Nov 9, 2009 - Microsoft announced release on SQL Server 2008 R2 November CTP (CTP3). MSDN and TechNet Subscribers can download the SQL Server 2008 R2 November CTP today. Non-subscribers will be able to access the CTP on Nov. 11th.

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Analysis Services

If you installed and used the SQL Server 2008 R2 August CTP, you can use the information in this document to read about enhancements in the November CTP.

Note: Some PowerPivot for SharePoint features were previously named using the "Gemini" codename. The codename is being replaced by final names that will be used in the product release.

For more information about PowerPivot, see the topics "PowerPivot Overview," "PowerPivot Features," "PowerPivot Concepts," and "PowerPivot Components and Tools" in SQL Server 2008 R2 Books Online.

PowerPivot for Excel

PowerPivot Field List Enhancements

Numerous enhancements have been added to the PowerPivot field list. These include the following:

• Automatic detection of relationships when columns from unrelated tables are used in a PivotTable.
• Support for searching fields by name.
• Support for named sets.

PowerPivot Data Source Editing

Support is available for the following data source editing tasks:

• Refreshing data for table, for all tables from a data source, or for all the tables in the PowerPivot window.
• Editing data source information such as server name, database name, and credentials.
• Editing table settings such as data source table or query used, columns imported, and filters.

Support for More Types of Data Sources

Targeted support has been introduced for importing data from the following sources:

• Microsoft Access 2003, 2007, 2010
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005, 2008, 2008 R2 Analysis Services
• PowerPivot workbooks published to Analysis Services running in SharePoint Integrated Mode
• Text files
• Excel 97-2003, 2007, 2010
• Microsoft SQL Azure
• Oracle 9i, 10g, 11g
• Teradata V2R6, V12
• Sybase
• Informix
• IBM DB2 relational databases 8.1

Enhanced Data Analysis eXpressions (DAX)

DAX functionality has been significantly expanded in the following ways:

• User interface enhancements include better propagation of errors and easier creation of DAX formulas.
• Several functions have been added, including a set of functions that operate on textual data, as well as those that provide common Date and Time manipulations.
• Several performance and functional capabilities have been introduced, including automatic recalculation.
• Support for handling referential integrity violations between related tables has been introduced.
• Automatic selection of data types for expressions is available.

For more information, see the topic "Data Analysis Expression Language Reference" in SQL Server 2008 R2 Books Online.

DAX is also documented in the online Help of the PowerPivot for Excel add-in. For more information, see the Help file that is installed with the add-in.

PowerPivot for SharePoint

Management Dashboard

A management dashboard for IT has been introduced. This dashboard provides visibility into PowerPivot use on a SharePoint farm that includes information about the following areas, as well as a rich PowerPivot workbook that can be used to build custom reports:

• Published PowerPivot workbooks, including number of queries executed, number of users and size per workbook in the dashboard.
• Hardware resource utilization for the PowerPivot service, including CPU and memory, is reported on a daily basis to the dashboard.
• Data refresh activity is reported for all PowerPoint workbooks that are accessed through the same PowerPivot service application.

For more information about this feature, see the topic "PowerPivot Management Dashboard" in SQL Server 2008 R2 Books Online.

Enhanced Infrastructure

The following enhancements to infrastructure are available:

• Claims-aware support to enable a user's identity to flow between SharePoint components in a secure manner.
• Parallelized refresh of PowerPivot data.

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