On Business Intelligence...

Today we have launched the CTP2 for Reporting Services! Please download it from here and have fun! Make sure you read the release notes!

The release contains MANY bug fixes (many customers already use this in production), performance improvements and features! The most important ones are outlined in the blog post from Friday.

Monday, the 22nd of November 2010 we will launch "PivotViewer Extension for Reporting Services" CTP2. Here is a preview taken out of the release notes:

PivotViewer Extension for Reporting Services CTP2 brings bug fixes as well as new features. This is a list of the changes:

1. Bugfix: PivotViewer Extension for Reporting Services and its sample data does not install in a subsite. The bug was fixed in CTP2.

I've produced a new video that dives down into the anatomy of a PivotViewer application for Reporting Services and shows how to build a cool app (original link: http://bit.ly/a0Rho3).

Also, there has been a bug report (thanks to Kasper) that PivotViewer Extension for Reporting Services does not deal well with null values. Indeed, this is a bug, fixed already and will be available in CTP2.

Please see the video where Donald Farmer demonstrates the capabilities of PivotViewer Extension for Reporting Services.

I've produced a video that demonstrates how to get the PivotViewer Extension for RS installed (including the sample app) and help you get started.

Also, one quick (but important) mention (it's also part of the video): you'll have to explicitely unblock the PowerShell script in order to be able to run it (I've forgotten to sign it). The video demostrates how to unblock the script (really easy).

Here is the video. Make sure you view it in HD.

The CTP1 of PivotViewer for Reporting Services has just shipped! Get your free download from here. As I was saying in an earlier post, it is a concept project. It's not supported, and not a feature.

Microsoft has recently released a new Silverlight control called PivotViewer. This new control helps us to make better use of the growing amounts of information around us by visualizing thousands of things at once in a way that reveals the relationships which connect them. At the heart of the PivotViewer control are “Collections”. They combine large groups of similar items, so we can begin viewing the relationships between individual pieces of information in a new way.

I have recently started to work on Business Intelligence “futures”, or how we sometimes call it, the “BI Labs”. The BI Labs effort has started out of the desire to present our customers with new ideas, in the form of samples/prototypes that gives them a glimpse into the future. As these prototypes are not “products”, they come with no formal documentation, support or anything similar to that so I wanted to compensate that by maintaining a relationship with the customers in the form of a blog.