First impressions – I actually quite like it. I can see that it is going to require some deep late-night learning to completely get my head around it all but it’s certainly not what I would call a Version 1 product (actually given that it’s born out of Stratature +EDM it’s more like version 4/5) . The new web based UI is pretty clunky though and for sure left me a little frustrated at times. However mosts of my other issues primarily centred around “de-nannying” Windows Server 2008 R2… all I can say (from a guy who likes to be fairly agile) is AAAAAARRRRGGGGHHH!

So here was the set up.

Virtual Server

• 2 x Processors (2.33ghz)
• 4GB RAM
• 64-bit Windows Server 2008 R2 (Enterprise)

SQL Server

• 2008 R2 Enterprise CTP2 (Eval)

Some things I needed to do for later on but may as well have done here

• Upped the server from default to run IIS, Web Services etc
• Ensured .Net 3.5 sp1 was on board

After the SQL Install, you need to run the MDS install from the SQL Install Media.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, I will point you to the msdn installation area and two excellent posts to get installed, web app configured (this took me a couple of attempts until I found Sutha’s article) and run in some test data to see how it works.

Installation

Web App Config

Baby Steps (Nick Barclay’s 7 step tutorials)

And the result was this

first hierarchy

One last useful link – when you are importing data, there are a set of error codes applied to the datasets (nice touch). The problem is that they are not documented anywhere (crap touch…attention to detail!!). The result, I spent a couple of hours looking for ERR210000 and what I might have done wrong only to find from Kirk’s helpful list that ERR210000 means “all is well” (great “ERR” can now mean “OK”)

Have a play…

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Looks as if this could be an excellent BI resource in the making

SQL Server 2008 R2 is the next generation of the Microsoft SQL Server database platform, planned for release in the first half of calendar year 2010. MSDN and TechNet Subscribers can download the SQL Server 2008 R2 November CTP today. Non-subscribers will be able to download the November CTP later this month. The R2 release brings significant new capabilities and enhancements that can help your business keep pace with today’s growing and changing data management needs. Increase productivity and reduce data management costs by taking advantage of an even more scalable platform with comprehensive database and application management tools. SQL Server 2008 R2 helps users to build rich analysis and reports and helps organizations improve the quality of their data. Find out more, download the Community Technology Preview pre-release and let us know what you think. Also, join the SQL Server communities around the world and the SQL Server development team in the conversation.

Article

Based on our experience, this is certainly worth a look over the old SCD component – we have seen some major performance improvements using MERGE over the SCD components (and other workarounds that we had previously used).

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PowerPivot

More of a placeholder for me because I keep forgetting. You know (probably) the scenario where you have enabled more than the default 1,000 drill-through rows in your SSAS Cube but Excel is still stubbornly limiting the drill-through to 1,000 rows.

You need to edit the data connection in Excel as per the picture below to increase the default.

It’s one of the truly excellent new additions to a BI Developer’s quiver in SQL Server 2008.

Rather than reproduce what’s already out there, I’m going to point you to a couple of excellent articles on how it can be used…

Let’s deprecate UPDATE FROM!

Dr. OUTPUT or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the MERGE

Anyway… on to the issue & resolution.

To display an SSRS report in a dashboard page, first we need to add a new report, choosing SQL Server Report as the type (see left hand pic below)

Now we can move on to selecting the report server location and the report we want to display. This is not as easy as it sounds – for example in BIDS, we would normally apply our integrated Sharepoint site as the TargetServerURL as per right hand picture above. Note how we use essentially the same URL for the report destination location as we do the TargetServerURL, in my case the is in the format http://myportal.mydomain.local…

So, now we get to PPS and I was expecting things to be pretty similar when faced with the following configuration panel – but no. Actually what we have to

do is to enter the actual reportserver virtual directory URL as opposed to your Sharepoint Portal root site (as you would in BIDS). Notice how the Report Server URL in PPS is in the format

http://reporting.mydomain.local/reportserver

whereas in BIDs for Sharepoint integrated mode it was

http://myportal.mydomain.local

So let’s hope that this is some functionality that becomes more consistent as the disparate platforms (PPS/MOSS/SQL etc) get developed further, as it sure is frustrating to try to second guess these issues when jumping between the different dev environments. So if you are trying to deploy SSRS reports within PPS dashboards to a portal where SSRS is running in Sharepoint Integrated mode and keep getting error messages like the one below – now you know what the issue might be…

Hope this helps…

Many customers wonder if this technology will be integrated into the popular Business Objects stack. “Eventually,” says Herballs, “But BO have only just heard about it.” Pressed on how this could be, given that the SAP 8-ball technology was released last Summer, and Business Objects is now a wholly-owned SAP subsidiary, Miss Herrballs pointed out that “BO are still, in essence, a French company. They were on vacation last Summer, and are only just catching up on email…..”