In this article, we will discuss the SQL Server Reporting Service Report Builder and look at how to handle common client, end user requests using Report Builder. Report Builder is a very powerful tool to create a report for the SQL Server Reporting Service.

Advantages of the Report Builder is that it:

• exists as a Stand-alone installation
• can use different data from a lot of data sources
• can easily deploy reports to SQL Server Reporting Service
• supports full capabilities of SQL Server Reporting Service
• provides a productive report-authoring environment

Even now, with SQL Server 2016 SP1 released only a few months ago, it baffles me that there is still no built-in functionality to alert admins or users of failed subscriptions in Reporting Services. We still rely on scripts like the one I’m about to describe or report recipients contacting administrators/helpdesks when their report emails don’t arrive or fail to appear in file shares. This is something that people have had to work around for years. There is some documentation that Microsoft provides to help you get started with monitoring subscriptions from the log files with direction on using PowerShell but it is not by any means a complete solution. (Monitor Reporting Services Subscriptions)

Introduction

Late in October, I received an unusual request from the head of sales within one of my client sites. Sales sells three articles: bread, perfume, and Jaguar motor cars. Now the reader will note that one of these items is a staple and the other two are for those folks with considerable disposable income. Management within the firm had increased the salesmen’s bonuses for those folks that managed to sell perfume and/or Jaguars along with the standard loaves of bread. The summary report may be seen below showing the final bonus rate for each sales order booked during the month.

Introduction

As many of you by now know, I am a fan of utilizing expressions within Reporting Services reports to add additional flexibility. Recently I received a client request to create a stacked bar report which in turn would provide access to the underlying data the made up the bars on the chart. My client sells two articles: “Whigs” and “Tories”. Many people like to “buy” them.The idea is to display the aggregated data as may be seen below (gray black and turquoise) and depending on which bar and color is selected( clicked upon), to drill down and to display the underlying detailed data (see below).

Introduction

With Christmas just around the corner, in today’s “get together” I thought that we would have some fun by cataloging a collection of ‘your favorite items’. Whether it be a coin collection, a china plate collection or a stamp collection, the process is the same and certainly something that you will enjoy creating and maintaining. For today’s example, we are going to construct a “Postage Stamp” cataloging system. We are going to see how we are able to get from this…