Melville Thomson's Blog : Reporting Services

New Viso Diagrams for MOSS2007

Melville — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 14:53:28 GMT

I picked this up from Alexander Windel's Blog. It reminds me of the conversation I had with Tony he was looking to set up reports using SharePoint for a customer. These Visio diagrams are really useful and have lots of info on them. If you don?t have Visio and want to look there is a Visio Viewer available.

SharePoint Database Administration

http://office.microsoft.com/search/redir.aspx?AssetID=AM101638931033&CTT=5&Origin=HA101639821033

SharePoint Application Security

http://office.microsoft.com/search/redir.aspx?AssetID=AM101638891033&CTT=5&Origin=HA101639821033

For the Visio viewer

SQL Server Webcasts For Week 11 Dec 2006

Melville — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 16:45:17 GMT

TechNet Webcast: Introduction to SQL Server 2005 Report Builder (Level 200)

Monday, December 11, 2006 - 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM Pacific Time

John Weston, TechNet Presenter, Microsoft Corporation

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032319566&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: Introduction to Data Mining with SQL Server 2005 (Level 200)

Friday, December 15, 2006 - 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM Pacific Time

John Weston, TechNet Presenter, Microsoft Corporation

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032319568&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: Excel Services Technical Overview (Level 200)

Friday, December 15, 2006 - 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM Pacific Time

Chris Avis, TechNet Presenter, Microsoft Corporation

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032318455&Culture=en-US

MSDN Webcast: Integrating Data from the Business Data Catalog with Custom Task Panes in Microsoft Office Programs (Level 200)

Tuesday, December 12, 2006 - 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM Pacific Time

Matt Hallett, Program Manager, Microsoft Corporation

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032319120&Culture=en-US

Momentum Webcast: Reporting Challenges Faced by Corporate, Divisions, and Subsidiaries (Level 100)

Monday, December 11, 2006 - 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM Pacific Time

Koi Setorie, Business System Advisor, Microsoft Corporation

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032317220&Culture=en-US

SQL Server Manageability Team Blog

Melville — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 23:44:00 GMT

I am going to add the SQL Server Manageability Team Blog to my links there is a great post about running reports inside Management Studio. This ability was added with SP2. Both Simon and Dan have mentioned this earlier.

Changing the location of Log files for SQL Server Reporting Services

Melville — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 23:27:00 GMT

I was asked earlier this week by mail this very question. I found the answer on the Microsoft SQL Server Support Blog. It is quite a straight forward procedure. There is a link to this blog on the sidebar.

Install Reporting Services side by side with an earlier version

Melville — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 01:17:00 GMT

I was asked on Monday about issues concerning installing SQL 2000 for the Reporting Service database and using SQL 2005 services. There is a whitepaper covering multiple installations. You need to be careful as there are a few caveats to be aware of.
The SQL Server 2000 version must be the default instance and the SQL Server 2005 can be a named instance.
If you use two versions SQL 2000 can’t use SQL 2005 reports, but SQL 2005 will ask you to upgrade SQL 2000 reports.

Do read the white paper and make sure it will work the way you expect it to.

Resources for Reporting Services

Melville — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 14:46:00 GMT

Just to highlight some of the answers to a lot of questions I get asked. On TechNet there are various Reporting Services InfoCenters. These InfoCenters are navigation topics in the SQL Server Books Online. The information is organized by the roles that you would use when working with Reporting Services. I have found these very useful when answering a lot of the questions that I receive.

Reporting Services Administrator InfoCenter
Reporting Services Developer InfoCenter
Reporting Services Analyst InfoCenter
Reporting Services Information Worker InfoCenter

Resources for URL Access to Reports

Melville — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 01:33:00 GMT

I have been asked again about URL Access methods with programming again I can expand on the amount of information other than the white papers. See my previous post. I am at a conference for the rest of the week but will try and cover a bit more about this if required.

From the BOL there is a lot of general info about URL Access and passing parameters.

There is a section on the syntax

There is an introduction to Reporting Services Programming

The last one for now is Integrating Reporting Services into Applications

I think this is enough to keep you busy for a while enjoy.

'Introduction to Report Services' Event in Edinburgh 7 Nov

Melville — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 02:15:00 GMT

I have just got back from the TechNet Event in Edinburgh. Having it in the afternoon rather than the evening seemed to go down very well. We had to bring in extra chairs to fit everyone in.

There were a couple of questions about resources for Report Services. A lot of the white papers are located here. I was asked about deployment of Report Services and migration from Crystal Reports in particular.

I finished up with a quick demo of setting up the execution logs for the reports. The documentation for that is here

SQL Technet Events in November (UK)

Melville — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 01:33:00 GMT

We are starting to provide TechNet events around the Uk rather than just in London. so please give us feedback. Do check the details for the sessions as some of them may be during day rather than evening sessions.

07 November 2006, Edinburgh: Enhance your business’s reporting capability: An introduction to SQL Server 2005 Reporting ServicesSQL Server 2005 has a wealth of reporting services that can provide true business intelligence. This session will show you just how capable this technology is and how easy it is to set up, manage and deliver reports that will give the insights your company is looking for.

23 November 2006, Reading: Advanced SQL Server 2005 Reporting ServicesThis TechNet Event will take you to the next level of SQL reporting. See advanced techniques for building reports with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services and the Microsoft Visual Studio-based Report Designer.

27 November 2006, London: Enhance Your Business’s reporting capability: An Introduction to SQL Server 2005 Reporting ServicesSQL Server 2005 has a wealth of reporting services that can provide true business intelligence. This session will show you just how capable this technology is and how easy it is to set up, manage and deliver reports that will give the insights your company is looking for. This is a re-run of the event held in Reading on 6 September, so if you missed that or want to see those demos, please do attend this event.

Accessing Reports using URL Access in SQL Server 2005

Melville — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 01:48:00 GMT

I was asked today for some resources and information on Report Services. First there is a way to access reports using URL Access; there is a white paper here. http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/RSPROG/htm/rsp_prog_urlaccess_374y.asp With URL access we can pass parameters to reports and configure various properties when rendering the report. We can use parameter prefixes to target particular types of parameters.

Use prefix parameters:

rc to supply rendering extensions
rs to target the report server with parameters
dsu User name for data source
dsp Specify a password to access data source

For more info see http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/RSPROG/htm/rsp_prog_urlaccess_2v74.asp

There is also an article on integrating Report Services Using URL access. . We can use the URL from a Web application or a windows application. http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/RSPROG/htm/rsp_prog_intro_4f52.asp.

Resources - 'An introduction to SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services' - Reading Event - 06 Sept

Melville — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 09:59:00 GMT

These are some resources I found to be very useful for you after the Reading event There are two webcasts then a lot of links to various information. Do look at Brian Welcker's Weblog there is lots of useful information there.

TechNet Webcast: Introduction to SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services (Level 200)
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032301587&EventCategory=5&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

TechNet Webcast: Introduction to SQL Server 2005 Report Builder (Level 200)
http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032289993&EventCategory=5&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services
http://msdn.microsoft.com/sql/bi/reporting/

Direct Reports (Brian Welcker's Weblog) and the related blogs he lists on the left side.
http://blogs.msdn.com/bwelcker/,

BI solutions page
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/solutions/bi/default.mspx

Case Study information
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/casestudies/default.mspx

SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services (SSRS) product page
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/2005ssrs.mspx

SQL Server Developer Center
http://msdn.microsoft.com/sql/

Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition!!
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/vwd/download/

Generate Ad-hoc Reports with Microsoft Reporting Services 2005
http://www.devx.com/dbzone/Article/28047/1954?pf=true

Prologika forums info on reporting
http://prologika.com/CS/files/5/articles/default.aspx

Using parameters in Reporting Services

Melville — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 20:20:00 GMT

I have been asked about parameters in reports and although I am presenting a TechNet session An introduction to SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services on the 6 Sept here in Reading I thought it would be useful to show where some of the resources are for parameters. Parameters are used to provide user interaction with your reports and this can be implemented in various ways. There are two types of parameters in a report: query parameters and report parameters:

Query parameters are used to reduce the amount of data returned to the report from a data source

Report parameters allow you to select or enter values as a report is processed.

There is a link to working with parameters in Reporting Services and also a link to provide user interaction in reports. there is an excellent blog by Bob Meyers about reporting services you may be interested in.

Chris Webb's BI Blog

Melville — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 11:59:00 GMT

I found this Blog recently. It belongs to Chris Webb another of our new SQL Server MVPs..

Chris has mentioned in his blog about Reporting Services and server aggregates and raises an interesting issue ‘adding an explicit switch that allows treating server aggregate rows as "detail rows".’What do you think?

Here is his MVP profile
Chris has been working with Microsoft BI tools since he started using beta 3 of OLAP Services back in the late 90s. Since then he has worked with Analysis Services in a number of roles (including three years spent with Microsoft Consulting Services) and he is now an independent consultant specialising in complex MDX, Analysis Services cube design and Analysis Services query performance problems. His company website can be found at http://www.crossjoin.co.uk and his blog can be found at http://spaces.msn.com/cwebbbi .