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Microsoft have put a lot of effort into SSRS 2016, including completely rewriting Report Manager (it's now called Web Portal) and creating separate software for publishing reports to mobiles. There are lots of new features to contemplate!
- What's new in Reporting Services 2016 (SSRS 2016)
- SSRS 2016 - the basic user interface for creating reports (this blog)
- Report Manager becomes Reporting Services Web Portal
- Mobile Report Publisher in Reporting Services 2016
- Report Builder 2016 (Report Builder for SSRS 2016)
- Other new features in Reporting Services 2016
This is part of a wide-ranging blog explaining the new features in every part of SQL Server 2016.
Posted by Andy Brown on 11 July 2016
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SSRS 2016 - the basic user interface for creating reports
When so much else has changed in Reporting Services 2016, it would be easy to lose sight of just how much hasn't! There are only a few tweaks to the basic Visual Studio report creation process.
Creating a report in SSRS 2016
I've just created the following report in SSRS 2016:

A fairly typical grouped report.
I found the process to be more-or-less identical to that in SQL Server 2012. In particular, the following irritations seem still to be there!
Irritation | Notes |
---|---|
Paste format tool | This is ... still missing! |
Repeating table column headers | You still seem to have to invoke advanced mode to set these. |
So much for what hasn't changed; let's now look at what's new in the basic report design interface.
Yukky new icon style
In common with other SQL Server 2016 applications, the toolbar icons have had all the colour stripped out of them:

An example of the new icons.
More control over parameter layout
I have to admit, this wasn't quite what I was expecting! You can now position parameters in a grid pattern:

Here I've got two parameters, and am about to add a column to shift them over to the left.
So here's the sort of effect you can create:

Hmmm ... I was expecting a bit more flexibility than this!
Incidentally, you can hide the parameters panel easily enough:

Right-click on your report and choose the option shown to hide the parameters panel.
Strange behaviour if not using print layout
I don't know if this is my laptop or not, but previewing a report doesn't show any data:

Until I click on the Print Layout button shown, I don't see any data.
As soon as I click on Print Layout, everything's hunky dory:

Normal service is resumed ...
I suspect this is down to user error, but just mention it as one of the differences I've encountered between 2012 and 2016.
New chart types
There are two new chart types in SSRS 2016. Tree:

An example of a tree chart
And Sunburst:

Sunburst charts look a bit doughnutty to me ...
Here are all the chart types, since I'm sure some of these are new too!

The full range of chart types in SSRS 2016.
Gauges have got funkier!
The gauge templates are much jazzier:

The default gauge templates.
Report parts are now built-in
This was something you could do in Report Builder, but not in SSRS itself. However ... now you can!

You can choose this option from the menu to save one or more report items as a report part.
This will group items together in a published report, allowing you to reuse them (it's not - IMHO - a very useful feature).
Client-side printing uses PDF format
I'll be honest, I don't quite get this, so here's a summary of the change from the horse's mouth (the Microsoft website):
I'm sure this will change someone's life!
Those are all the changes I could find in the way you design reports in SSRS 2016. However, the way people view your reports is profoundly different, as the next part of this blog will show.
- What's new in Reporting Services 2016 (SSRS 2016)
- SSRS 2016 - the basic user interface for creating reports (this blog)
- Report Manager becomes Reporting Services Web Portal
- Mobile Report Publisher in Reporting Services 2016
- Report Builder 2016 (Report Builder for SSRS 2016)
- Other new features in Reporting Services 2016