Q3’10 Pre-Release Series: Telerik Reporting pushes for interactive reports, extends OLAP support

As on-line analytical processing (OLAP) continues to gather more speed, businesses are demanding more flexible and interactive ways to visualize and analyze information.

The latest version of Telerik’s .NET tool for report creation and publishing addresses these business needs by being better suited for examining large amounts of data. It extends its built-in data source support to OLAP cubes and adds drill down support to allow business users to consume the information in the report in an easy and interactive manner. It also adopts the latest developments in the Silverlight platform by offering native Silverlight printing capabilities.

Support for SQL Analysis Services Cube

Q3 2010 will introduce native SSAS cube support to Telerik Reporting, which allow developers to create analytical reports, dashboards, and advanced views of multidimensional data. Even though binding to multi-dimensional data was possible before (through code), Telerik Reporting now comes with a new Cube DataSource component which will allow developers to use the multi-dimensional expressions (MDX) query language to bind to Microsoft SQL Analysis Services and/or other data marts that support the MDX syntax. As with all Telerik Reporting data modules, the new Cube DataSource component will come with a Visual Studio design time wizard, which will greatly simplify the task of connecting the report to multi-dimensional data.

Drill-down Report Interactivity

In Q3 2010 we extend report interactivity with data drill-down which allows front-line workers to analyze the facts by starting from the summary information and drilling down to the detailed data which makes up the summary. In conjunction with the already existing interactive features (drill through, jump to bookmarked report sections, visit URLs, go back/forth, etc.), users will be able to interactively analyze the data directly in the application. The drill-down report interactivity will be available for all report items, but charting.

Upgraded Silverlight Report Viewer

Parallel to the latest web developments, Telerik Reporting now features a more powerful Silverlight report viewer, which from now on will be built against Silverlight 4. This helps Telerik Reporting to leverage Silverlight 4’s native printing support, to provide Silverlight out-of-browser printing support, and take advantage of the latest RadControls for Silverlight for extended developer and user experiences. The existing printing mechanism will also be available for granular printing adjustments.

XML Report Serialization

XML Report Serialization will allow report definitions to be represented in XML and saved as a stand-alone XML file. The XML report definition contains the report layout, the items used in the report (tables, charts, images, etc.), all expressions and parameters, as well as the data source connection(s) and queries used to retrieve the data. The stand-alone XML files will allow developers to save reports locally, to publish reports on a server, and to send/push reports via email for others to run and review.

What’s New Webinar

Make sure you register for the "What's new in Q3 2010 – Telerik Reporting and WinForms" webinar on Wednesday, November 17, 2010 (11:00 AM - 12:00 PM EST) to see all the new features in action:

Register here>>

You can also register for some of the other webinars dedicated to the release and learn about all the major new features that ship with Q3 2010. Book your seat for a chance to win a Telerik Premium Collection (worth $1299), a WebUI Test Studio Bundle ($2999) and a TeamPulse License for 10 users ($2490). Check schedule>>

Do not forget to check the Marketing team blog regularly in the next weeks to learn what else is cooking in the other products' offerings.