What is the scope of Microsoft Reporting Services?
Will it be a reporting tool that reads both relational &
multidimensional data?
Will it be able to combine data from more than one cube & have
calculations performed on them?
Will there be any dynamic narratives (i.e. a way of storing comments
to dynamic data)?
Will it be web & windows based?
Can the data be presented in Excel & still be dynamic?
What are the main competitor tools? Crystal Reports/Analysis? Cognos
Impromtu/PowerPlay? ProClarity? Novaview?

Regards,

John

www.a-la-li-la.org

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/evaluat...ngservices.asp

answers most of your questions.

--
Jacco Schalkwijk MCDBA, MCSD, MCSE
Database Administrator
Eurostop Ltd.


"John Keeley" <duvinrouge (AT) servihoo (DOT) com> wrote

I think that this link is more appropriate for yours questions:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tre...L/sql0625.asp]


"John Keeley" <duvinrouge (AT) servihoo (DOT) com> wrote

John,

from my point of view this is not what reporting services is made for. Still
there's a lot of "standard reporting" so useres want that stack of paper
with the company logo on the top. OK, they don't really want to have it on
papaer, but still that quite limited kind of more or less static reporting.

There is a need for "Analytical Applications" like ProClarity, Cognos... I'm
just curious about Microsoft's plans for Data Analysers V2...

Perhaps Reporting Services is not perfect for that kind of management
reporting you're looking for. Perhaps SharePoint with different WebParts
from Reporting Services & Excel/ProClarity would be the best solution. From
my experience Managers are looking for some kind of dashboard... SharePoint
is the right solution for that...


Thomas Pagel, Software4You Planungssysteme GmbH

"John Keeley" <duvinrouge (AT) servihoo (DOT) com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:542fe31c.0307220056.597002c (AT) posting (DOT) google.com...

John,

Reporting Services is a direct competitor to Crystal Reports, aimed at
production reporting. That is a valid, important requirement for many
organisations, even if it doesn't excite you.

But don't assume that this is Microsoft's only BI front-end plan -- they do
know the difference between interactive financial analysis and production
reporting, and are not promoting Reporting Services to be something that it
isn't (though of course, some outsiders might do just that). It's just that
Reporting Services is being released this year, so they are now talking
about it. They sensibly prefer not to talk about projects whose release is
further away, but that doesn't mean that they aren't investing in such
projects (18 months ago, Rosetta was also a big secret).

Nigel Pendse
OLAP Solutions
http://www.olapreport.com

"John Keeley" <duvinrouge (AT) servihoo (DOT) com> wrote

I now have a clearer picture as to what Reporting Services is all
about.
I hope that Microsoft are looking at the better Excel add-ins to see
just what they can do themselves.
I'll be publishing some functionality tables on Excel add-ins soon on
my website (www.a-la-li-la.org) which might be of some interest.


"Nigel Pendse" <nigelp.nospam (AT) compuserve (DOT) com> wrote

I agree with you but there is a wrong. You consider only excel add-in with
the method for Ad-hoc Analysis. Please, Take a look at BI Portal, developed
in .net which use Office Web Components(MSDN example).
OK, I agree that It´s not a thin client, then take a look at Japanese
Microsoft that have divulged about one Web Control for BI (totally made in
..Net) which pretend to implement all the capabilities (slicer, dimensions,
drill down/up,ranking, writeback and son on). I couldn´t do the download of
this tool
I did´t know about official position of Microsoft for this. But We should
wait something.

regards

"John Keeley" <duvinrouge (AT) servihoo (DOT) com> wrote