2. Danie Loots HOD DB Management Services YoungBlood Consultants BIN304

3. Reporting Services Tips and Tricks Agenda Report authoring and enhancements Report management tips Report delivery tips

4. Learn Tablix The crown jewel of SSRS 2008 What’s Tablix? The best of Table – tabular layout The best of Matrix – crosstab layout Supports flexible report layouts Fixed and dynamic columns and rows Stepped layout Parallel independent column groups

5. Apply Rich Formatting Reduce number of textboxes SSRS 2008 Textbox Has paragraphs (similar to MS Word document) A paragraph has textruns and placeholders A placeholder represents an expression Benefits of rich formatting Fewer textboxes to maintain Mix static and dynamic text with different formatting without concatenating and expressions Import HTML – subset of HTML and CSS tags supported http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc645967.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc645967.aspx

6. Use XML Data Provider Working with XML data Supports three types of XML data sources Web service URL-based resource Embedded XML Provider details Uses proprietary XML navigation constructs Supports parameters Features, syntax, and limitations discussed in Using XML and Web Service Data Sources paper by Jonathan Heide http://tinyurl.com/cfsd7vhttp://tinyurl.com/cfsd7v

7. Use Custom Code Extend your reports in versatile ways Scenarios that may benefit from custom code Implement custom functions and aggregations Create utility library to share across reports Integrate your reports with external services

8. Use Custom Code Continued Report variables Introduced in SSRS 2008 Guarantee one-time evaluation semantics Use them to cache results from custom code

9. Generate RDL Programmatically RDL Object Model SSRS 2008 introduces RDLOM Not officially supported Use at your own risk Let’s you access RDL in object-oriented way Doesn’t validate RDL semantics Implemented in Microsoft.ReportingServices.RdlObjectModel.dll

10. Install BIDS Helper Open source utility that extends BIDS Reporting Services features See dataset usage reports Delete dataset cache files See “smart” RDL difference Implementation details Visual Studio Add-In Download from www.codeplex.com/bidshelperwww.codeplex.com/bidshelper Authored by SQL Server MVPs Greg Galloway, Darren Gosbell, and John Welch

11. Reporting Services Tips and Tricks Agenda Report authoring and enhancements Report management tips Report delivery tips

12. Configure Report Builder Specify which version to use ClickOnce Deployment Report Builder 1.0 is ClickOnce application Starting with SQL Server 2008 SP1, Report Builder 2.0 supports ClickOnce By default, Report Manager and SharePoint launch RB 1.0 Switch to Report Builder 2.0 Install SQL Server 2008 SP1 In Report Manager, go to Site Settings Enter this URL in Custom Report Builder Launch URL /ReportBuilder/ReportBuilder_2_0_0_0.application For SharePoint mode, refer to the SQL Server 2008 SP1 readme file

13. Analyze Report Performance Execution log Pro-actively manage Reporting Services and your reporting environment Execution Log should be your first stop Logs important performance and usage metrics ExecutionLogStorage table in ReportServer database Use ExecutionLog2 view select * from ExecutionLog2 order by TimeStart DESC Interpreting Execution Log data TimeDataRetrieval, TimeProcessing, TimeRendering columns Retention configured in ConfigurationInfo table

14. Inside The ReportServer Database Identifying datasets for all reports Find all dataset queries in reports easily Different ways to get this information: Query ReportServer database directly Invoke web service methods rs utility combined with VB script Useful to identify all databases and objects referenced in reports

15. Identifying All Datasets with xmlnamespaces ( default 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/sqlserver/reporting/2008/01/reportdefinition', 'http://schemas.microsoft.com/SQLServer/reporting/reportdesigner' as rd ) select [path], [name],isnull(i.value('CommandType[1]', 'varchar(100)'), 'Text') as CommandType,i.value('CommandText[1]', 'varchar(2000)') as CommandText,i.value('DataSourceName[1]', 'varchar(255)') as DataSource from ( select [path], [name],cast(cast([content] as varbinary(max)) as xml) as RDL from dbo.[Catalog] where [content] is not null ) as IV cross apply RDL.nodes('/Report/DataSets/DataSet/Query') rpt(i) order by [path], [name]

16. Administering Reporting Services rs utility Command line utility included in RS 2008 Supports VB.NET scripts and complete object model Automate and schedule tasks using Windows Task Scheduler, SQL Server Agent, etc.

17. Reporting Services Tips and Tricks Agenda Report authoring and enhancements Report management tips Report delivery tips

18. Customize Report Output Use device info settings CSV renderer Supports special characters as field delimiters Example – register a new CSV renderer with tab delimiter in rsreportserver.config CSV (tab delimited) ASCII Encode field delimiters http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html3/latin1.htmlhttp://www.w3.org/MarkUp/html3/latin1.html

19. Customize Report Output Continued XML Renderer May help you avoid writing custom renderers Supports custom names for XML elements Supports XSLT to control the output If XSLT produces HTML, configure XML renderer text/html htm

20. Customize Report Definitions New extensibility option in SSRS 2008 Scenarios Personalize the report content per user Localize reports based on the user culture Run-time interaction Report server discovers if the report is set for RDCE Passes original RDL after evaluating parameters RDCE changes RDL as needed Report server publishes new RDL temporarily

21. Using RS to manage DDS effectively

23. www.microsoft.com/teched International Content & Community http://microsoft.com/technet Resources for IT Professionals http://microsoft.com/msdn Resources for Developers www.microsoft.com/learning Microsoft Certification & Training Resources Resources Tech ·Ed Africa 2009 sessions will be made available for download the week after the event from: www.tech-ed.co.zawww.tech-ed.co.za

24. Related Content Business Intelligence Power Hour (BIN207) Tuesday, 4 August, 17:30 in Session Room D4 Microsoft Office Excel 2007 Charting and Advanced Visualizations (BIN303R) Tuesday, 4 August, 12:00 in Session Room B1 Top Ten Reasons for Using Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services (BIN205) Tuesday, 4 August, 10:50 in Session Room C4

25. Track Resources Teo Lachev's blog http://prologika.com/cs/blogs/ http://prologika.com/cs/blogs/ Blogs by SSRS team members http://prologika.com/cs/blogs/blog/default.aspx (see Reporting Services Links section) http://prologika.com/cs/blogs/blog/default.aspx Applied Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services book http://prologika.com/Books/0976635313/Book.aspx http://prologika.com/Books/0976635313/Book.aspx Reporting Services 2008 Information Aggregator http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/cc511478.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/cc511478.aspx Reporting Services MSDN forum http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/sqlreportingservices/threads/ http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/sqlreportingservices/threads/

26. Complete a session evaluation and enter to win! 10 pairs of MP3 sunglasses to be won

27. © 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries. The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.