Adding static data to report builder to use in report - reporting-services

Question

I am using report builder 3.0 to create reports in a vendor's environment where I only have access to their data sources. We have static data that we need to use in conjunction with the datasets we are creating from their models and I am trying to figure out how to add our data to a report to use for looking up values.
For Example:
The data set has AccountNo, OrderNo, ItemNo, Quantity, etc.
I need to be able to show some attributes about the ItemNo, like ItemName, ItemCost, ItemValue, etc.
I would like to have a dataset I can lookup against to get these values, but the only way I can get this to work is to create a report code function with hundreds of thousands of IF statements: IF ItemNo = "12345" Then ItemName = "XYZ Product"
This is slow and cumbersome to say the least. If the data sources were under my control, I could simply add a table in SQL, but I cannot in this environment. I have even tried linking to external datasource and that is not allowed by the environment. I am looking into creating some kind of XML data or trying to add data directly to the RDL, but I am running out of options.
Does anyone know of a any way to add a set of data or create an embedded dataset that contains static values. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance,
Eric.

Answer 1

You could add a shared dataset that uses a table variable. So just create a new shared dataset and use a query like
DECLARE #t TABLE(ItemNo int, ItemName varchar(100))
INSERT INTO #t VALUES
(12345, 'XYZ Product'),
(23456, 'ABC Product')
SELECT * FROM #t
You could use this in each report and do a lookup to it to get the data you require.
Hopefully you have enough access to create a shared dataset, if not you would have to copy this to each report but it will be faster than thousands of IIFs

Answer 2

You could code this in VBA in the custom code section of the report. And/or make this a custom DLL which can source the data from wherever you want. The lookup code would be contained in the custom DLL in that case (pass in an input and the code returns the lookup).

Answer 3

Create a Data Source of Type XML
Create a Data Set and set the Data Source Created at step 1
Set Query Type to Text
Add some XML there is an example below
You should now see 3 columns in your output, I know its late but I was searching for this myself and hopefully will help someone else
<Query>
<XmlData>
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Months>
<Month MonthValue="1">
<Name="January" />
<ShortName="Jan" />
</Month>
<Month MonthValue="2">
<Name="February" />
<ShortName="Feb" />
</Month>
<Month MonthValue="3">
<Name="March" />
<ShortName="Mar" />
</Month>
<Month MonthValue="4">
<Name="April" />
<ShortName="Apr" />
</Month>
<Month MonthValue="5">
<Name="May" />
<ShortName="May" />
</Month>
<Month MonthValue="6">
<Name="June" />
<ShortName="Jun" />
</Month>
<Month MonthValue="7">
<Name="July" />
<ShortName="Jul" />
</Month>
<Month MonthValue="8">
<Name="August" />
<ShortName="Aug" />
</Month>
<Month MonthValue="9">
<Name="September" />
<ShortName="Sep" />
</Month>
<Month MonthValue="10">
<Name="October" />
<ShortName="Oct" />
</Month>
<Month MonthValue="11">
<Name="November" />
<ShortName="Nov" />
</Month>
<Month MonthValue="12">
<Name="December" />
<ShortName="Dec" />
</Month>
</Months>
</XmlData>
</Query>