Visualizing Data with Microsoft Crescent

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Yes, it is official, I am now an author.  Yesterday I noticed that the Visualizing Data with Microsoft Crescent book is now listed on Amazon.  I had been asked by Brian Larson if I wanted to collaborate on writing a book for the new report authoring tool and I of course immediately said ‘YES’. I am also one of the technical editors of his other two books for Reporting Services and Delivering Business Intelligence for the new SQL11 release.  There are four of us from Superior Consulting Services that are working on the new Crescent book and so far it has been a very enjoyable experience.  I have been doing the blogging, tweeting, and presenting, so now it is on to something new and actually working towards a published book.

So some insight into the book, this book is going to cover the new reporting authoring tool ‘Crescent’ that is coming out in the next release of SQL11.  This is a new Silverlight browser based reporting experience that will be part of the Reporting Services Integrated Mode configuration with SharePoint 2010.  Not only will the book cover the reporting experience, but we will also go over the Business Intelligence Semantic Models (BISM) which is the new terminology being actively talked about now with SQL11.  In addition to this there will be samples and videos that will provide a very in-depth learning experience so that you will be able to get up-to-speed and familiar with both Crescent and BI Semantic Models.

Now you might know that ‘Crescent’ is the code name provided to this new feature in SQL11 and next week during the PASS 2011 Summit we should be able to have an official name to associate with this along with a few other SQL11 items (maybe even the product itself – 2011 or 2012?).  For the time being though this is the cover, but in the next week or so it should be updated to say ‘Visualizing Data with Microsoft …’.

So for the time being all I can say is thanks to Brian for the opportunity, thanks to my family for their understanding, and I hope that everyone will enjoy the book (and videos).  You can go ahead and pre-order your copy today Visualizing Data with Microsoft Crescent.

MN Microsoft BI User Group 2011 Q3 Follow up

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UPDATE (9/23/2011): A link to the Project “Crescent” Demo video has now been added and featured on the “Crescent” wiki page in the Videos section – Project Crescent Overview.

Last week I presented on What’s New with BI in SQL Server Denali (SQL11) at the Minnesota BI User Group Q3 meeting with Jin Cho from Microsoft.  Granted that in only an hour and a half we couldn’t do the topic complete justice because there is just so much to cover and it helps to provide some demos to showcase the new features and enhancements that have been made.  The topics that we covered where going over Analysis Services and PowerPivot, talked about the BI Semantic Model, Columnstore Indexes, Integration Services, Data Quality Services, Reporting Services SharePoint Integration, and “Crescent”.

I wish I would have had more time to be able to demo some of the new SSIS items, but I allocated my demo slot to show the new self-service reporting authoring tool Crescent.  Each of the topics that we did talk about can easily be their own topic for presentation, so stay tuned for the upcoming MN SQL Saturday event and the next MN Microsoft BI User Group Q4 meeting in December.  There will also be a lot of content in regards to this topic at the upcoming PASS 2011 Summit next month that I would highly recommend.

You can download the presentation from my SkyDrive account or you can check out the slides available via SlideShare as well:

I have also setup a video that goes over the “Crescent” demo that I went over during the presentation.  I believe that when I switched laptops during the presentation that I did not share the desktop with Live Meeting, so I apologize for that and since this will not be part of the recording I put together a quick video.

Project “Crescent” Demo from Dan English on Vimeo.

A link to the Project “Crescent” Demo video has now been added and featured on the “Crescent” wiki page in the Videos section – Project Crescent Overview

For more BI highlights in the upcoming SQL Server release check out this list – Top 10 BI Reasons to Upgrade to SQL Server ‘Denali’ (SQL11).

Video: PowerPivot Denali CTP3 New Features

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I put together a video demonstration as a follow up to last week’s Minnesota Microsoft BI User Group Q3 meeting.  In this video I highlight some of the key enhancements and additions that have been made to PowerPivot in the CTP3 release for SQL Server “Denali” (SQL11).  This add-in for Excel 2010 is available to download and test out from the Microsoft Downloads area here.

The main items covered in this video demo are the following (and there might be a couple of others that I touch on as well, so listen closely and follow along):

• Measure Grid
  • Create measures inside model
  • Format measures
  • New DAX Functions
• Sort by Column
• Diagram View
• Hierarchies
• KPIs
• Drillthrough

PowerPivot Denali CTP3 Demo from Dan English on Vimeo.

 

Hope you enjoy the video and stay tuned for more!

Using Images in Tabular BI Semantic Models with Crescent

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One of the really neat features with the new Reporting Services authoring tool code named ‘Crescent’ is that you can reference images directly from your model.  This can look really cool when you use the images in a card visualizations, part of a table, as tiles, and as slicers to use as filters within the report.  Here is a nice report that is part of the Hello World Picnic Sample that came out with the CTP3 release of SQL Server ‘Denali’ (download from Project Crescent Samples and download images from Sample Images and you can find information on the Crescent Samples for CTP3 in the readme here).

So this is really cool and provides a really nice visualization perspective to the report both from what you are looking at and to add a little color and life to the report.  When you are looking at a sales report for products, wouldn’t it be nice to see the image of the product or category that you are looking at.  So what better place to store this information than in your BI Semantic Model that you can then leverage with your reporting tool like Crescent.  So how do you do this?

Well in the current CTP3 there are a couple of different ways that you can go about this.  The first option is to store your images in say a SharePoint library and the provide the Image URL references in the model.  That is how the example above is being done.  That report is actually leveraging a PowerPivot Tabular model that was built in Excel 2010 leveraging the CTP3 release of the PowerPivot add-in which you can download here.  The second option that you have right now is to store the images in a database table and reference that way use base64-encoded strings.  Getting this option to work in CTP3 is by no means straightforward either and took me quite a while to figure out.  Just using a base64-encoded string was a puzzle and luckily Robert Bruckner provided that solution as to how to format the binary data in the database to this format.  There is a third option which is simply referencing the binary data from the database, but currently the CTP3 release of Crescent will not recognize this field type in the model at all.

So lets take a look at the two working options we have that we can use with the CTP3 release of Crescent along with the Tabular BI Semantic Models using both a PowerPivot and a Tabular Analysis Services solution as examples.

Image URL

As I mentioned, the Hello World Picnic PowerPivot model uses this setup.  So I will highlight how this is done.

• First you need to have images available for what ever you want to display.  The download link is available above for the samples and then the instructions are provided in the information readme.
• Next you need to place the images in a location that can be referenced as a URL in the model.  In this example they are placed in a document library within a folder.

images are stored in a SharePoint document library called Shared Documents buried down a couple of levels –> /Images/HelloWorldPicnic/

• Then within your table in the PowerPivot Tabular model you can provide your URL to the image.  In this example they store the name of the image in the table and then use a calculated column to generate the Image URL.  In order to activate the option to set this as an Image URL in the Reporting Properties (which is in the Advanced tab – might need to turn on the Advanced Mode in the file setting first) you need to define the Table Identifier column in the table.  This means that you need to specify which column makes the table unique to identify each record (in this example it is the ItemId column).

need to specify a table identifier – a column that defines the table and makes each record unique

a calculated column is used here that includes the image name column from the table along with the rest of the string to the SharePoint location and concatenates everything together

• Then once you have deployed your file to SharePoint you can create a Crescent report from the PowerPivot file and you will now see the field in the field list to select from along you can start leveraging this in your report design.

the Items Name and Drawing fields are selected from the Field List which get added to a Table

So that one wasn’t too bad.  And this is a nice option because having the images in a document library location is a nice spot where end-users can maintain these as needed and swap them out.

Okay, let’s take a look at the other option that is currently available and that is storing the images in the database and using a base64-encoded string.

Base64-Encoded String

So what if the images are already stored and available in a database table? Well there is a solution that can allow you to do this, at least if you are doing the Tabular Analysis Services project type.

• Here we already have the images stored in a database table in as a varbinary(max) data type – just a warning, I believe that the max size for the images is 25K, I don’t believe that has changed yet, so just be aware of that in case your images do not show up. In this example we will be using the AdventureWorksDWDenali CTP3 sample database leveraging the product dimension data – you can download the sample databases and projects for Denali CTP3 here.

table contains a varbinary(max) column called LargePhoto that contains some images of our products

• Once the table is imported into a Tabular Analysis Services project we need to modify the Table Properties for the product dimension and change the reference from Table Preview to Query Editor to generate our base64-encoded string that we will use in our model instead of the binary data that is already available from the LargePhoto data (this is currently not supported by Crescent right now, but will be in next release).

now the key here is to add the logic to generate the base64-encoded string which is the following – thanks to Robert Bruckner for providing the logic:

cast(N” as xml).value(‘xs:base64Binary(xs:hexBinary(sql:column(“[dbo].[DimProduct].LargePhoto”)))’, ‘varchar(MAX)’) as LargePhoto64

• Next we need to once again set the Table Identifier (Product Id column – in this example the ProductKey column has been renamed to Product Id) and then set the properties on the new LargePhoto64 column for Image URL to True along with Representative Image to True

set the Product Id as the Table Identifier (which is actually the ProductKey column)

set the Image URL and Representative Image properties to True for the LargePhoto64 column

• The next step is the hack that we have to perform to the Code portion because if you try to change the Image URL property back to False it will also set the Representative Image to False and that is not what we want.  You can right-click on the bim file in the Solution Explorer and select ‘View Code’ or pick the option from the ‘View’ file menu.  Once you are in the Code behind do a search for LargePhoto64 and it will take about three times to find the right spot we are looking for which contains the Type property setting that displays ImageURL.  We need to change this to just Image.

find the LargePhoto64 column where the Type property is located with ImageURL

now change the Type so that it does not include the valuens=”ddl300” and remove URL from the value so that it is just <Type>Image</Type>

• Now you want to Save this change and then double click on the bim file in the Solution Explorer to go back into the Design view and deploy the database to your Tabular instance of Analysis Service.
• Setup the BISM Connection File to you model (see my previous posting on this if you are not familiar with how to setup data connections to a Tabular BI Semantic Model – Configuring SQL Server Denali Reporting Services SharePoint 2010 Integration) and then click on the connection file in your SharePoint library and you will now be able to utilize the LargePhoto64 column as an image in your reports.

the Product Name and LargePhoto64 columns were selected from the Field List and added to a Table

So there you go, not too bad, huh?  You have two different options right now for using Images in your models.  In the next release we should see direct support with Crescent in being able to utilize binary data directly instead of having to use the base64-encoded string method.  But for the time being this is what you can use.  My preference would be the Image URL.  This just seems not only more straightforward, but also easier to maintain and update, especially from an end-user standpoint.

Enjoy!

Configuring SQL Server Denali Reporting Services SharePoint 2010 Integration

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Update (7/22/2011): Added a note about an IE Security setting for SharePoint menus at the end of the post.  I will add a PDF of this posting either tonight or over the weekend if anyone is interested in that.

Update (7/24/2011): Added PDF download of the posting for printing, offline, and eReader availability at end of posting in the File Download section.

With the recent release of the SQL Server Denali CTP3 there have been a few changes in the installation process.  One of those is with how the SharePoint integration configuration works.  There was new post yesterday in regards to this process Getting up and running with SQL Server Denali for Business Intelligence (Crescent and PowerPivot in CTP3).  In this post is goes through the steps assuming that you have installed SharePoint 2010 first.  What if you are like myself and installed all of the SQL Server components (SQL Server ‘Denali’ CTP3 Install Experience), including Reporting Services, before SharePoint 2010?  Well the process is a little different because since you didn’t have SharePoint installed first the integration process will not be completed by just installing SharePoint 2010 next.  There are a few steps you can take and I am going to go over the PowerShell option that I took through with the help of some documentation I was provided from Microsoft with previous CTP testing.

So here are the steps that I went through to get this working (this was done on a Windows 2008 R2 VM):

1. Installed all of the SQL Server Components (installed Multidimensional SSAS and just installed the SSRS and did not configure it) – SQL Server ‘Denali’ CTP3 Install Experience
   
2. Next I went through the installation process again and installed an additional SSAS named instance in the Tabular mode.
3. Then I installed SharePoint 2010:  pre-reqs and then SharePoint (but did not run the configuration wizard – unchecked the box and closed the process down after the install).  I had to actually run the pre-req install twice and had to do a reboot prior to the SharePoint install as I recall.
   
4. Then I installed the two SharePoint 2010 SP1 files – one for Foundation and the other for Office Server (this is going to be required to get SharePoint to work with Denali for the database engine).  I believe a reboot was required after this as well. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2510766
5. I then did the SQL Server install again to install PowerPivot for SharePoint creating another named instance of SSAS for PowerPivot.
6. The next step can be done a few different ways and I picked the new PowerPivot for SharePoint Configuration Tool (need to ensure your pass phrase meets the security requirements) – this option is available in the Tools page of SQL Installation or in the Configurations folder in your SQL Server install folder in the Start Menu. This process will configure the PowerPivot integration, activate it, and create a PowerPivot SharePoint Site Collection.
7. I then installed the ADO.NET Data Services for .NET 3.5 SP1which is required if you want to use PowerPivot against an Atom Feed in SharePoint.  A reboot is required after this install.
8. Setup the SSRS service and application (since I installed SQL and SSRS prior to SharePoint the Integration with the add-in did not complete – because no SharePoint).
   1. Run the Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Management Shell as Administrator
   2. Type the following PowerShell command> Install-SPRSService
   3. Type the following PowerShell command> Install-SPRSServiceProxy
   4. Now to start the service type the following PowerShell Command> get-spserviceinstance -all |where {$_.TypeName -like “SQL Server Reporting*”} | Start-SPServiceInstance
      
   5. Verify that the service is started in SharePoint Central Administration –> Application Management –> Service Applications –> Manage Services on Server and now look for the SQL Server Reporting Services Service to see that it has now been setup and is running
   6. Now we are going to create a new SQL Reporting Services Application in SharePoint Central Administration –> Application Management –> Service Applications –> Manage Service Applications and create a new SQL Server Reporting Services Application
      
   7. Specify a name for the Application, create a new application pool, and specify the database server name.  Down below you will also need to select the web application to associate this application with and I used the Windows Authentication for the database authentication
      
   8. Now we should be all set and you should see the new application that you just created
      
9. Now you are off to the races and can create a Reports Library in SharePoint and add the content types including the new BISM Connection File for using to create Crescent Reports! You will need to install Silverlight to get the SharePoint Create window and this will be needed for Crescent as well since it is a Silverlight application.  If you do not see the Reports Library option you will want to make sure that the Enterprise Features are enabled not only at the Site Collection Level, but also at the Site level. I left out the Report Builder Model content type because from here on out it is all about the BI Semantic Model (BISM)
   
   
10. Now you can create a new BISM Connection File and or Report Data Source to get started with Crescent (shown below in the respective order). After you create these you will not see them in the library.  In order to see them you can go to the Library tab in the Ribbon and select the ‘All reports and dashboards’ option for the view and then you will see the connection and data source files you have created (by default it simply displays just the reports so it is not cluttered)
    
    
    
11. Now you can launch Crescent from the context menu from the connection and data source files you have created.  In order to create these connection files and data sources I installed and deployed the Denali Samples from CodePlex.  There is one issue with the Tabular project that you need to be aware of when you want to deploy this that has been documented here – Problems with the SSAS Tabular Model Projects Denali CTP3 samples (according to the site the samples have been fixed, so if you haven’t downloaded them you should be okay).
    
    

So there you go, you are off to the races.  You know have SSRS in the new SharePoint Integrated Mode setup running as a SharePoint Application (no longer running as its own Windows Service, completely setup and managed by SharePoint now) and you are creating awesome reports with Crescent.

Enjoy!

NOTE: If you are having an issue in say Step 9 and you are not getting menu options in SharePoint you need to go into your IE Security Settings and enable the Active Scripting.  Once you do that you should be able to use the menu options in SharePoint.

File Download:

Top 10 BI Reasons to Upgrade to SQL Server ‘Denali’ (SQL11)

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Original source post – Superior Consulting Services | July 18, 2011 at 10:36 am | Categories: Technology | URL: http://wp.me/p1kpnO-16

With the recent release of the Community Technology Preview (CTP) 3 of SQL Server ‘Denali’ we wanted to point out and highlight some of the key items that are related to Business Intelligence and provide very compelling reasons for evaluating and considering the next release of the product. 

So here we go with the top 10 BI reasons to upgrade to SQL Server ‘Denali’:

10. Integrations Services (SSIS) Enhancements – lots of usability enhancements have been made such as ability to undo and redo, a new SSIS Toolbox, grouping capabilities in the data flow, simplified data viewer configurations, new data flow source and destination assistants (wizards), and improved data flow designer experience with mapping and resolving errors.  Other modifications were made so it is easier to compare and merge packages, and you have the ability to view object dependencies in SQL Server Management Studio.

9. Master Data Services (MDS) Enhancements – improvements in the user interface (UI), performance improvements with the UI, ability to incorporate data quality services into the workflow process, and a new Excel add-in client that will provide the ability to edit Master Data and publish it back to MDS and even create a model in Excel.

8. New Feature: Data Quality Services (DQS) – this is a new product offering that has been added that allows you to create a knowledge base repository of data related items that can then be used to incorporate and use for data cleansing. This will allow you to profile, improve the quality, and monitor the on-going health of your data. This new feature can be added into your Integration Services and Master Data Services processes.

7. New Feature: Database Columnstore Indexes – the VertiPaq engine first introduced with PowerPivot has now been brought to the database engine and is available to use to create indexes on columns in the relational store. This will provide a wonderful opportunity for users leveraging ROLAP technology to great improve the performance on the query processing. This index groups and stores the data for each column versus the row.  This can alleviate having to use pre-aggregated data and summary tables.

6. New Feature: Reporting Services (SSRS) Shared SharePoint Service – the SSRS integration with SharePoint will now be setup as a Shared SharePoint service just like Excel Services and PerformancePoint Services.  Everything will be managed completely through SharePoint and there will no longer be a separate SSRS Windows Service running.

5. New Feature: Reporting Services (SSRS) Data Alerts – new self-service data-driven alerting capabilities have been added to allow end-users the ability to setup and define alerts using existing Reporting Services reports. These alerts can be setup based on defined criteria and scheduled as needed to provide a mechanism to notify the user without them having to manually execute the report on their own.  This new feature is only provided in the SharePoint Integrated mode of Reporting Services.

4. PowerPivot Enhancements – with version 2 of PowerPivot there have been some major additions which include features like a new diagram view of the model, hierarchy and KPI support, ability to sort a column based on another column, multiple relationships (like role playing dimensions kind of – can access through DAX), image support, add values to rows and columns (very cool – flexibility provided in the PivotTables), reporting properties (will be leveraged by ‘Crescent’), ability to format measures, field list sorted alphabetically (instead of how they were added to the model), and most importantly…show details (drillthrough support – this will be fabulous when using with PerformancePoint).

3. DAX Enhancements – new functions have been added to help simplify and provide additional capabilities like DISTINCTCOUNT, Rank, Standard Deviation, TOPN, table functions, LOOKUPVALUE, parent-child relationship functions, SWITCH, and more.

2. New Feature: Analysis Services Tabular – the PowerPivot experience in Excel has also been added into the Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) introducing a new Tabular project option.  This will allow you to take the PowerPivot model and convert it to a Tabular project and deploy the solution at the server level for a corporate/enterprise level solution that will scale and handle large volumes of data. With the Tabular models you will have the same options as in PowerPivot along with additional capabilities like partitioning, incremental updates, and role based security.

1. New Feature: Project ’Crescent’ – this is a brand new browser based Silverlight report authoring tool.  This new tool will replace the Report Builder 1.0 application that leveraged Report Models and will be able to leverage the Tabular BI Semantic Models (BISM) that you will be able to create with PowerPivot for SharePoint and Analysis Services Tabular projects. This will be a highly interactive reporting experience that will allow you to access, explore, and visualize your data and have fun doing so in the process.  This tool will enhance the existing Microsoft BI toolset and provide a very friendly self-service reporting solution for end-users to leverage.  The new feature is only provided in the SharePoint Integrated mode of Reporting Services.

If you have any questions or would like to meet with SCS to discuss how Business Intelligence can help your business please give us a call or visit or website to learn more about how we can help at www.teamscs.com.

For additional information in regards to SQL Server ‘Denali’ check out the following list of resources:

• SQL Server code-named “Denali” Resource Center
• What’s New (SQL Server “Denali”)
• Introducing Data Quality Services
• Microsoft PowerPivot Code-Named “Denali” CTP3 Release Notes
• Welcome to Tabular Projects
• Project Crescent Overview

SQL Server ‘Denali’ CTP3 Install Experience

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This week during the Microsoft Worldwide Partner (WPC) 2011 Conference, Microsoft released the CTP3 public release of the upcoming SQL Server codenamed ‘Denali’ product.  This release is for the most part feature complete and now includes some of the additional BI components that were not part of the CTP1 release that came out late last year like Data Quality Services (DQS), Analysis Services Tabular mode, Reporting Services as a SharePoint Shared Service, Project ‘Crescent’ the new Silverlight based reporting tool, SSRS Data Alerts, new PowerPivot and DAX enhancements, and much more.

Here is a walkthrough of the installation setup which contains a couple of new changes based on the CTP1, SQL Server ‘Denali’ SQL11 CTP1 Install Experience, setup (particularly for the Analysis Services and Reporting Services sections):

Express is the other option available here besides Evaluation (Enterprise)
checks to see if it is okay to install the setup files (in my case a restart was required because I had recently updated my antivirus software)
6640 MB required	Analysis Services account name information was initially blank, I added my account for this to run under and I switched the SQL Server Agent service from Manual to Automatic. Notice that a separate named account is setup for each service.
Added my user to the administrators group	I switched the two log entries from Data to Log directory to separate out the files
	New option here in the Analysis Services step for choosing what type of model you will be working with, Multidimensional or the new Tabular, so you don’t have to modify the DeploymentMode value setting in the msmdsrv.ini file (0 = Multidimensional, 1 = PowerPivot for SharePoint, 2 = Tabular). I also added my account to the Administrators group.
No changes are needed for this data file locations since they are all separated out, I wish the database engine one did this as well	I am going to eventually setup the SharePoint Integrated mode which is now a Shared Service in SharePoint, so it is completely managed and configured in SharePoint 2010 now like Excel Services, PowerPivot, PerformancePoint, etc. (no more SSRS Windows Service and not part of the Reporting Services Configuration Manager tool anymore). Even if you want to install the Native mode it appears that you do not get an option to install the SharePoint add-in component at all (bottom menu choice – no way to deselect it).
Added my account to the Administrators group	I entered my machine name for the controller name
	Here we go, let the fun begin
Everything installed successfully on the first try!	Took me around 1.5 hours for the install process going from start to finish, but that includes the whole process going through the wizard.  The actual install started at around 7:24, so around 20 minutes to install all components in a virtual environment, not bad at all.
BIDS is now in the Visual Studio 2010 IDE with Analysis Services Multidimensional and Tabular Project types. Goodbye Report Models, hello BISM!	And just like in CTP1, SSMS is also in the Visual Studio IDE
Current build number is 11.0.1440.19 for CTP3	And don’t forget, a new product offering now – Data Quality Services (DQS)

 

One thing to remember here now is that with Analysis Services we have two options, the Multidimensional and the Tabular (including the PowerPivot SharePoint option).  So if you are building a standalone sandbox test environment you can have up to three instances of Analysis Services running (one for each type of deployment mode).  This is probably not recommended (especially from the memory management side of things), but this is what you would see.

In the next few posts I will be diving into some of the new features and items in particular with project ‘Crescent’, PowerPivot v2 (lots of cool new stuff), SSRS SharePoint integration changes, and the new BISM Tabular (the new enterprise/corporate level PowerPivot version).

Here are some resource links to check out in the meantime:

• SQL Server code-named “Denali” Resource Center
• What’s New (SQL Server “Denali”)
• SQL Server Developer Tools, Codename “Juneau”…
• Project Crescent Overview
• Microsoft® SQL Server® code name ‘Denali’ CTP 3 Feature Pack
• Tutorials for SQL Server ‘Denali’
• Samples for SQL Server Denali CTP3 on CodePlex

The build number for the CTP3 release is 11.0.1440.19.

File Download:

PDF version of blog posting

SQL Server ‘Denali’ SQL11 CTP1 Install Experience

Nothing really new with install compared to the SQL Server 2008 R2 install, but I wanted to share my experience installing the product.  I installed this on a Windows 7 32 bit OS to test out and take a look at some of the new features that are available in the CTP1 release.

The please wait message you will see periodically throughout the process during some validation checks of your system.	Installation menu page	The ‘Denali’ CTP1 logo
Setup Support Rules check – passed with flying colors	Installing the Enterprise Evaluation edition of the product	License agreement terms
Ready to install support files	Support Support Rules check again – just a warning that the firewall is enabled	Setup Role – going to perform the feature installation
Going to install everything that is available	Installation Rules check – passed with flying colors again	Instance Configuration screen – just going with a default instance
Disk space required for the full install – 6076 MB compared to the 6102 MB required for the R2 install	Server configuration – time to setup the accounts for running the services	Database Engine configuration screen and account provisioning setup
Don’t forget to setup filestream if you want to install the latest Adventure Works sample database	Analysis Service configuration screen and account provisioning setup	Reporting Services configuration screen – just doing a native install
Error Reporting option to help out Microsoft	Install configuration rules check – all systems clear	Ready to go ahead with the install
Installation progress – here we go	Error message referencing a file during install – not everything will be installed during Round 1 (at least for me)	Install issue prevented the Management Tools from being installed
Time to send the install issues to Microsoft	Install Round 2 – add features to existing install	Need to install Management Tools
Okay, all set for Round 2	Success!	Shortcut menus available after installation
SQL Management Studio splash screen – powered by Visual Studio…	Rounded corners	BIDS is still using Visual Studio 2008 for now
CTP1 only has changes for SSIS (at least for the BI side of the world which is my focus)	Some new icons to get at parameters (new item) and variables Window along with SSIS Toolbox	Control Flow toolbox items
New Zoom item available on design surface and rounded corners for the items	Data Flow Task toolbox items – new assistants (wizards) for source and destinations	Initial source assistant Window

Well that is it for now.  If you are interested in the new SSIS enhancements and want to give the CTP1 release a test drive there are some cool new features.  I plan on doing a couple of follow up postings going over some of these.  If you can’t wait and have an hour to check out a video you can take a look at a recent presentation done at TechEd Europe What’s Coming Next In SSIS.

If you want you can check out some of the BOL items for ‘Denali’ here to get some more details on what is available in the new release:

• Books Online for SQL Server “Denali”
• What’s New (SQL Server “Denali”)

The build number for the CTP1 release is 11.0.1103.9

That is it for now.  Time to start diving into the SSIS changes.