February CTP is out. It brings the much anticipated integration with Visual Studio 2008 and the new BIDS Report Designer.
Download the February CTP here:
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/2008/prodinfo/download.mspx
Updated Books Online for February CTP are available here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=19DB0B42-A5B2-456F-9C5C-F295CDD58D7A&displaylang=en
What's new in Reporting Services February CTP (compared to the previous November 2007 CTP):
- Support for Microsoft Word Rendering
This allows users to render reports as Word documents that are compatible with Microsoft Word 2000 and greater.
- Data Visualization Enhancements
Data Visualization Enhancements provides significantly improved support for Chart and adds support for Gauge controls directly within reports.
- SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Add-in for Microsoft SharePoint Technologies
The SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Add-in for SharePoint Technologies allows you to take advantage of SQL Server 2008 report rendering, processing and management capabilities in SharePoint Integrated mode. This version includes Data-driven subscriptions.
- Report Design Enhancements in Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS)
BIDS overall has been migrated from a Visual Studio 2005 to Visual Studio 2008 platform. In addition, the report design tools found in BIDS were significantly updated for Reporting Services. Updates include:
- the more powerful Tablix based Tables, Lists, Matrices
- the Report Data window for easier interaction with data fields
- the integration of data visualization enhancements (Chart, Gauge)
- new dialogs throughout the design experience
- Throughput Enhancements
Further improvements in report rendering throughput, the number of reports rendered in a given amount of time for several types of workloads.