Great official overview here
I've been reading up on SQL Denali features over the last week, and got to spend a little time getting my hands on Crescent, the new reporting solution.
By now, I have seen Crescent described as all kinds of different things - 'the successor to ReportBuilder', 'Excel meets PowerPivot' (isn't that redundant?), 'the new SSRS'. I honestly would not call it any of those things!
I'm beginning to think of Crescent as the new visualization layer for PowerPivot. Crescent consumes only Business Intelligence Semantic Model (BISM) datasources, either in the format of a stand-alone connection file (.BISM or .RSDS) or a PowerPivot workbook.
To run, Crescent needs SQL Denali (of course), SharePoint 2010, SSRS (Denali), and a BISM datasource. Note that on the client side, you need to have Silverlight 4 and a 32-bit browser (IE8 or Firefox 4 or better; I don't have any word on compatability with Chrome, Opera, etc.). In IE, in-private browsing must be turned off.
Crescent reports are generated entirely in-browser, rather than in BIDS or any other design environment. Once everything's configured and ready on your SharePoint site, buttons magically appear on BISM datasources to launch the Crescent designer. When the report is ready, it's saved to a folder/doc library within the SharePoint site as an .rdlx file.
In terms of functionality, I only have a few initial impressions. Crescent offers a nice-albeit-limited range of reporting options, and what it does do is done very well and with polish. It's a great tool for quickly tossing together a little animation - something spiffy for a last-minute sales call, or to use for playing with data to find new insights, or even for users who wouldn't usually tackle SSRS to use when they want to play around.
It's also a lovely little something to show off against some of the new report-generation competitor tools, many of which have slick user-friendly interfaces and abundant animations.
However, since these BISM models have to be put together by folks who know the data at least a little bit, and since any real report customization will still require SSRS, custom Silverlight, or other more complex solutions, we'll be breaking out BIDS before too long.
And there's my big hope for the future - Crescent does re-emphasize how dated statis SSRS reports can look (although I firmly believe SSRS still has legs). I'm very much looking forward to, someday, having animations and additional UI customizations added to Reporting Services. Next time, perhaps?
