In a previous blog, I introduced one of the new SSRS 2008 R2 feature: reports as data feeds. As I said, the R2 release will include a new Atom Data Feed renderer to produce an Atom service document (*.atomsvc) which defines a feed(s) per data region. I also said that the main scenario for report feeds was to let the PowerPivot add-in for Excel (previously…
Scenario: You want to let end users view a report in Report Manager or SharePoint and "remember" the report parameter selection. You find that you cannot just tell the users to add the report URL to the browser favorites because the parameters are not exposed on the URL. This is by design and cannot be changed. Further, you discover that for some reason end users…
Microsoft announced release dates for SQL Server R2, SharePoint 2010, Office 2010, and Visual Studio 2010. According to the Microsoft SQL Server Team Blog: SQL Server 2008 R2 (aka SQL 2010) will be listed on Microsoft's May price list, and will be available by May 2010 According the Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog: SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 will be officially launched on May 12, 2010…
Scenario: You use the Visual Studio ASP.NET ReportViewer and you can't figure out how to get the parameter values when the page posts back. I couldn't find a straightforward answer on the discussion list so I thought my findings could come useful. Solution: Depending on your scenario, you can choose one the following three approaches: 1. You can get the current parameter values after the…
There was a huge discussion thread about the BIDS-Visual Studio integration story in the SQL Server 2008 timeframe where customers complained that BIDS got married with Visual Studio. This required switching both BI and code projects at the same if you want to have a solution with both project types. What has changed in R2? The good – Report Server projects in BIDS R2 can…
After covering the cool new stuff in R2, it's time to talk about the uncool. One R2 change that really vexes me is RDLOM. RDLOM, short for Report Definition Language Object Model, lets developers program RDL in object-oriented way as opposed to using XML. RDLOM could save you a lot of effort when you have to meet more advanced requirements that involve pre-processing RDL. For…
User Access Control (UAC) is a feature of Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 that prevents you from running applications with administrator rights even if you are a local admin on the box. Although I have to admit I hate UAC, I am convinced that it's better to have it around especially after my home desktop got infected a few months ago with…