I need to create a report using ssrs that will allow users to go into a main page and from there they will have a drop down listing 3 different reports to choose from. I have created 3 different stored procedures for each report needed. Ive been looking at examples but everyone talks about sub reports but I don't think I need that. Any help would be appreciated!
I'm a programmer (mostly C++) who has moved into a non-software workplace. However, I don't have much experience with database stuff at all.
TL;DR: If we compare Crystal Reports to just writing scripts that execute SQL queries and parse the results, is there anything that CR can do that isn't possible via SQL queries & scripts? I'm talking purely in terms of extracting data - not making pretty documents.
Detail:
At my workplace they have a process where you run a bunch of Crystal Reports, modify the date range to the current month, manually export each to excel, delete the rows and columns that aren't needed, and then cut and paste into a summary excel document that is used by management.
To me, this is pretty crazy and stupid. I'd like to automate/script most of it.
So I have two options:
Learn Crystal Reports and try to modify the existing reports to be more automated.
Dump CR and just learn SQL and do the whole thing programmatically with scripts working with CSV files or something.
I'd much rather learn SQL since it's more general and useful. But I need to be assured that I can get the data output that I need (without writing a million lines of code to reproduce CR myself.)
So yeah, I'm looking for an answer like, "The two are equivalent. Anything you can do in CR you can do easily via scripts and SQL," or "If you need to group records into categories based on a parameter and then sum their one of their fields, then CR will do it much more easily than raw code," to push me in one direction or another.
Edit:
Some additional detail. At the moment my crystal reports run a database query, and then crystal does things like, "don't display the records that are returned, instead group the records by Field A and then display the count of how many records in each group."
Is functionality like this difficult to reproduce via SQL coding? I wouldnt want to have to write a python (or whatever) script to parse and manipulate the data from plaintext CSV, for example.
You can't just compare SQL and CR - they have different purpose. SQL (in this context) is data source, CR is pretty output formatter. For excel you would need data, not formatted output. Excel combined with SQL can give you all CR options (dynamic crosstab reports, charts etc) what you can't get directly from SQL data.
BTW, creating SQL views or procedures is often needed to overcome CR limitations; from this standpoint SQL has lot of more options than CR.
I personally would go with SQL+Excel route. In our company we're using simply SQL+CR without postprocessing, sometimes SQL+Excel. Our customers are using different approaches.
But like said by other people, choice of tools depends on more things. Who has to redesign reports? Who will maintain these reports? How often requirements change? Are there more uses for CR reports besides sourcing Excel tables? Who will be waked up at night, if reports do not work?
Management perpective:
In many I will say mostly cases management does not know SQL. So if a manager for E.g.HR wants to know staus about something then how he will get that status?? This is where Crystal reports come into picture, Using crystal reports they do not have to worry about SQL; they will just enter required fields and get their data.
Programmer perspective:
Simple data outputs can be achieved through SQL but consider a scenario where you need to pull details as well as summary. I agree it can be done via SQL but consider the overhead of time and proficiency required to develop such output using sql. I bet it wont be that easy to develop such output using sql as compared to crystal. So I will say learn both SQL and crystal, you will get to choose the tool to apply for your requirement.
You can write SQL and drop it into the Crystal Report. Best of both worlds, and possibly faster performance than the drag-and-drop Crystal functionality.
You will see some response time lag when the report runs.
There are actually a few things that Crystal Reports can do that are very tricky using plain SQL Queries as Crystal Reports can access the entire dataset in a single formula and can do things at runtime.
However unless you have some really crazy complex Crystal Reports I would recommend building a tool in Excel that can one click the info straight into a new sheet.
I did this and it got me a promotion, not kidding :P
I have a custom Excel Addin I can give you code to that basically does this:
On open, connects to the database and downloads a list of menu options connected to views and procedures
Adds these menu options into a new Ribbon tab within Excel
When one is clicked, runs the view and dumps the entire dataset (properly formatted) into a new sheet
Advantage of this is you can update the main menu list and each view it references without making any changes to the file or re-issuing anything to everyone.
Crystal could be helpful if you want to create a document with a specific layout , logos etc. and show some data on it. Export to excel from Crystal repot is not easy - usually there are a lot of empty columns and rows and each report should be tweaked to avoid that.
If you need to export some data from a SQLServer database to excel your best option will be SSIS ( I guess you have a license for SQL Server). If you don't have license for SSIS or you are using for example Access database there are also some inexpensive tools, which can retrieve data from any database ( not just SQLServer) and export it to excel. I would suggest you to check this one: http://www.r-tag.com. It can run Crystal reports and SQL reports so you can start using your crystal reports immediately and start transforming them to SQL reports whenever you have time for that. Both reports could be exported to excel.
i fixed this by editing excel sql, Left(Column_maxLength, 250)
this resolved my issue
in my case if even if i read left 250 character is enough
I am developing a reporting application where a user can select(and order) reports from a list of 100 reports and ask for a master report. This master report will contain all the selected reports in the exact order and with a table of contents listing the reports included in the master report. The reports available for the user to select (which could be 100s) are stored in the database.
My questions are :-
To generate the master report with the user selected reports, the only solution I can see is using the Reporting Engine API to generate a dynamic report into which I have to add the user selected reports as subreports. Is this the right and easiest way to approach this problem? Does anyone have samples of the Reporting Engine API usage especially to inject subreports in a Master report?
Since I am storing the reports in the db(blobs), I am trying to find a way to generate my sub reports with an inputstream rather than a URL as specified in ResourceManager.createDirectly(url, MasterReport.class), but haven't been successful till now. How can I generate reports from definitions stored in the database? There should be some resource abstraction.
Read your reports into a byte-array and then use the ResourceManager.createDirectly method as usual. That will solve your problem of parsing the reports.
You can parse them directly into SubReports by using
ResourceManager.createDirectly(bytes, SubReport.class)
These subreports can then be added to your master report as banded subreports. if you want your selected reports to start on a new page, make sure you set the "pagebreak-before" style on your subreport's report-header.
There is a resource abstraction: It is called "LibLoader" and you can create your own ResourceLoaders that deal with the problem of getting your data out of your database as raw-streams so that the ResourceFactory implementations can interpret/parse the raw-data.
But every database is designed differently and thus you as the system integrator have to write the glue code for it. We only can offer the interfaces.
I'm having this problem:
The SQL Server holds a said value, let's say 990.30, the Reporting Services Report show a different value (948.33) when viewed online, in the brower and a third value (912.22) when the report is exported to Excel.
There are no formulas on Excel, just plain values.
Also, there's no formula on the layout of the report.
The code shows only a simple select that, when run on the SQL Server Management Studio, returns me the original value (990.30).
How on earth shall I start to troubleshoot this ?
I've never heard of this kind of problem before. I would recommend submitting a ticket to Microsoft and provide them with screen shots of the errors, the RDL file, a sample output of the stored procedure, etc.
To troubleshoot this on your own, I would recommend creating a new report that just has a simple table that returns all the details from your stored procedure or query to validate the values are consisten across all interfaces. From there, just start adding on complexity until you get the report to look like it is today.
I have a dynamic pivot request I would like to present in a report of Reporting Services.
As it is dynamic, the number of columns of the result is variable (as is the name of the columns). How could I create a report showing a table handling this variable number of columns ?
You can also use the Matrix control to pivot the results in the report instead of in the query. This way you don't have to use any custom solution.
You will need to implement a dynamic report definition file. Here is a link that will help you get started. It is a VS Project that dynamically creates a RDLC file with a table, via a datatable. I used it as the base of my current report system.
C# Version
VB.NET Version
If you have any questions about this, let me know. I've been generating RDLC files for quite a while now, and encountered pretty much every issue you could think of :)