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Wise Owl Training - SSRS blogs (page 1 of 2)
Showing blogs 1-20 (out of 28)
How to get rid of lots of blank rows in a Report Builder table
Posted by Andy Brown on 16 February 2018
There seems to be an occasional bug in Report Builder which fills a table with blank rows. Here's one owl's way to get round it.
Which should you learn: Report Builder or Reporting Services?
Posted by Andy Brown on 16 February 2018
Report Builder and SQL Server Reporting Services are almost identical - which makes the small but important differences even harder to explain.
Differences between SSRS 2008 R2 and 2012 for Excel render format
Posted by Andy Brown on 17 June 2013
This blog shows how to conditionally hide, display or format parts of a report according to its render format (ie whether you're viewing it in Excel or not). The method used is slightly different between 2008 R2 and 2012.
Problems with Shared Datasets and Subreports in SSRS
Posted by Andrew Gould on 23 April 2013
If you're using shared datasets to populate subreports in Reporting Services you might have encountered an error when you preview your reports. This short blog explains what the problem is and offers a few simple suggestions to work around the issue.
Prevent Reporting Services from caching data
Posted by Andy Brown on 01 October 2012
By default SSRS will create files with extension .rdl.data to cache data. This blog gives two and a half ways to ensure you're always seeing the latest data in a report.
Changing the appearance of parameters in SSRS
Posted by Andy Brown on 06 August 2012
This blog shows you how to use CSS style sheets to change the default appearance of the Reporting Services parameter strip.
Use SQL, parameters and bookmarks to create a grid of clickable links
Posted by Andy Brown on 06 August 2012
To make report navigation easier, you can create a 2-dimensional matrix of clickable links at the top of a report. This blog shows you how!
Make an SSRS matrix dynamic, like a pivot table
Posted by Andy Brown on 06 August 2012
Create a matrix whose row, column and data fields are all selectable from dropdown lists.
Using a Parameter to set the Data Source for a Report
Posted by Andy Brown on 06 August 2012
A single report in Reporting Services can serve many masters. This blog shows how to allow a user to choose which data a report should display, using a dropdown parameter.
Two ways to create alternating colours in SSRS
Posted by Andy Brown on 03 August 2012
A common requirement for Reporting Services reports is to colour alternate rows. This blog gives two approaches, one of which uses custom assemblies.
SSRS custom assemblies using C# or VB
Posted by Andy Brown on 03 August 2012
Reporting Services allows you to write functions in C# or Visual Basic, then reference these as custom assemblies. This blog shows how - and why - you might do this.
How to embed and call VB functions within a Reporting Services report
Posted by Andy Brown on 13 July 2012
SQL Server Reporting Services allows you to write (and use) custom functions written in Visual Basic within a report. This blog considers the pros and cons, and shows how to do this.
Reporting Services - report and group variables
Posted by Andy Brown on 21 June 2012
If you're not sure when - or whether - you should be using report or group variables in SSRS, read this blog to find out how to speed up your reports and solve other problems.
Controlling the number of rows per page in Reporting Services
Posted by Andrew Gould on 11 May 2012
Unfortunately, Reporting Services doesn't have a simple setting that allows you to control the number of rows you see on each page. However, you can control this using a clever combination of an expression with a grouping level. Read this blog to find out how!
SQL Server Reporting Services 2012 versus 2008 R2
Posted by Andy Brown on 08 May 2012
SQL Server Reporting Services 2012 (SSRS 2012) has been completely rewritten (it's now called SQL Server Data Tools), and yet looks strangely familiar. This blog explains the new features introduced.
Reporting Services date parameter formats
Posted by Andy Brown on 24 February 2012
How do you get dates to look sensibly formatted in SSRS parameters? This blog considers the issues, and appeals for help!
Making Reporting Services reports refresh automatically
Posted by Andy Brown on 30 January 2012
A little nugget of information - how to arrange it so that a report written using SQL Server Reporting Services will keep refreshing automatically, to display the latest data.
Differences between Report Builder and Reporting Services
Posted by Andy Brown on 07 November 2011
Report Builder and BIDS (the Visual Studio add-in for creating Reporting Services reports) are essentially the same underneath their very different looking skins. This blog lists the small number of differences.
Multivalue parameters in Reporting Services
Posted by Andy Brown on 07 November 2011
This blog shows how to create multivalue parameters based on dropdowns, whether in SQL Server Reporting Services or Report Builder 3.0.
Install Report Builder 3.0 despite .NET 3.5 Framework error
Posted by Andy Brown on 31 October 2011
Struggling to install Report Builder 3.0 because of a message about the .NET 3.5 framework? The problem is more likely to be to do with Internet Explorer 9.0, as this blog explains.
Building a user-friendly GUI for Report Builder
I have a specific reporting requirement and would be very grateful for comments on the best way achieve it.
Schools currently produce a large number of reports in Excel for internal management purposes — these tend to be unique to each school — which is the rationale as to why I am looking to build a friendly application — they also require repetitive wrangling every time an updated report is required. The reports contain a combination of tables, visuals, and text.
The data for the reports will exist in an Azure SQL DB.
At present I am seeking advice about whether it is possible to develop an easy-to-use interface for MS Report Builder for schools to build and distribute reports based on a schedule specified by the user — these reports will be produced as pdfs and as MS Powerpoint and Word documents.
A number of specific templates will be designed for schools to adapt to their requirements — Is it feasible to consider developing an interface for report Builder/SSRS that is useable by school staff who have no technical knowledge???
Is there a better way to tackle this problem??
I’ve tried PowerBI, but it is too complex for most staff in schools, and last time I looked at it, there was very limited ways to reconfigure the UI to make it approachable for non-technical users.
There are already a number of systems out there, as I'm sure you know - we've done a fair amount of training for people selling and using Progresso, for example.
Report Builder won't help you, I think - it's designing for creating single reports. Its big brother, Reporting Services, will. If you use SQL Server 2016, you can create an impressive looking web-based dashboard and publish reports to it. More importantly, subscriptions allow you to use SQL Server Agent behind the scenes to send emails containing reports out to people, and these reports can be in pretty much any format (Excel, Word, PDF, etc).
Two other options to consider are Power BI Desktop, which allows you to create reports and publish them to the cloud, and Tableau. I know very little about this, except that it has a good user base among at least our clients, and seems popular.