SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services includes a slew of new features that make creating and exporting reports easy. Sheila Molnar, executive editor of SQL Server Magazine, and I had the pleasure of talking to SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) expert Stacia Misner at Microsoft’s BI Conference about the new features in the latest version of SSRS.

There are several new SSRS features that have gotten quite a bit of attention already, including the visualization features (e.g., mapping), the Report Part gallery, and its integration with PowerPivot. However, Stacia said there are many “unsung heroes” in this version of SSRS that help business intelligence pros and power users do their jobs more efficiently, including the following features:

• Excel rendering
• The ability to control page breaks and pagination via rendering
• The ability to assign page numbers rather than having pages names Sheet1, Sheet 2, etc.
• Shared data sets

This is just a small sampling of the features Stacia discussed with us. Check out the short video below to see our entire conversation with Stacia about the new features in SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services.