SQL 2008 Reporting Services renderers

Yesterday I caught Keith’s talk on new features in SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services at the monthly meeting of the Adelaide SQL Server User Group. I must say, as someone who’s only just started using the original SQL 2000 Reporting Services a few weeks ago, I was drooling at the pretty new designer. Not to mention the new features and enhancements. Very nice!

Talking with my DECS colleagues this morning, the question of renderer support arose. Specifically will 2008 natively render reports as a Word document? (I understand that to do this previously, you needed to purchase 3rd party addins)

Turns out the answer is “Yes!”. As of the February 2008 CTP, the following renderings are supported:

• Windows Forms
• Web Forms
• CSV
• XML
• PDF
• Image
• Excel
• Word

More details of the new features (grouped by CTP release) are published on the SQL Server 2008 TechNet site.

Tech-Ed 2008 Registration

Chuck mentions that the Australian Tech-Ed 2008 conference site is now live. Not sure if it’s a firewall issue, but I tried clicking on the ‘Register Now’ link, and it doesn’t work.

The only time I’ve missed attending in previous years was when family commitments coincided (eg. birth of children). That’s also why I decided I wouldn’t travel to Wagga for this year’s CodeCampOz - the timing was too close to the due date for G3, and I didn’t want to risk being stuck in regional NSW should my wife suddenly go into labour!

The other big difference is that previously I had the support of my work paying for registration, travel and accommodation.

So if I did attend this year I’d have to cover the costs all by myself. $AU1,749 just for early-bird registration sounds like a lot of money, especially when it’s your own!

One thing at a time though. G3 is due next week, so by mid-June I might have a clearer idea of whether popping off to Sydney in early September is a good idea (or not!)

Converting minutes from midnight

Jane asked me how to convert “minutes from midnight” into hours and minutes in Excel.

Turns out the TIME() function can do this for you.

Say you have 585 minutes. Use it like this:

=TIME(0, 585, 0)

Then format the cell for time, eg. “h:mm”, and you get

“9:45 AM”

Just what the doctor ordered!

Before you ask, no I’m not an Excel expert, but I am pretty good at knowing where to find the answer most of the time.