report Builder seems to have some neat auto-formatting options making the default reports more attractive. I also tested out a Chart based report and included the new “scale breaks” feature and that worked well too. You can include all sorts of new Gauges now, courtesy of the Dundas tools so that’s a definite plus. The tool again relies heavily on drag-and-drop actions, presumably to attract those end-users. But the overall sense is that it is still in Beta, which it is. And when it does come out, there will be a significant learning curve for the developers and especially the end-users. The jury is still out on this one, but personally I like Report Builder and its “infinite click- through” although you still have to pay for the Enterprise edition to get that “must-have” feature. Microsoft has to pay the bills you know!
Cheers
Brian
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