New SSRS features in SQL 2016 CTP 2.4

SQL Server 2016 CTP 2.4 hasn’t been released yet (any day now I guess), but someone was apparently very eager at Microsoft because some of the MSDN documentation pages are already updated. One of those pages is What’s New in Reporting Services. There we can see three new features will be added:

• PDF replaces ActiveX for remote printing. The less ActiveX the better.
• PowerPoint rendering and export. I asked a bit around and some people couldn’t care less, some people are really enthusiastic about this. It doesn’t hurt to have an extra choice though. I’d like to try it out soon.
• And the big announcement: Custom Parameters Pane. You’re going to have some sort of table structure where you can add parameters. More information can be found at Customize the Parameters Pane. I’d definitely like to try out this one! It’s one of the biggest pains in SSRS: not having any control over the parameter prompts (except their order). I’m curious if you can add regular text boxes to this table structure, so you could for example add an explanation for the users on how to use the parameters.

More info will follow once CTP 2.4 has been released!

UPDATE:

SQL Server 2016 CTP 2.4 has been released, and can now be downloaded from here. No extra new features for SSRS have been included, but there are some small ones for SSIS (basically “stuff you had to download separately is  now included in the product”).