Overview
BIDS is the tool that we use to develop reports. It provides an intuitive interface based on Microsoft’s Visual Studio product which has been used by developers for many years. The SQL Server 2008 version of BIDS has some nice enhancements to the user interface for designing, developing and testing reports. You will see these enhancements as we go through this tutorial.
BIDS is included with SQL Server. When you are running the SQL Server installer, you need to click the Business Intelligence Development Studio checkbox in the Shared Features section in order to install BIDS. You probably want to select all of the items in the Shared Features section. After completing the installation, you can launch BIDS from the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 program group.
