Project “Crescent” is the name currently used to describe the new self-service reporting

capability to be released in the next version of SQL Server.  It’s a fully-interactive,

browser-based data visualization surfaced using Silverlight interactive and animated

controls.  It’s Reporting Services, only sexier.  We saw several knock-your-socks-off

demonstrations of this impressive tool at the PASS Summit and various insider events. 

I’ve been on a steering committee for the product team to help with the UI design

concepts for about a year and can say that they are delivering exactly what we envisioned

and more. 

A Crescent report is designed directly from a SharePoint site, in the web browser. 

Users connect to data through a prepared semantic (BISM) model and then just select

the tables & fields they want to see in different types of report elements. 

It supports tables, grids, panels and a variety of charts.  Data is filtered

and sliced by simply clicking on regions and data points.  Like PerformancePoint

dashboards, report content changes in-place and data regions are synchronized when

any region is used to filter the data.

The objective is simplicity and a fully interactive experience for business users. 

Since Crescent is designed for the user and not for the IT professional; in the current

incarnation it doesn’t support expressions, parameters or any sort of custom programming. 

It’s super easy to use, has a lot of business value right out of the box but it doesn’t

afford the same level of customization and power of professional Reporting Services. 

No doubt that we’ll see future integration enhancements but the emphasis will continue

to be simplicity and ease-of-use.  Crescent reports are stored in RDLX format

which is an extension of the RDL XML schema.  There probably won’t be a migration

path from Crescent reports to RDL reports right away but this will likely come in

the near future.  We’re also likely to see the Silverlight controls extended

to RDL reports for no other reason than report designers will demand the same cool

and dynamic behaviors in their IT-designed operational reports.

Another part of the self-service reporting experience in Denali is a new feature,

somewhat similar to report subscriptions, called Report Alerts.  Like Crescent,

this is only available from a SharePoint 2010 Enterprise environment and uses the

SharePoint event model rather than the SQL Agent.  The concept is that users

are notified when the data feeding a report changes and meets some specific criteria. 

This may be useful when a metric falls below and threshold or target.  Current

plans call for alerts to support both RDL and Crescent style reports.

Weblog by Paul Turley and SQL Server BI Blog.