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Dundas Chart for SharePoint
February 26, 2007 / No Comments »
Dundas is currently developing a Dundas Chart for SharePoint 3.0/MOSS 2007 (currently in Beta). The chart is designed to work in ASP.NET and supports binding to ADO.NET datasets. A step-by-step tutorial for configuring the chart can be found here.
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Black Preview
February 23, 2007 / No Comments »
An unfortunate bug that was discovered late in the SQL Server 2005 SP2 design cycle may cause a black report preview in the ReportViewer Windows Form control (see attached file) with some video cards. The RS team is aware of this and they are working on a hotfix. I am partly to blame for this issue ([:S]) because I've noticed it since the early builds of SP2 but it never occurred to me that it could be a bug. I thought that it could be cause by remoting it to my desktop (sometimes after logging in locally to your desktop after a remote session the colors tend to appear funny). It is important to note that this issue only happens in Print Preview mode (normal preview and Report Host (F5) are unaffected). If you don't like the new black preview look and feel please contact Microsoft Product Support for a...
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SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 is Born
February 19, 2007 / No Comments »
As an update to my previous post, SQL Server 2005 SP2 is now officially available. The SP2 build is 9.00.3042. A SP2 landing page is available too that includes links to the SP2 release, KB articles, marketing information about the benefits of SP2. As a personal contributor to Service Pack 2 (mainly in the areas of Reporting Services SharePoint integration and Analysis Services), I hope you enjoy it!
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SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 Is Semi-born
February 19, 2007 / No Comments »
Thanks for Russell Christopher's blog, we now know that the final release of SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 is very close to going live. I will update this blog when the download link is known. I listed the SP2 major BI-related enhancements in this blog. The most significant ones (RS-SharePoint integration, enhanced Excel OLAP and data mining features) makes SP2 a major milestone in the Microsoft Business Intelligence roadmap.
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Presenting SharePoint-SSRS Integration
February 10, 2007 / No Comments »
It's time for my annual presentation for the Atlanta.MDF group. This time, the topic will be the SSRS-SharePoint integration mode with SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 which I blogged about before. I've uploaded the PowerPoint slides to my website.
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Feedback on Analysis Services Performance Guide
February 1, 2007 / No Comments »
Now that I've read the Analysis Services Performance Guide (or shall we call it a mini-book) which I announced in my previous blog, I found it to be a great read. I'd recommend it to anyone who would like to get more insights not only about performance tuning UDM but also about the inner workings of the server. Some caveats… The guide doesn't answer the perennial and fundamental question about partitioning a large UDM. As I explained in my UDM Data Islands blog, Microsoft scaled down from the initial "super cube" approach and now advocates splitting a large cube into smaller subcubes (which Jamie McClellan referred to as "data islands") for performance reasons. What I was hoping to find is some performance guidelines and metrics about at what data loads should this split occur. Since this is so important from a performance standpoint, I failed to understand also why there...
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Analysis Services 2005 Performance Guide
February 1, 2007 / 1 Comment »
The highly-anticipated Analysis Services 2005 performance whitepaper is finally here. I found a few things intresting glancing at it: This is a colossal work spanning some 120 pages (no wonder it took so long [:)]. The guide was written by the top architects on the SSAS team. It specifically references SQL Server 2005 SP2 probably because SP2 brings many performance optimizations to SSAS. The guide mentions a new aggregation utility (Appendix C) which you can use to manually create aggregation designs. Something to sure keep me busy when the winter storm hits Atlanta tomorrow...
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Dealing with UDM Configuration Settings
January 18, 2007 / No Comments »
Sometimes, you may need to have a configuration setting that is stored outside UDM. For example, you may need to store a connection string to a database that will supply the allowed set for dynamic security. As with SSRS, you can use the msmdsrv.exe.config file for this purpose like so: <configuration> <startup> <requiredRuntime version="v2.0.50727" safemode="true" /> </startup> <runtime> . . . </runtime> <appSettings> <add key="connectionString" value="connection string here" /> </appSettings> </configuration> This shouldn't come to surprise since the SSAS server process hosts a .NET application domain to execute SSAS stored procedures. Once the configuration settings are defined, you can read them with a single line inside a SSAS stored procedure: public static string GetConfigSetting(string settingName) { return settingValue = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[settingName]; // need a reference to System.Configuration }
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Kudos to Report Builder as UDM Client
January 11, 2007 / 4 Comments »
Its UDM support limitations withstanding (a partial list here), the Report Builder should definitely be on your list if your requirements call for ad-hoc reporting from an SSAS 2005 cube. Here are some Report Builder features that I particularly like: Ability to pre-filter the data on the report before the report is run. In comparison, Excel takes the optimistic approach to load all dimension members before allowing you to set a filter. This can surely send Excel in a la-la land if your cube has large dimensions (hundred thousand or more). Support of calculated columns. For some obscure reasons, the Excel UI doesn't have an UI interface for creating calculated members (you can do so programmatically however). Standard report look and feel. In comparison, Excel limits the user to the PivotTable fixed layout (assuming that the user doesn't convert the report to formulas). My Reports which allows the business user...
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Report Viewer Enhancements in VS.NET 2005 SP1
December 20, 2006 / No Comments »
As you probably know by now, Microsoft has recently released Service Pack 1 of Visual Studio.NET 2005. Since the Report Viewer controls are owned by the VS.NET team, it turned out that they have been updated also. Many bug fixes have been implemented. The new features include: Report Viewer ASP.NET Control Enhancements Reset method to reset the control to its default values. Both ASP.NET and Windows Forms versions ServerReport.Cookies property to pass cookies to the server (useful if the Report Server is configured for custom security). ServerReport.Headers property to pass custom HTTP headers to the server (useful if the Report Server is configured for custom security). New (currently undocumented) IReportViewerMessages2 interface for localizing additional menu strings that were not covered by the original IReportViewerMessages interface. Strangely, VS.NET 2005 SP1 doesn't update the product documentation (perhaps, the next edition of MSDN library will) so you need to rely on the online documentation. How...
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