In a Power View report, you can have filters for a specific table, chart, or other visualization on the canvas. The Filters Area automatically contains filters for the fields the visualization displays, plus you can add more filters by dragging fields from the Field List to the Filters Area:

You can also have view filters, which apply to an entire view and all of the visualizations it contains. For example, in the screenshot below, the filter on Fiscal Year applies to the entire view and both of the charts it contains:

A Power View report can contain multiple views, so what if you want to be able to “slice” all of them by a certain field? For example, what if you want to be able to slice any view by Fiscal Year? Well, you could create a view filter on Fiscal Year on each view, but you end up with separate, independent filters; if you slice by FY 2007 on one view, you find that selection doesn’t carry over when you navigate to other views. What if you want your selection to affect the entire report and “stick” as you navigate to other views?

Now you can “pin” filters to do exactly that! You’ll notice a new “pin” toggle button in view filter cards:

By default, a view filter is “unpinned” and applies only to the current view, not to other views in the report. Clicking the toggle button “pins” the filter so that it appears – and your selection applies – on all views in the report. Clicking it again “unpins” the filter, reverting it to the current view only and removing it from other views.

It’s pretty much that simple. Some things to note:

1. Initially, we've added this feature for the “standalone” Power View web app in SharePoint, not for Power View in Excel.
2. You can export reports that have pinned filters to PowerPoint, but you can’t pin or unpin filters in PowerPoint.

As an added bonus, we’ve also added the ability to add or change some basic pinned filters via URL parameters! More on that part in a separate blog post…

Along with SQL Server, Office is an important component of Microsoft’s Business Intelligence offering. The very first version of Reporting Services provided an Excel rendering extension and we’ve continued to invest in Office integration since then:

• In SQL Server 2008, we shipped a rewritten Excel renderer with a number of enhancements, including greater support for nested data regions and custom color palettes for colors that more closely match those in the report definition.
• In the same release, we added a Word rendering extension, allowing you to export your reports to Word documents.
• In SQL Server 2008 R2, we added the ability to name the worksheets in the rendered Excel workbook.

As of SQL Server 2008 R2, our Word and Excel renderers still generate Office 97-2003’s native file format, Binary Interchange File Format (BIFF8) (*.doc, *.xls). Office 2007 introduced the Open XML file formats (*.docx, *.xlsx) and we’ve received several suggestions through Microsoft Connect and other customer feedback to provide rendering extensions for these newer file formats.

We’ve heard your feedback and we’re actively working on new Open XML rendering extensions for Word and Excel and planning to ship them in SQL Server “Denali.”

Although these are new rendering extensions that render to a different file format, we aim to achieve functional and behavioral parity with our existing Word and Excel renderers. One notable exception is that we plan to take advantage of some increased limits in Open XML; for example, BIFF8 supports a maximum of 65,536 rows and 256 columns, whereas Open XML supports up to 1,048,576 rows and 16,384 columns.

Again, these new rendering extensions are a direct result of your feedback, so keep the suggestions coming on Microsoft Connect!

We’ll provide further updates closer to release, but for now, here are some frequently-asked questions:

When will SQL Server “Denali” be released?
We haven’t announced a timeframe. As a rough guideline, we’re aiming to continue shipping a release of SQL Server every 2-3 years.

When will a CTP of “Denali” be available to the public?
CTP1 is available now, but it does not include any Reporting Services enhancements and does not include these renderers.

When will a CTP with these renderers be available?
The next public CTP of “Denali” may include one or both of these renderers. We haven’t announced a release date for the next public CTP. We’re tentatively planning for the first half of 2011, but that may change.

Can users of Office 2003 open Open XML files?
Yes, after installing the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint File Formats.

I hope to use this blog to share important concepts and useful techniques, tips and tricks, news updates, and other content that I hope you’ll find valuable. I welcome your feedback – about either this blog or the product – so feel free to rate posts, leave comments, or send me your thoughts.

I’ll leave you for now with some valuable resources:

• SQL Server Reporting Services Developer Center on MSDN.
• Books Onlineon MSDN. Particularly,
  • Report Design Tips
  • Exporting Reports
  • Page Layout and Rendering
  • Troubleshooting Reports: Report Rendering
  • Troubleshooting Reports: Reports Exported to a Specific File Format
• SQL Server Reporting Services Product Samples on CodePlex.
• SQL Server Reporting Services Team Blog and other blogs.
• SQL Server Reporting Services Forum on MSDN Forums. A great place to ask questions and receive answers from Microsoft and the community.
• SQL Server Connect on Microsoft Connect. The place to report bugs and submit suggestions to Microsoft.
• Microsoft Support. Where to go if you need to open a support case with Microsoft.

Thanks for using SQL Server Reporting Services!

-Riccardo

[The usual disclaimers: The opinions and views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily state or reflect those of Microsoft. This blog is governed by the MSDN Terms of Use. Contents are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license.]