>> You haven't heard about SSAS and SSRS in awhile.
However, we have some exciting updates that go along with
SQL Server 2022 and other things you've been asking for.
Learn all about it this week on Data Exposed
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Hi,
I'm Anna Hoffman.
Welcome to this episode of Data Exposed.
Today I'm joined by Subhojit.
>> Hi, this is Subhojit.
I am a Product Manager at Azure data.
I work on SSAS, SSRS, and SSDT.
That's about it from my side.
>> Awesome. Cool it's exciting to have you on the show.
You're the exact right person to talk to for this topic,
which is what's new in SSAS and SSRS.
For folks who might be wondering what this is,
and for folks who haven't heard about it in a while,
can you give us a brief overview on SSAS?
>> Great. I will start that.
I will share my screen.
I'll take you through a very brief understanding
of what is SSAS and SSRS.
Then I'll go ahead telling about
what are the new features that we have added here,
and what are the things which can excite all our customers.
SQL Server Analysis Service and
SQL Server Reporting Services are
basically Visual Studio extensions.
SSAS provides project templates and design surfaces for building
professional data models hosted in SQL Server Analysis Service,
on-premises, Microsoft Azure Analysis Service and Power BI.
We have tabular models,
multidimensional models, and we can
create proper data models within the version.
The latest version that we have released is 3.0.7.
This was released on November 17th.
You can download that version directly
from the Visual Studio Marketplace.
To download it, you can either directly visit to the marketplace,
or within your Visual Studio you can go to extensions,
go to manage extensions,
and go to the marketplace to download that.
This is what we have for analysis services.
A very basic brief.
Whatever we already had we still continue to have.
For Reporting Services support,
it's a report designer where you can build your projects,
you can make wizards,
you can create packages.
Again, we have done the latest release on November 17th,
which you can also download from
the marketplace where you download the extensions from.
>> Awesome, nice. What's new in both of
these areas apart from just releasing a new version?
>> Yes. We know that SQL Server 2022 has
released and SSAS and
SSRS have started to have the support for it.
We have added a new compatibility level
of 1,600 under tabular projects for SSAS.
You get all the features that you have
from SQL Server 2022 in SSAS,
which includes the security updates,
the flexibility of it,
and the other features that we have in
SQL Server 2022 within Analysis Services.
The update has happened in Analysis Service engine
which goes into Power BI and Analysis Service.
You can get the exact power of SQL Server 2022 in this extension.
You can enjoy that.
>> Awesome. I know people are going to be in pretty excited to use
these new capabilities with
the latest compact level. That's exciting.
I also know there's been other updates in the SSAS and SSRS space.
Can you tell us a little bit what you-all have been working on?
>> True that. When I took over
this part as a project for SSAS and SSRS,
I saw that there was a lot of compatibility issue
while we might read it from 2019-2022.
There were some problems,
some compatibility issues, some time it used to freeze.
We as a team have worked upon it so
that we could solve these problems first.
Now, we have solved a lot of bugs,
but a few of them,
which is worth mentioning,
I'll just go ahead and tell you.
First, we have improved
under connection to Azure Analysis Service.
There were certain authentication issues
which a lot of users have told us.
In the current version we have updated it and we have upgraded it.
We have added support to
64-bit driver while creating SSAS tabular projects.
Initially it was just X86,
now it is X64 as well.
That brings a new edition.
I'm sure a lot of people would be happy about it.
The authentication issue has been
resolved for SSAS deployment wizard.
You can comfortably go ahead and download
SSAS 2022 and enjoy the features.
Followed by that we have done some additional fixes,
including issues related to link
dimension and multi-dimensional projects.
The responsiveness of these projects had been pretty
low when we took over and we saw a lot of
problems so there were a lot of UI issues in different monitors.
They have been fixed.
Now, we are supporting dual monitors,
we're supporting the normal monitor issues have been
resolved and different screen resolutions
have been taken into consideration.
That's a very good incentive
for people working in different sizes,
monitors to use these extensions.
Also we fix the preview report error while
connecting to SSAS data source for Reporting Services.
>> Awesome. Nice. This is going to be excited.
This is the new and improved version
that people have been waiting for.
You been listening to a lot of feedback.
One thing we hear a lot about is accessibility.
Is there any updates on that frame?
>> Yes. As we all know that
Microsoft gives a lot of value to accessibility,
we have who walked upon it and we
have made a lot of changes and a lot of bug fixes for that.
The first being the process partition button,
which is graying out for SSAS tabular model.
We have improved on that.
The second, we have improved on
the narrator feature for people who are disabled.
Also, there were certain row groups
and certain buttons which had a contrast issue.
In the dock team we were facing a lot
of issues in terms of contrast and people were
reaching out to us to say that they are not able to read it
and they were not falling the contrast requirements
so we worked on that and we improved that.
>> Nice.
>> The accessibility is now better.
>> Dark mode is definitely
a common request so the fact
they were making it better in these tools.
I am sure is going to be appreciated.
Before we go Subhojit the final thing I want to ask is,
we have you on the show,
can you tell us what you're thinking about as far as what's next.
>> We're not allowed to say a lot of
things but a few things I can give a hint upon is
that we get a lot of requests from customers on
repetitive questions on downloading links,
extensions, starting it, having
the first basics of how
to go through it or what
are the packages that has to be installed.
We are creating a FAQ for it so that it is much more
convenient for the customers and they don't have to wait
for our replies on their questions.
Also, we are working towards
a feedback mechanism which would capture feedback from
customers in a more better way to be able to make
us be better with time and improve our own shortcomings with time.
Nobody's perfect. We are trying to improve
this product so that it goes to its customer delight.
>> Awesome. Thanks so much Subhojit.
One final question would be do you have any tips or
tricks for folks who are just getting started?
I think he might have some resources to share.
>> There are a lot of resources.
We have resources in MS learning.
There are tutorials, there would be given in the description.
Also just as a highlight,
you can see that we have these as learnings.
We have kept it in such a way that it is step-by-step.
If you look at the tutorials,
it goes step-by-step into making.
You'll be able to create a report or create
a data model just from a very basic layman language,
so that somebody who's not very tech savvy
would also be able to understand and create their own model.
This is something that you can really use
and learn Analysis Service and use it in your Visual Studio.
>> Awesome. Go Subhojit.
I learned a lot. I think our viewers have also learned a lot.
To our viewers, if you like
this episode, go ahead and give it a like,
leave us a comment and let us know
what you think about some of these updates.
Check the links in the description so you can get
started and we hope to see you next time on Data Exposed.
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