• Sidebar: New Report Packs on the Way

A pair of SharePoint Web Parts and a report-printing feature will accompany a handful of bug fixes in an upcoming service pack (SP) for SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services, a component for designing and distributing reports from a variety of data sources. Reporting Services SP2 will let users format and print reports directly from Internet Explorer (or other browsers that support ActiveX controls) and view reports from within SharePoint sites.

Fixes and New Features

SQL Server Reporting Services provides native SQL Server support for creating and managing human-readable reports. The feature has quickly gained popularity among organizations that need to distribute reports to large numbers of users on an ongoing basis and among software vendors (including Microsoft) that want to publish reports that can easily be read in a Web browser. According to Microsoft, Reporting Services has been downloaded more than 150,000 times since its introduction in Jan. 2004. Microsoft has also been shipping Reporting Services support for its own applications. (See the sidebar "New Report Packs on the Way".)

The main elements of Reporting Services SP2 are as follows:

Report printing is provided by a new ActiveX control that appears in the Reporting Services report manager, a Web-based report portal. The control offers standard print and formatting options, such as the ability to list and select available printers, preview reports before sending them to a printer, and change report layout and formatting. Prior to SP2, printing reports required users to export reports to a file format of their choice (Excel, Word, or PDF, for example), open the report in the application appropriate to that format, and use that application's printing features to format and print reports.

Reporting Services SP2 also includes an API that gives developers programmatic access to report-printing functions, allowing them to build printing capabilities into custom reporting clients or other applications, such as a customer relationship management (CRM) system with built-in reporting features.

WSS Web Parts. Two Reporting Services Web Parts allow users to navigate and view reports from within Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) or SharePoint Portal Server (SPS) sites. Web Parts are modular Web page components that users insert into sites created with WSS and SPS, Microsoft's products for Web-based team collaboration and corporate portals, respectively; the Web Parts allow users to easily create and customize those sites. The first Web Part, called the Report Explorer, allows users to list and select available reports on a Reporting Services server or subscribe to reports to have them delivered via e-mail. The second Web Part, called the Report Viewer, is used to view reports.

The Reporting Services Web Parts reflect Microsoft's effort to position WSS and SPS as locations for workers to access both unstructured data, such as document-based sales proposals, and structured data, such as detailed customer purchasing histories from an accounts database. This strategy depends on the availability of Web Parts like those for Reporting Services that provide windows into interesting corporate information and require minimal development effort.

Bug fixes. Reporting Services SP2 fixes a handful of bugs, most of which are of relatively low severity. For example, two of the fixes resolve problems associated with exporting reports to Adobe's PDF file format and another that addresses a problem exporting reports to Excel. A separate fix corrects a problem associated with sending reports as e-mail attachments to Lotus Domino e-mail servers.

Tricky Install, One-Way Upgrade

Customers should be aware of two potential complications with Reporting Services SP2. First, customers who plan to make use of the new Web Parts in an environment where Reporting Services and WSS or SPS run on the same server will need to perform several command-line configurations after installing the SP. (Running WSS/SPS and Reporting Services on the same machine, however, is not required.)

In addition, upgrading to Reporting Services SP2 makes changes in the databases that store Reporting Services configuration information and report definitions, and it is thus a one-way move. Customers should plan to back up existing Reporting Services databases before upgrading.

Availability and Resources

Reporting Services was first included with new copies of SQL Server 2000 in the first quarter of 2004; customers who purchased SQL Server 2000 prior to the first quarter of 2004 can order media containing Reporting Services from Microsoft or its reseller. Reporting Services requires a SQL Server license for each server that it runs on. Users can license it per processor or can purchase Client Access Licenses (CALs) for each user or device accessing the server hosting Reporting Services.

Microsoft has not given a precise date for Reporting Services SP2 availability, although the company has suggested that the SP will be available by Apr. 2005 and a beta is currently available for SQL Server 2005 beta participants.

Reporting Services was outlined in "SQL Reporting Services Launches" on page 3 of the Mar. 2004 Update.

How to obtain SQL Server Reporting Services is outlined at www.microsoft.com/sql/reporting/howtobuy/default.asp.

More information about Reporting Services SP2 is at www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/mar05/03-03ReportingOfferingPR.asp.

The fixes included in Reporting Services SP2 are listed at support.microsoft.com/?kbid=889640.

Installing Reporting Services and WSS on the same server is described at msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/rsinstall/htm/gs_installingrs_v1_9fdy.asp.

Report packs for Great Plains 8.0 and Internet Information Services (IIS) are due in Mar. 2005 and will be free downloads.

The report packs for Exchange, MSCRM, and financial reporting are at www.microsoft.com/sql/reporting/downloads.

The upcoming report packs are described at www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/mar05/03-03ReportingOfferingPR.asp.

The IIS 6.0 Resource Kit can be downloaded at www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=56fc92ee-a71a-4c73-b628-ade629c89499&displaylang=en.

SSW and the Exchange Reporter are described at www.ssw.com.au/ssw.