What's New for SQL Server Reporting Services 2016 QandA

By:Koen Verbeeck || Related Tips: > Reporting Services Development

Problem

We hosted a webcast with the subject What's New for Reporting Services 2016 on October 26th 2016. There were a couple of questions for which we didn't have time left to answer, so this tip takes the opportunity to answer those questions. Below are the questions, along with their answers. If you still have questions left, you can submit them in the comments section. You can watch a recording of the webcasthere.

Solution Q: Of all the features, which one do you like the best?

A tough question, there are so many great features. If I have to choose, its the brand new reporting portal. Its fast, it looks good and it uses html5, which means you can access your SSRS reports on multiple browsers! You can also customize the look n feel usingbrand packages.

Q: What features do you still want to see?

Of course a good integration of Power BI Desktop on premises. Its already in the works and a preview is available, so I wont have to wait too long. This is a feature that a lot of customers are waiting for.

Personally Id like to see a better handling of parameters and their prompts. Currently, the support is really minimal. You can organize the layout through theparameter pane, but thats it. If you take a look at other products, such as Business Objects or Cognos, youll see those have very advanced prompts. Good calendar prompts, advanced search, you name it. The prompts there are also in a separate page or in a pop-up, instead of a tiny bar at the top of the report.

Id also like the rendering of the reports themselves to be improved. For example, SSRS can be a bit weird when report objects overlap. I would also like to be able to add annotations for example.

Finally, I would like to be able to add a simple regression line to a line chart. With SSRS, you can add all sorts of calculated series to a graph , but a simple linear trend line needs to be added manually through code . In Excel and Power BI this is just a few clicks.

Q: When should you use SSRS vs. PowerBI vs. SSAS?

First of all, SSAS (Analysis Services) is more of a semantic layer between your data warehouse and your reports. So its not exactly a reporting tool, but more of a data source for SSRS or Power BI. You can connect directly to SSAS with Excel, but thats just the same as you would be using Power BI Desktop.

So Ill rephrase the question as: when would you use SSRS vs. Power BI vs. Excel?

If you want to do a quick ad-hoc analysis, I would probably use Excel. If you just need a simple pivot table, then Excel is a good choice.

Power BI can also be used for ad-hoc analysis, but its primary goal is to provide you with intuitive, easy-to-build interactive reports and dashboards. Anyone can build reports using Power BI, especially if SSAS is the data source since its simple drag and drop. Power BI is also very mobile friendly.

Reporting Services on the other hand is oriented towards developers. You typically use Visual Studio to build your SSRS reports and you need to write your queries yourself, unless you use SSAS as a data source. SSRS is less interactive and less mobile friendly. If you want to do special tricks, you need to use expressions a lot using a style of Visual Basic or use .NET code. Because SSRS reports are more static, they are typically used for actual reporting, such as profit/loss reports, balance sheets and so on. Personally I would rather use SSRS to build a detailed financial report than Power BI. SSRS reports are typically reports that you can print out on a piece of paper and hand over to your manager.

SSRS Mobile Reports are a bit special. They require less coding and they are also drag and drop. They are interactive and especially mobile friendly. So they are a bit like Power BI. However, Power BI is more flexible, since you can use custom visuals, R code and other tools. When Power BI can be hosted on premises, I probably will prefer Power BI Desktop reports over the SSRS mobile reports.

Q: Hello, can I use DAX queries for a report?

Sure. If your data source is SSAS Tabular, you can use DAX queries in your data set. The trick is to switch to the DMX designer instead of using the MDX designer. In the DMX designer, you can enter your DAX query. More info: Write DAX queries in Report Builder .

Q: Do you have to have any specific version of SQL Server 2016 to utilize all of the new capabilities? e.g. Standard vs. Enterprise vs. BI versions

First of all, theres no Business Intelligence edition any more in SQL Server 2016. Using Standard edition, you can use most of the new features like the new chart types and the parameter pane. However, mobile reports and the KPIs (aka the DataZen technology) is Enterprise edition only. Also, using custom brand packages in the portal is also an Enterprise feature.

You can find more information on the MSDN page Reporting Services Features Supported by the Editions of SQL Server 2016 .

Q: VERY heavy experience with Crystal Report - trying to add SSRS - study material recommendation for getting started?

You can follow some SSRS tutorials on the MSDN website . I looked at Microsoft Virtual Academy, but there are no real beginner courses over there. The following books might be worth a read:

SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services Blueprints Microsoft SQL Server 2016 Reporting Services, 5th Edition Professional Microsoft SQL Server 2016 Reporting Services and Mobile Reports (yet to be released at the time of writing)

Q: If you have SSRS in a Power BI dashboard, will a Power BI slicer also work on the SSRS report?

No. The SSRS object which was pinned on the Power BI dashboard is independent of the other items. Its basically a screenshot of your report.

Q: In the latest version can we disable phone-home feedback in SQL 2016 Developer, Express, and Evaluation Editions of SSRS?

I guess you mean the telemetry data that automatically gets sent to Microsoft? As far as Im aware, its still not possible to turn this off in the free versions of SQL Server. If you want that, you can vote on this connect item .

Q: I found Visual Studio 2015 caused me to commit to SSRS 2016 with no backwards compatibility. Is that correct?

Technically there should be backwards compatibility. You have to make sure though you select the correct version in the TargetServerVersion property of the project