Today I am going to talk about(or rather write about) building Subrpeorts in SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS).

First, let’s create two simple reports -

1. EmployeeSummary report – Parent report.
2. EmployeeDetails report – Subreport.

NOTE: If you are well familiar with creating reports you can jump right to the Building Subreport section below.

Start Business Intelligence Development Studio, go to file menu, select new and then select Project. The New Project dialog box appears, select the Report Server Project template and type a relevant name as shown below.

The first step in creating a report is to add a Data Source to connect to the database. Right-click Shared Data Sources and select Add New Data Source. Give a relevant name to the Data Source and click the edit button to define a new Connection as shown below. Click OK twice to create a new data source.

Right-click the Reports folder and go to Add menu and select New Item…

The Add New Item dialog box appears, select the Report template and type a proper name(in this case it is EmployeeSummary) for the report as shown below and click ok. This will be a Summary report that shows all the Employees and the number of hours they worked for a given month.

Now click on the Dataset drop down box and select New Dataset as shown below.

The Dataset dialog box appear, type a relevant name for the dataset and type a query to cater the report as shown below.

Now click on the Layout tab, drag Table from the Toolbox and drop it on to the body of the report as shown below.

GO to View menu and click Datasets to get the Datasets window. Now drag and drop the required fields from the Dataset into the layout as shown below. Please e sure to drop the fields in the detial section. Also, do some basic formatting such as adjusting the column width, header color etc to make the report look pretty

Now click the Preview tab to look at the new report we just created. This will server as our main report or summary report. Now we will create a subreport which will server as a detail report. Please note that this is just sample data created for demo purpose.

Now let’s create another report which will be our subreport. Right-click the Reports folder and go to Add menu and select New Item…
The Add New Item dialog box appears, select the Report template and type a proper name(in this case it is EmployeeDetails) for the report. This will be a detail report that shows all the Employees, the Practice Area they belong to, whether permanent employee or a contractor and utilization in percentage. Your screen should look similar to the one shown below.

Similar to how we did for the first report, we will need to create a new Dataset, type the query for the report data as shown below.

Again, as we did for the first report, click on the Layout tab, drag Table from the Toolbox and drop it on to the body of the report, drag and drop the required fields from the Dataset into the layout as shown below.

Click the prview tab to view the data as shown below.

Now let’s create a parameter in the subreport on EmployeeNumber. In most of the cases, you will likely have a parameter on subreport and you will pass the parameter from the parent report to the subrpeort. To be more specific, when you place the subreport in the main report, you can select the report parameter and a value to pass from the parent report to the report parameter in the subreport.

Go back to the layout tab, select Report then select Report Parameters as shown below.

The Report Parameters dialog box appears. Click Add and create a parameter as shown below.

Click on the Data tab and add a WHERE clause to the query as shown below. Please note the parameter we just created in the WHERE clause. Now let’s get to the meet and potatoes of this post -

Building Subreport
In the main report(parent report), add a column where you want your subreport to be displayed. I will add it right after the EmployeeNumebr Column in this example.

From the Toolbox, drag Subreport and drop it onto the detail section of the new column we just created. Please see the screen shot below.

Righ-click on the cell where you dropped the Subreport, in the Subreport dropdown box, select EmployeeDetails as the subreport as shown below.

Now go to the Visibility tab and select the options as shown below. This will ensure that the subrpeort can be toggled using the EmployeeNumber column.

Go to Parameter tab and set the options below to pass the parameter from the main report to the subreport.

Save the report and click Preview to look at the final report as shown below.

E ai pessoas!

Cumprido minha promessa do artigo sobre a instalação do SSRS 2005 no Windows Seven e Vista, vou mostrar como se realiza a instalação do SSRS 2005 em um servidor, no caso o Windows Server 2003 e 2003 R2.

Esta instalação é parecida com a instalação do SSRS no Windows XP, assim como no Vista é semelhante ao do Windows Server 2008.

Primeiro, lembremos do maldito “Warning” (IIS Feature Requirement) que nos persegue na instalação do SQL Server 2005. Por causa deste “Warning”, o serviço do SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) não instala. Então vamos resolver este pequeno problema!

Para a felicidade de alguns que trabalham com versões mais atuais, isso não ocorre no SQL Server 2008 e 2008 R2, que têm o SSRS como um serviço independente do IIS.

Cancele a instalação do SQL Server 2005 e vamos para o “Painel de Controle\Adicionar e Remover Programas”:

No terceiro item do menu da esquerda, temos a opção de Adicionar/Remover Componentes do Windows:

Nesta opção, teremos o item de “Servidor de Aplicações” ou “Application Server”, habilite este item e mantendo ele selecionado, clique no botão “Detalhes” ou “Details…”:

Agora temos alguns configurações relacionadas ao nosso servidor de aplicações, visto que o SSRS é uma Aplicação Web (ASP.NET), precisaremos dos seguintes itens selecionados:

No caso do IIS, a instalação padrão dele já supri nossas necessidades.

Depois recomeçamos a instalação do SQL Server e os “Warning”s que bloqueiam a instalação do SSRS não estão mais lá. (Só uma observação sobre minha instalação, é que outro “Warning” aparece, pois a VM tem a mínima configuração necessária para instalar o SQL Server.) Muitos dos outros “Warnings” são resolvidos pela atualização do Windows. (No exemplo, estou utilizando uma instalação do Windows 2003 R2 SP2, com todas as atualizações até Agosto de 2009)

Pronto, agora é só selecionar o “Reporting Services” e prosseguir com a instalação:

Lembrei de outra configuração na instalação do SQL Server que se refere ao SSRS, é sobre as opções de como ele será instalado, no caso a instalação “Default”, já suprirá as configurações de um servidor convencional. (Caso precise de uma configuração diferente, estou elaborando um artigo sobre a gerenciamento e configurações do SSRS 2005/2008. Mas na urgência, dê uma olhada na biblioteca de SQL Server 2005, no site do MSDN)

E por fim a tela que muitos sonham encontrar, quando começam a instalação do SQL Server 2005.

Então pessoal, creio que com estes dois artigos vocês já estarão bem informados sobre como instalar o SSRS 2005, mas qualquer dúvida fiquem a vontade em perguntar! Tenham uma ótima semana!

Artigos relacionados:

Instalando o SQL Server Reporting Server (Windows Vista, Seven e 2008)

Продолжаю работать по спасению портала из-под завалов. На этот раз в поле зрения попал SSPS (SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services),  в моем случае 2005 и на MOSS 2007.

При обращении к отчетам пользователь видит следующую ошибку:

Непредвиденная ошибка при соединении с сервером отчетов. Убедитесь в том, что сервер отчетов доступен и настроен для работы в режиме интеграции с SharePoint.

Проблему нужно решить и срочно! Попытки реанимировать службу на ненастроенном веб-сервере привели к неудаче, также не поднимался сервис на сервере индексирования. Было принято решение установить функционал на втором веб-сервере. Ну что ж: всё когда-то случается в первый раз.

Поиски руководств привели меня на эту статью (англ.), где подробно описывается процесс установки SSPS со ссылками на доки Microsoft, и эту запись – установка в режиме интеграции с SharePoint, и ещё хорошее руководство.

1. Устанавливаем ReportingServices SharePoint Add-in на все интерфейсные сервера. Сделано.

2. Устанавливаем на сервере назначение Microsoft SQL Server 2005. Арррр! Не сделано. При первой попытке установки (выбирался лишь компонент ReportingServices) инсталлятор выдал ошибку и закончил установку преждевременно. В логах событий:

Пришлось снести SQL и установить заново, выбрав все компоненты для установки – это помогло.

3.  Теперь настраиваем сервис. Открываем конфигуратор сервиса отчетов, и что видим? Да ничего не видим. Нет пункта интеграции с SharePoint; в админке портала при попытке подключиться к данному серверу отчетов получаем ошибку: “Ошибка поставщика WMI сервера отчетов: Not found”.  Решение быстро нагуглилось: необходимо установить SP2 на SQL.

Очередная настройка интеграции с SharePoint через его админку: управление параметрами интеграции – ок, предоставить доступ к базе данных – ок, установить значения по умолчанию сервера – не ок. Ошибка (при удаленном обращении к админке): Непредвиденная ошибка при соединении с сервером отчетов. Убедитесь в том, что сервер отчетов доступен и настроен для работы в режиме интеграции с SharePoint; (при обращении к настройке с самого сервера) Непредвиденная ошибка при соединении с сервером отчетов. Убедитесь в том, что сервер отчетов доступен и настроен для работы в режиме интеграции с SharePoint. –> Server was unable to process request. —> The request failed with HTTP status 401: Unauthorized.

Определающим моментов являлось то, что все портальные пулы использовали SSL; не в первый раз я использовала KB896861 ( способ 1, даже без перезагрузки сервера). Ого! Открываются настройки по умолчанию. D-oh! (c) Снова ошибка, и какая:

System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapException: Произошла внутренняя ошибка на сервере отчетов. Дополнительные подробности см. в журнале ошибок. —> Microsoft.ReportingServices.Diagnostics.Utilities.InternalCatalogException: Произошла внутренняя ошибка на сервере отчетов. Дополнительные подробности см. в журнале ошибок. —> System.ArgumentException: Value does not fall within the expected range. at Microsoft.ReportingServices.SharePoint.Server.Utility.GetSPItemMetaDataAndContent(String path, UserContext userContext, Boolean returnContent, Guid& id, ISecurableObject& secObj, SharePointImpersonatedWeb& wrapper, Byte[]& content, String& mimeType) at Microsoft.ReportingServices.SharePoint.Server.SharePointAuthorizationExtension.InternalCheckAccess(UserContext userContext, String itemPath, SPBasePermissions requiredRights) at Microsoft.ReportingServices.SharePoint.Server.SharePointAuthorizationExtension.CheckAccess(UserContext userContext, String path, CatalogOperation requiredOperation) at Microsoft.ReportingServices.Library.GetSystemPropertiesAction.PerformActionNow() at Microsoft.ReportingServices.Library.RSSoapAction`1.Execute() — End of inner exception stack trace — at Microsoft.ReportingServices.Library.RSSoapAction`1.Execute() at Microsoft.ReportingServices.WebServer.ReportingService2005Impl.GetSystemProperties(Property[] Properties, Property[]& Values) — End of inner exception stack trace — at Microsoft.ReportingServices.WebServer.ReportingService2005Impl.GetSystemProperties(Property[] Properties, Property[]& Values) at Microsoft.ReportingServices.WebServer.ReportingServiceSPImpl.GetSystemProperties(Property[] Properties, Property[]& Values) at Microsoft.ReportingServices.WebServer.ReportingService2006.GetSystemProperties(Property[] Properties, Property[]& Values)

Решение находится быстро, если правильно искать. Я нашла 2 источника: материал MS по устранению ошибок интеграции Reporting Services и SharePoint (п.4.1.8, материал по MS SQL 2008) и запись блога.

Причина ошибки крылась в том, что был перенесён центр администрирования на другой сервер и сохранилась запись в сопоставлениях альтернативного доступа новый центр администрирования <-> старый центр администрирования. Эта запись была удалена, служба Reporting Services перезапущена. Сервис отчетов теперь работает.

We are running MOSS 2007 with integrated reporting services.  I was frustrated that I had to give users a lot of permissions to run a report.  In fact they could easily delete reports.  After a whole bunch of trial and error I found I could create a SharePoint custom permissions level with these settings that lets users view reports and create subscriptions but not delete reports:

List Permissions:
Edit Items
View Items
Open Items
Create Alerts
View Application Pages

Site Permissions:
View Pages
Use Remote Interfaces
Use Client Integration Features
Open

Here’s a great Microsoft post with more information:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb326286(SQL.90).aspx

esquema básico de BI

El desafío inicial de los almacenes de datos o datawarehouse era contar con la capacidad suficiente de almacenamiento como para albergar la totalidad de operaciones de una organización. Con el tiempo y el abaratamiento de los servidores y hardware dedicado (discos duros tradicionales o de estado sólido, storage, etc.) el siguiente gran desafío era integrar los distintos sistemas para alimentar el datawarehouse corporativo, batalla que se está ganando exitosamente. Pero un tema primordial y que ahora tiene mayor relevancia es saber qué hacer con todo este bagaje de datos; como explotar u obtener conocimiento aprovechable de ellos.

La propuesta de la disciplina de Inteligencia de Negocios propone dos técnicas principales no excluyentes, que son la generación de Indicadores de Gestión (para conformar Cuadros de Mando, por ejemplo) y el análisis mediante la Minería de Datos (Datamining). Sin embargo nunca se aplican estas técnicas directamente sobre el datawarehouse, sino que se utilizan datamarts que ofician de vistas parciales, donde se concentran la información necesaria para responder cierta gama acotada de preguntas. En este sentido un error muy común es sobrecargar los datamarts con un sinnúmero de datos, a veces pocos relacionados, a efectos de poder plantear la mayor cantidad de consultas posibles, muchas veces sin saber a ciencia cierta cuáles serán. Esto generalmente desemboca en monstruosas infraestructuras OLAP casi inmanejables, cuya esfuerzo principal de los responsables consiste en tratar de optimizar los cubos para que respondan las consultas en tiempos dentro de los límites razonables, muchas veces infructuosamente. Este desacierto de plantear un cubo gigante que “haga todo” parte muchas veces del error conceptual de asimilar al OLAP como parte integral del datawarehouse.

En un enfoque moderno se limita el datawarehouse al almacén de bases de datos (relacionales o documentales), consistiendo solo en un repositorio de datos, sin fines operacionales ni de análisis por sí mismo. Los datamarts se obtienen como vistas parciales de estos datos, o consisten directamente en cubos de sistemas OLAP, como mencioné anteriormente relativamente pequeños y diseñados previamente bajo requerimientos específicos. En algunos casos en los que no interesa guardar los datos operativos, a veces el datawarehouse propiamente dicho no existe, y se encuentra formado virtualmente por el conjunto de datamarts que se utilizan y contienen la totalidad de la información distribuida entre ellos. La finalidad de esto es obtener un excelente rendimiento de los sistemas, basados en lograr la eficiencia desde el punto de vista de los recursos de hardware utilizados y rapidez de respuesta.

Un tema que a veces atenta contra esta eficiencia es la capacidad de análisis en los cubos por taladreo (drilldown), o sea obtener apertura en detalle de ciertos resultados. Para conseguir una navegación en profundidad rica, y no ralentizar los cubos con un exceso de detalle incorporado que puede atentar en los tiempos de respuesta; una técnica que da muy buenos resultados en productos de la línea de MS Sql Server es combinar las consultas en cubos con informes en Reporting Services. Esto es que a partir de cierto nivel de detalle en las consultas a los cubos, los informes naveguen directamente a las bases de datos que alimentan los cubos para conseguir una apertura imposible de obtener de los agregados de los mismos. Para un usuario que esté utilizando el sistema de informes de Reporting Services es completamente transparente este salto, el que se produce naturalmente al enlazar un informe de jerarquía inferior con origen de consulta dirigido a las bases de datos, con las celdas de detalle de un informe alimentado con una consulta OLAP. El rendimiento se encuentra asegurado desde que el detalle del reporte de jerarquía inferior ya tiene un filtro inicial dado por los parámetros de navegación que limita el volumen de resultados a procesar.

Todo ello permite obtener resultados rápidos y simplicidad de uso por parte de los usuarios finales, facilitando su tarea primordial que es el análisis de datos para evaluar decisiones; en entornos de sistemas relativamente económicos con un balance de rendimiento optimizado.

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Um dos principais problemas que encontro na instalação do SQL Server 2005 é a dependência do IIS para instalação do SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), conhecido como serviço de relatórios do SQL Server.

Quando se trata de um servidor Windows Server 2003/2008 ou até mesmo um computador Windows Vista ou Seven, a simples instalação do IIS é somente um dos passos para permitir a instalação do SQL Server Reporting Services. Muitas vezes o pessoal de infra-estrutura opta por instalar o IIS completo para habilitar o SSRS ou por instalar o SQL Server 2005 sem o SSRS, assim nunca realizando de uma forma ideal.

Para instalação do SSRS 2005 estarei utilizando um Windows Seven, mas etapas são idênticas para o Windows Vista.

Problema:

Nos primeiros passos da instalação do SQL Server 2005, as seguintes mensagens estarão presentes, caso o IIS não esteja corretamente instalado e configurado para se integrar com o SSRS:

Estas mensagens são alertas sobre as dificuldades de encontrar o serviço IIS e o suporte ao ASP.Net 2.0, levando à impossibilidade de instalar o SSRS 2005, visto que o SSRS é uma aplicação web (ASP.Net) dependente do serviço de webserver (IIS) do Windows.

Em seguida, também se deparará com a opção do “Reporting Services” desabilitada:

Solução:

Para adequar o Windows ao SSRS, utilizaremos no Painel de Controle a opção “Programas”:

Nesta opção há uma sub-opção de “habilitar ou desabilitar funcionalidades do Windows” (Turn Windows features on or off).

Nesta sub-opção haverá várias funcionalidades do sistema operacional para habilitar ou desabilitar, mas as que utilizaremos serão as funcionalidades relacionadas ao Internet Information Services (IIS).

Expandindo o IIS, IIS 6 Management Compatibility (Compatibilidade de gerenciamento do IIS 6), habilitemos as opções “compatibilidade WMI do IIS 6” e “IIS Metabase e compatibilidade com configuração do IIS 6”.

Uma das funcionalidades opcionais, que podem ser úteis para realizar a manutenção do IIS, é o “console de gerenciamento do IIS”, que também poderá ser habilitada:

Esta ferramenta de gerenciamento IIS poderá ser acessada pelo caminho:

%windir%\system32\inetsrv\InetMgr.exe

Após habilitadas as configurações do IIS, será necessário habilitar as funcionalidades “.Net Extensibility”, “ASP.NET”, “ISAPI Extensions” e “ISAPI Filters”, conforme abaixo:

E algumas (quase todas) configurações relacionadas às HTTP Features:

Por fim, habilitemos a funcionalidade de Seguraça de Windows Authentication:

E só resta aplicar as alterações. Recomendo realizar o restart do Windows após serem aplicadas destas alterações.

Agora na instalação do SQL Server 2005 não haverá mais alertas sobre o ASP.Net e o IIS.

Assim como será permitida a instalação do Reporting Services:

Mais uma consideração sobre a instalação é a possibilidade de instalar o SRSS 2005 sem a dependência do SQL Server Database Services, permitindo configurar o SSRS integrado a outro servidor (após a instalação do serviço ‘não configurado’), uma ótima solução para ambientes onde o servidor de aplicações web ou relatórios utiliza de um hardware exclusivo para tal funcionalidade.

Espero que este artigo auxilie na instalação do SSRS! Mas se tiverem alguma dúvida ou comentários relacionados, fiquem a vontade em comentar!

Como a minha VM do Windows Server 2008 não quis ajudar, vou demorar ainda um pouco para escrever sobre a instalação do SSRS 2005 em um servidor.

Artigos relacionados:

Instalando o SQL Server Reporting Server (Windows XP, 2003 e 2003 R2)

There are many ways to perform disaster recovery with Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). Based upon customer experience and internal testing, this technical note provides guidance around best practices to design and manage robust end-to-end disaster recovery (DR). This DR method will involve both automatic and manual failover in the form of content switches, SQL Server failover clustering, and database mirroring. This case study focuses on the lessons learned from CareGroup Healthcare System.

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To read more, please go to SQL Server Reporting Services Disaster Recovery Case Study.

I’m back in the office now after having a great time in Orlando this past weekend for SQLSaturday #21 in sunny Orlando, Florida! Andy Warren (twitter), Jack Corbett (twitter) and everyone else who had a hand in putting it together did a great job. Their hard work definitely paid off.

The technical content at these kind of events is great! An excellent job was done by all of the speakers that I saw.

But for me the best part of the event is getting to catch up with friends that I only get to see a couple of times a year, meeting Twitter-friends for the first time, and walking around talking with other SQL Server enthusiasts.

With this event, I enjoyed meeting Twitter-friends Jorge Segarra (twitter), Kendal Van Dyke (twitter), and Pam Shaw (twitter), among others for the first time. It was also good to catch up again with Andy Leonard (twitter), Buck Woody (twitter), Kevin Kline (twitter), Jonathan Kehayias (twitter), and so many others. I know I’m leaving many people out, but not intentionally. It’s just that there is so many people to talk with during the event.

Anyway, as promised in my sessions, here are the materials I used. I hope you find them useful and thanks for coming!

• SQL Server Locking & Blocking Made Simple (presentation)
• Creating Data-Driven Subscriptions in Reporting Services (presentation)

This is a personal reminder that we can easily write

SELECT

isnull(sum(columnToCalculate), 0)

FROM…

to get the number zero instead of nothing.
This tactic reduces code in the layers above.

Hola muy pronto encontraras información  de las categorías expuestas en este blog  , espero sea de tu agrado.

SQL Server Reporting Services stores a lot of metadata about the reports in a rich set of tables in the ReportServer database. For this solution, we will take advantage of the dbo.Catalog table where the report characteristics are stored in a column named Content. The data is in XML format, but it is stored as image data type.


--Find all the reports, and thier parameters and thier default values
;WITH XMLNAMESPACES (
DEFAULT 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/sqlserver/reporting/2005/01/reportdefinition',
'http://schemas.microsoft.com/SQLServer/reporting/reportdesigner' AS rd --ReportDefinition
)
SELECT
NAME
, PATH
, x.value ('@Name', 'VARCHAR(100)') AS ReportParameterName
, x.value ('DataType[1]', 'VARCHAR(100)') AS DataType
, x.value ('AllowBlank[1]', 'VARCHAR(50)') AS AllowBlank
, x.value ('Prompt[1]', 'VARCHAR(100)') AS Prompt
, x.value ('Hidden[1]', 'VARCHAR(100)') AS Hidden
, x.value ('data(DefaultValue/Values/Value)[1]', 'VARCHAR(100)') AS Value
FROM (
SELECT PATH
, NAME
, CAST(CAST(content AS VARBINARY(MAX)) AS XML) AS ReportXML
FROM ReportServer.dbo.Catalog
WHERE CONTENT IS NOT NULL AND TYPE = 2
) A
CROSS APPLY ReportXML.nodes('/Report/ReportParameters/ReportParameter') R(x)
--WHERE NAME = 'Sales_Report'
--Use the where clause above to look for a specific report
ORDER BY NAME


Check out my Article on Simple-Talk.com: http://www.simple-talk.com/sql/reporting-services/ten-common-sql-server-reporting-services-challenges-and-solutions/

Reporting services does not support resource files that can be used for localization. Check this on: http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/RDLC_Localization.asp and http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/RDLC_Localization.asp

Um problema do TFS com o qual me deparei hoje.

O usuário com todas as permissões setadas pelo TFS Administration Tool (http://tfsadmin.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=24283) não conseguia criar um novo team project.

Para resolver isso, tivemos que acessar o report server em http://localhost/reports e na configuração do TFSReportsDS e TFSOLAPReportsDS configurar o connection setting.

Usamos a configuração “Credentials stored securely in the report server”. Feita essa configuração o usuário voltou a criar os Team Projects normalmente.

Maiores informações nesse link

In most Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) implementations, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of reports available for viewing. These reports provide glimpses into the sea of data that the organization collects. From these reports hopefully trends can be discovered and better decisions can be made. At least that’s the goal.

Don’t neglect presentation

There are many attributes of a good report. Broadly speaking the report must be based on accurate data, it must be delivered in a timely fashion, and it must be presented in a way that is easily consumed and interpreted by the users.

Unfortunately, many report developers focus exclusively on the first two elements – making sure the data is right and that the report doesn’t take too long to run. Those are important, of course, even essential. But often the presentation of the report is relegated to an afterthought. Data is slathered on a report form for the user to do with what he pleases.

Using alternating background colors

The topic of report presentation best practices is a broad one, far too broad to cover in just one post. Perhaps, I’ll tackle some of these issues in a series of posts in the coming months. In the meantime, there are minor and easily implemented improvements that can be added to reports that will make them immensely more readable.

For example, consider a report based on a table data region with row after row of information. Let’s say it’s an employee phone list report as shown below.

To make the report a little easier to read horizontally, we’d like to change the background color of every other row. To do so, let’s highlight the detail row of the data table in the layout tab.

In the properties window, find the BackgroundColor property for the highlighted row and choose <Expression…>. Add the following conditional formatting statement in the Edit Expression window.

Click Ok, and preview the report.

And there you go, a report that alternates the background color for each row. This makes it much easier to read.

But a word of caution: give some consideration to what the users will do with this report. If it’s likely to be printed, the alternating background color will consume additional toner or ink making the report more expense to print. In that case, consider using a single underline between each row.

What tips do you have for make reports easier to read?

Joe

Thanks to everyone who attended my SQL Server Reporting Services class in Nashville over the last couple of weeks. As promised, here is a list of online resources that may prove useful to you as you continue to work with Reporting Services.

• Reporting Services Tutorials
• Reporting Services Samples on Codeplex
• Reporting Services Developer Info Center
• Beginning SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services Simple-Talk article series by Steve Joubert
• Microsoft MSDN Reporting Services Forum
• TechNet SQL Server TechCenter
• MSBI Central

Additionally, the following links, though not wholly dedicated to Reporting Services, frequently have good Reporting Services articles and content.

• Professional Association for SQL Server
• SQL Blog
• SQL Server Central
• SQL Server Performance
• Microsoft MSDN SQL Server Forums
• SQL Down Under
• SQLTeam

And finally, the following book has been well received by its readers according to Amazon.

• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services 2005 by Brian Larson

This list is far from comprehensive. So if you have some links that you’ve found worthwhile, please share them in the comments below.

Update: After I published this list, I was reminded of another great Reporting Services resource entitled Rules to Better SQL Reporting Services. It discusses some best practices for report design to give your users a better experience. It’s definitely worth the read.

Business Intelligence Developers Studio (aka BIDS) for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services makes creating engaging and dynamic reports nearly trivial in some respects. You can easily create drill-down and drill-through reports with just a few mouse clicks.

A drill-down report allows your users to see more or less detail information by clicking on a row of data and having the report expand or collapse supporting detail rows. Drill-through reports take the user from one report to another supporting report via a mouse click. For example, by clicking on a Product Number in a Sales Order, the user will be taken to the Product Information report for that product.

Interactive Sorting

You can also create reports that provide interactive sorting. On a report that uses a table data region, users can click on a column heading and have the report auto-magically sort by that column. Let’s walk through a graphical example to demonstrate. Here’s an example of a Contact Phone List report created in BIDS. It lists contacts from the sample Adventureworks database using a table data region.

We want to allow users to sort the list by the First Name or the Last Name column. In the Layout view, click the table First Name header cell to select it, then right click to open a context-sensitive menu, and choose Properties as shown in the following illustration.

This opens the Textbox Properties window as shown below. Notice the 6th tab is called Interactive Sort. Check the “Add an interactive sort action to this textbox” option. Then click the down arrow in the Sort Expression combobox. Choose the field on which you like to sort when the user clicks this textbox. In our case this this Fields!FirstName.Value expression.

Repeat this process for each of the columns in the table data region that your users may want to sort by. In this example, I’ll enable interactive sorting all three columns, however in practice there’s probably little reason someone would want to sort by the Phone column. Once completed, preview the report. The report is still sorted in the default order. But you’ll notice the little arrows beside each column header.

By clicking on the little arrow beside the column header text, our users can change the sort order of the report. Clicking the same arrow for a second time reverses the sort order.

And there you have it. With only a few mouse clicks, we’ve enriched the experience our users have while viewing this report. Of course, this technique only works when the report is rendered in formats that support interactivity. When being viewed as a TIFF, for example, the user will not be able alter its presentation.

Got other techniques for providing a greater level of interactivity in your reports? I’d love to hear about them so feel free to share in the comments section below.

Buenas amigos… me he encontrado con este problemita de la división por cero en Reporting Services 2005.

Lo primero que pensé fue en hacer algo como esto:

=IIF(Fields!Numerador.Value <> 0, (Fields!Numerador.Value) / (Fields!Denominador.Value), 0)

Pero resulta que el IIF siempre ejecuta tanto la expresión de la parte verdadera como la expresión de la parte falsa y por eso siempre va a devolver #Error.

Ahora bien, una pequeña chanchada que podemos hacer para evitar ésto es:

=IIF(Fields!Numerador.Value <>  0, (Fields!Numerador.Value) / (IIF(Fields!Denominador.Value <> 0, Fields!Denominador.Value  0, 1), 0)

Qué fue lo que hicimos? Simplemente engañamos al IIF cuando el denominador es 0. Cuando eso ocurre de todas formas el primer IIF va a devolver 0 pero ya la expresion (Fields!Numerador.Value) / (Fields!Denominador.Value) no va a dar #Error ya que estaríamos dividiendo por 1 y no por 0.

No es lo mejor ni lo mas óptimo, pero remitiendome a las palabras de mi amigo Carlos A.:
“Primero que funcione, despues que funcione bien, y por último que funcione como uno quiere.”

Salutes!

Buenasss como les va? Esta vez me trae por aquí este tema de los reportes. Resulta que me han pedido que haga un reporte donde pueda filtrar los valores a mostrar en el reporte pero desde el Report Viewer en una página Aspx…

Empecemos por el reporte. Supongamos que tenemos un reporte que debe mostrar un listado de proyectos y quiero elegir cuales mostrar y cuales no.

El reporte es bastante sencillo de hacer:

SELECT ID, Nombre, Descripcion FROM Proyectos WHERE ID IN(@IdProyectos)

@IdProyectos es un parámetro del reporte que admite múltiples valores.

Finalmente le damos el estilo visual al reporte, agregando una tabla con los campos del DataSet.

Hasta aquí es bastante sencillo.

Luego, en nuestra página ASPX agregamos un ListBox, un botón (para cargar el reporte) y el ReportViewer.

Luego, para pasarle los valores al reporte:

BindingList parametrosReporte = new BindingList();</code>

ReportParameter idProyectos = new ReportParameter("IdProyectos");

for (int i = 0; i < listProyectos.Items.Count; i++)
{
        idProyectos.Values.Add(listProyectos.Items[i].Value;
}

parametrosReporte.Add(idProyectos);

Con esto creamos un parámetro de reporte y lo agregamos a la colección. Luego tenemos que asignar estos parámetros al ReportViewer que insertamos en la página. Para ello podemos usar el siguiente código:

try
{
        ReportViewer1.ServerReport.SetParameters(parametrosReporte);
}
catch
{
        //Manejamos la excepción
}

Y listo. Espero que les sea de utilidad!!!

Saludos