Export and update table using SSRS - reporting-services

I have a question that I hope has a simple answer. I wrote a little automated and scheduled project in SSIS which queries a table, saves the table data as an excel file and updates the queried table with a flag indicating the row has been processed.
Very simple.
Well the requirement is to do this in SSRS, not SSIS. Is that even possible?
If it is I'm not seeing it. I haven't previously used SSRS, so I'm not even sure what SSRS is capable of, or where to begin looking. I've searched for tutorials and everything, and I haven't found what I'm looking for.

This is not meant as a full answer but is too long for a comment....
Giving a full answer would require much more detail from you but...
Basically when you create a dataset for your report to output, it's just a bunch of T-SQL that eventually returns some data. You can do what you like with it before or after.
So in your case you might do something like
SELECT * FROM myTable WHERE myColumn = #myParameter
UPDATE myTable SET myOtherColumn = 'somevalue' WHERE myColumn = #myParameter
SSRS Will See the result of this query as the result of the SELECT which you can then use in a tablix on your report.
Thats the report side covered but then you'll need to export to Excel. If you need to automate this then you can either create a subscription or you can call a URL (see here for details https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/reporting-services/export-a-report-using-url-access)
Hopefully that will give you enough to get started.

Related

Complex fill in the blanks query in MS Access 2010

I have looked and haven't found a method on here to do this. I am assuming my search is skewed and I just missed it, if this is the case, please let me know.
Anywhooo, I have a large and unwieldy report coming out of SAP every day. Because it will often have some strangeness, we import that into an Access database so we can keep an eye on the stuff we need in our department. I am using a combination of 6 fields to create a primary key in Access. The information in those fields is about the only thing consistent I get out of this SAP report, but the remainder of the data can be considered dynamic and can change from day to day. Usually this is a matter of filling in a few blanks, Occasionally this is changing existing data, and on rare occasions, it may involve deleting data out of a handful of fields.
The SAP report is around 130 columns of data, So I'm looking for an efficient way to roll in the changes without overwriting what folks put in there manually.
EDIT:
Here is the way this is used. SAP (for reasons I'm not going to go into) sometimes will have bad data show up in the daily report. We are using Access to track and put the correct data in to something that we can generate much more accurate summaries. What the users put in is to be considered true and accurate.
The transactions we are tracking can take a long time to complete. Most take around 30 days to complete. That's why I will have blank fields on one day, and several of them to be filled in on the next. We might not get any for the next few days and then a bunch more are filled in later. That is the normal flow.
What I have to account for is the odd occasion where a mistake is made early in the process. At a certain point, an error will break SAP's ability to update anything at all in the report we have to use.
I have 3 fields set up that trigger what my users daily work is going to be. There is a logical flow so that user 1 completes what he needs to do and then that record will show up on User 2's report. These fields will also stop the general update process in an exception report if there is a difference in what is coming in from SAP, and what is already in my database.
What I am looking for is some way to systematically fill in blank fields, on existing records in access. I do not want to overwrite if something is in a field, only the null values. I can do this on one field at a time, but each record has about 130 fields. I'm wondering if there is a way I could do this in just 1 query?
Thanks all! I hope the edit makes more sense now
A simple google for "Access SQL update null values" could have yeilded you what you need. But if all you need to do is fill constant values into empty fields then something like:
UPDATE Table SET Table.field1 = VALUE
WHERE Table.field2 is NULL;
Now if this data is different for each record based on; say data from another field, then you may need to write some VBA to build that value/string for you. But otherwise if you are JUST updating null fields to include data, then a simple UPDATE statement will do
EDIT Based on new info:
So if I'm understanding correctly: you have two tables. One table with the blank fields and another table that contains the values you need.
If this is the case, you can use a similar UPDATE statement, but use an inner join to get the data you need from table B to fill in table A
UPDATE TableA INNER JOIN TableB ON TableA.KeyField = TableB.KeyField
SET TableA.NullField = TableB.NotNullField
WHERE TableA.NullField Is NULL;

SSRS change default DataSet

I have an SSRS report with a dataset from a certain database. I've gone to the trouble of creating a query that (hopefully) imports the data from a more accurate source. What I want to do is potentially delete the first source, and then use the second source. However the only thing I've found online tells me I must:
=First(Field!MyField.Value,"Better Source")
I really just want to try to switch everything out.
If you added a new/replaced the current DataSet with the new query, you can change the column names to match the ones in the current Tablix/Matrix (the same Aliases/names within the Query Designer).
That way, your fields will be within the DataSet and you will see Fields!Myfield.Value instead of First(Fields!Myfield.Value)
Let me know if that helps

Terrible performance in SSRS 2012

Is there an issue with SPLIT(JOIN()) functions in SSRS 2012?
Here's why I ask...
I've just set up an SSRS 2012 server. I have an existing report I built in SSRS 2008 R2, which pulls from a 2005 database. I created a new project in MVS 2010 and added the existing rdl.
When I preview the report, the performance is at least 5 times worse than it is when I preview it in MVS 2008. I ran a trace and found that it took quite a while for SSRS to even execute the SP. Once it did, it rendered quickly.
I was trying to think of something that might slow down the SP's execution. The only thing I came up with is that I have a lot of multi-valued parameters I pass into the SP using SPLIT(JOIN()) functions. Have those been replaced by something new in 2012? If not, I don't even know where to start looking for the problem. My initial google searches have turned up nothing.
Has anyone experienced this problem or know of a list of things that worked well in 2008 but not so well in the new version?
I hope this question isn't too vague. Thanks for reading!
EDIT: I feel silly. I just traced the 2008 report execution and it turns out it does the same thing, which I never noticed before. The rendering is really quick after the SP shows up in Profiler. So...I have no clue what the problem could be. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!
I would just stick with a predicate like:
Where thing in (#Sets)
Where the 'Sets' variable could be from another dataset I created obtained from SQL like:
Select 'Brett' as Name
Union
Select 'Anna'
Union
Select 'John'
Union
Select 'Jenny'
Simple choose to get the data for sets from 'get data from a dataset'. Once the variable is set SQL 2008R2 and higher should do the lifting for you with figuring out the clause of the predicate in expression of Where thing in (#Sets) actually translates to:
Where thing in ('Brett', 'Anna', 'John', 'Jenny')
The primary solution to speeding SSRS reports and decreasing server load is to cache the reports. If one does this (either my preloading the cache at 7:30 am for instance) or caches the reports on-hit, one will find massive gains in load speed.
Please note that I do this daily and professionally and am not simply waxing poetic on SSRS
Caching in SSRS
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms155927.aspx
Pre-loading the Cache
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms155876.aspx
If you do not like initial reports taking long and your data is static i.e. a daily general ledger or the like, meaning the data is relatively static over the day, you may increase the cache life-span.
Finally, you may also opt for business managers to instead receive these reports via email subscriptions, which will send them a point in time Excel report which they may find easier and more systematic.
You can also use parameters in SSRS to allow for easy parsing by the user and faster queries. In the query builder, type IN(#SSN) under the Filter column that you wish to parameterize, you will then find it created in the parameter folder just above data sources in the upper left of your BIDS GUI.
[If you do not see the data source section in SSRS, hit CTRL+ALT+D.
See a nearly identical question here: Performance Issuses with SSRS
Create a UDF which will take a comma (or some other delimiter you want to use) separated list, and return a table you can join on.
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/amitjet/2009/12/11/convert-comma-separated-string-to-table-4-different-approaches/
Then you can take set up a parameter in your sproc such as #TheList varchar(max)
You should then be able to use it in a JOIN, Use it to create a temp table and then join on that in your query, or use it as a sub-select.
We use this quite often, and found that if you are primarily using values which are Integers, then the returned table should be a table of INT's to increase performance.
Pseudo example:
declare #TheList varchar(max)
set #TheList = ('1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8')
select *
from dbo.MyRecords r
join dbo.udf_CreateArrayTable(#TheList) at on r.RecID = at.RecID

Report rows differ from SQL result

I am stumped.
I have a select statement that returns the data fine in the data pane, but in the resulting report, one row is our of sort order and falls about 25 rows down in the data where it shouldn't be.
How do I trouble shoot something like that?
Thanks!i
Somewhere in the report you must be sorting the dataset. In this case, the data will look fine in the data pane but will be out of the expected order in the report. Try adding a brand new table to the report and apply the dataset. It should match the data pane.
How do I trouble shoot something like that?
You start by posting the select statement here so we can help without having to hone our psychic debugging skills :-)
It's possible that you're not ordering on every column you think you are. It's also possible that SSRS re-orders the data even after you've retrieved it.
They'd be the first two places I'd look.

MS CRM (4.0): Reports - Filtering Imported Reports

I have created a complex report in Microsoft Business Intelligence.
The report has its own (fairly complex) WHERE clause. Is it possible for the user to set the CreatedOn date as part of the criteria?
UPDATE
I was looking at this again. On a basic report (one table) if i import the report over one created with the report wizard, this give you the filter options and works.
On the more complex report that uses the union statement to pull data out of two tables the filter options are available however they have no effect, this is after removing the where clause.
END UPDATE
Thanks
Luke
I have been doing some research into this topic, and it appears that if you alias the fields and prefix them with CRMAF_ this allows you to add filtering. I'm going to look at this over the next few days and see how it works. However it has been noted that several people have been unable to get this to work correctly.
Please note you need to prefix both the table and fields.
You then can set the filter.