What's new in SQL Server 2016 SP1 for Reporting Services

IMPORTANT: After installing SP1 for Reporting Services, be sure to install the hotfix KB3207512.

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The release of SQL Server 2016 Service Pack 1 brings several enhancements and fixes to Reporting Services.  In today’s post, we’ll highlight some notable items that are new in this update.

List View and Enhanced Context Menus

As Riccardo highlighted in a previous blog post, we’ve added back the “Details” view from previous releases in the form of a new List View.

With List view, you can

  • See descriptions and other details at a glance
  • Sort (for example, to find the most recently-modified items)
  • Move or delete many items at once

Along with List View, we’ve added a more useful Context Menu that allows you to perform many common tasks without clicking into the “Manage” page:

Execution Log for Mobile Reports

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One area of feedback we rec’d was around the inability to see any logs in the report catalog related to specific mobile reports.  With this release, you now can see basic information in the execution log for mobile reports, including the folder path, report name, user who ran the report and when they ran it.

Direct Navigation Option for KPI’s

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Users have so liked the new Reporting Services interface, they’d asked for an easy way to link to other content directly from the portal homepage.  Now they can do so with KPI’s – this new option allows you add a custom url as related content, just like you can in the portal currently, and simply bypass the current KPI pop-up action you get when you click on the KPI and go directly to the linked content by checking the “Direct navigation” checkbox.

For any KPI’s that you use this feature with, you’ll see a little “link” in the upper right-hand corner of it so you can tell that it is enabled.

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Try it now and send us your feedback

These are just a few of the numerous performance and usability improvements we’ve made in Service Pack 1.  We’ll have a follow-up post around some of the enhancements in this release to mobile reports in the upcoming weeks.