We have a situation where we need to modify the data being returned by CRM. This was implemented within the application using plug-ins so every aspect of user interaction was managed.
However, in SSRS reports, these plug-ins are not being called. We have investigated a number of other messages (such as execute), but haven't really come up with a viable solution as of yet. A post here which suggested the use of javascript code is not viable since we have a large number of reports.
If there is anyone who has insight on this please let me know. TIA.
You are not the only person who scratched head trying to figure out why it happens and after investigating their reporting extension I discovered that data is fetched directly from SQL without usage of endpoint (so plugins are not triggered). FetchXml internally transformed to SQL.
Related
I am currently evaluating reporting solutions for use within my organization and one of the requirements of the solution must be 'ad hoc reporting' and is defined as 'given an existing report the user will be permitted to modify the data points of the report and, additionally, save the report for later viewing'.
I worked through a basic report using SSAS and SSRS; this certainly worked but I found it to be a little bit to involved with needing to open report builder, specify the cube that should be used, and so on not to mention that the Report Builder (SSRS2K5) is pretty vanilla. The people that will be looking at these reports are certainly not technical people and my concern is that this process will be completely overwhelming. I did find this component and it is much more user friendly since the data source can be set dynamically at runtime and all the user has to focus on is what data they want to see.
Does SSAS/SSRS offer any other methods for ad hoc reporting other than using Report Builder to connect to cubes and going from there? Does anyone know of, or used, any products similar to Active Analysis that they might recommend? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Excel 2007 and 2010 actually has connection ability to adhoc query and analyze data from an SSAS cube. Excel have a host of features that allows interaction with the cube including using pivot tables and data mining plugins to analyze the data.
simple example here:
http://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertutorial/2016/using-excel-and-creating-a-pivot-table-report/
SSRS2012 Power View in Sharepoint mode (soon in Excel) - overview is here: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/3726.power-view-overview-en-us.aspx
Not quite sure what is meant by "user can modify the data points of the report" but with Excel 2007 / 2010 you can use the What If Analysis feature to modify the data in a pivot table. You can also combine that with Analysis Services writeback feature to enable some pretty cool data modelling functionality.
If you're looking for what I call "exploratory analysis" (i.e. you don't know what you're looking for in the analysis) then a product like our ActiveAnalysis component, PowerPivot, or Tableau are all good tools (note that a key difference being that our ActiveAnalysis is a developer component that you can cheaply embed into applications, and the other two are strictly end user tools).
However, if you have users who want to be able to create an "operational report" or they might want to customize existing reports those are probably not ideal tools. We actually created ActiveReports Server specifically for this type of scenario. It is a drag & drop business-user-friendly ad-hoc reporting tool that sounds like it might be more appropriate for the "not technical people" that it sounds like you're dealing with. It does not depend on SSAS and works all inside of a web browser, so nothing to deploy.
Scott Willeke
Product Manager | ActiveReports Server
GrapeCity
Working on SQL Server Monitoring Product and want to add SSRS monitoring capabilities in this.
When i try to search on web description/details of Report server Database i.e. ReportServer${InstanceName} and ReportServer${InstanceName}TempDB
But there is no description/details found on it.
But rather i found on Microsoft Forum as
"writing queries against the SSRS DB is not supported and the schema, content, interpretation of the content is subject to change without notice." on This Link comment of Lukasz
I only concern is it true that Microsoft don't provide this Info.
Why Microsoft dont provide this info even though we are paying lot of amount for this product?
am i suppose to drill down each and every table in above both the DBs and apply my logic to find monitoring attributes?
If you know any other ways to get this details it will really helpful.
Thanks in Advance.
The best resource I know to get started with admin scripts that run against the ReportServer db can be found here: http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/42440a6b-c5b1-4acc-9632-d608d1c40a5c
With some tweaking, it could help you out.
I've been requested to implement a means of reporting on add/update/deletes on files stored sharepoint (MOSS 2007). After a little bit of research I found out sharepoint has out of the box document auditing which I enabled a couple days ago. I ran the report today, but excel spreadsheet was not very easy to look at.
Also I'm not positive of this, but I believe only site collection administrators can generate thsi audit report, and I dont really want to give the people who want these reports that much permission.
I'm curious what are some alternatives or recommendations? Should I try and get this information off the sQL Server and display it in reporting services, or perhaps try and build a include it in a dashboard?
Thanks
If you have access to the SSRS instance for SharePoint, you can get the report file. You can then make a copy and edit for the report you would like. permissions are a separate issue that can be tackled however you desire, especially if you create a copy and store as a new report.
I have an ASP.Net Web site that displays various SSRS reports using the Microsoft Report Viewer Control. I need to be able to specify a data source at runtime. It seems like I should be able to just specify the name of a "shared" data source when I render the report, but I sure can't find a way to do that. The only thing I've found so far that works is to use an "embedded" data source. I'm not real crazy about that, but if that's my only option it will have to do.
Anybody know how to specify a shared data source at runtime?
This question is a little old, but if there is already a custom app accessing SSRS reports this Code Project might be a good solution.
I would like to use SQL Reporting Services 2008 to generate my reports, but I want to use my own UI for specifying the report type, columns, parameters and everything. I want to be able to take these criteria, and then kick off an asynchronous request to SSRS and have the report emailed to me. Is this possible? I don't want to go all the way down the road of researching SQL Reporting Services 2008 only to find that it doesn't do what I need it to do. Also, I will have a ton of DB partitions that the data will need to be pulled from. Some reports will need to pull data from only one of these, but other ones may actually need to span different databases. Is it possible when sending a report request to SSRS to specify what servername/database to pull the data from? Is it possible to tell it to take the data from multiple databases and combine it? Thanks.
Like Crystal Reports, ActiveReports and other report generators, SSRS has two basic elements behind each report: the SQL query and the report layout. No matter what tool you use for the SQL -- it can be inline SQL in the report or a call to a stored procedure -- it's going to be the same query. Multiple databases are fine as long as you can specify them up front.
You can have parameterized queries, so the user is prompted to input the relevant filters (customer ID, product group, date range, whatever).
Doing the report layout is similar to other tools -- you drag and drop controls like labels onto the report, and set their formatting.
SSRS does provide a lot of options for distributing the report, including email. You can embed the report in an ASP.Net web page, leave it on the report server site for users to browse to, run it in the wee hours of the morning and cache it so every user doesn't have to wait for the lengthy query to run.
It's a great tool. I think it will be worth your effort to experiment with it. I would wait on creating the customized UI until you've exhausted the possibilities inherent in the tool.
SSRS is not designed with this scenario in mind, for that matter I am not sure that any out of the box reporting solution is going to have an elegant solution for this. While SSRS can do what you are asking (as well as others), it is by no means quick or easy. You seem to be looking for an advanced ad-hoc solution with dynamic sourcing of the data. I would first question the requirements and determine if the business scenario really justifies such an implementation. I would weigh custom building a solution vs your learning curve with a BI reporting solution. You may find that it is easier to just build something on your own.
I think the heterogeneous dynamic database mashup is probably going to be the most challenging part.
Depending on what your scalability requirements are, one place that has that part covered, and a report writer, is Access. (Duck! Incoming!)
I think you may be creating a rod for your own back to a certain extent as RS ships with a few interfaces for report creation.
Mind you the end product is an rdl file which is nothing but xml, so you can write them by hand if you really like.
Multiple data sources are supported, but combining them on a single control/chart/etc are not, so you'll need to configure yourself a cross database capability from one of your data-sources prior to the report request if you want to do that.