Microsoft® SQL Server® Reporting Services Recipes: for Designing Expert Reports

FOREWORD

When we started work on the Reporting Services 2008 R2 release back in summer 2008 (at the time it was codenamed Kilimanjaro), we set out to focus on end users: on enabling business users and traditional report consumers to serve their own needs by authoring their own reports. Given our goals, I was curious about the type of books that would be authored about this release. I thought the only thing that would be relevant and appropriate would be user- and solution-oriented books. When Paul first talked to me about his project, I was intrigued with the recipe-style chapters idea. It departed from the traditional Administrator-oriented books that attempt to cover all aspects and components of the product. The reason for my interest was not just that it was a newer, fresher approach to authoring a book on our product, it also reflected the spirit and the theme of Reporting Services 2008 R2: self-service and end-user oriented.

Later, while talking with Robert Bruckner, a senior developer in the Reporting Services processing and rendering engine team, I discovered that he also was involved with this project. I was feeling good: that was a solid project well under way. A couple of months later, at TechEd US, I am in a meeting with Brian Larson who is in the middle of a book signing session. Brian is well known for having authored among the most popular Reporting Services best-sellers. As we are discussing various things, we come to talk about book projects for R2, and to my great ...