I'm trying to figure out how (if it is even possible) to allow a user to add a 'flag' to say when they have actioned a row in an SSRS report. This would need to carry back into the underlying tables.
Any help is appreciated; whether it is telling me this is impossible or giving me an idea of where to start.
No, this is not possible in Reporting Services. You will need to look into building your own solution in .NET
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is it possible to do a lookup in SSRS 2008 report from a Subreport? if so, can someone tell me how please?
No, the lookup function won't go beyond the scope of the report. Your question isn't very clear on what exactly you're trying to accomplish (which would be helpful) but I'll try to guess.
If you're looking to pass some values to the subreport from the parent's dataset you could check this blog post about doing that, though I haven't tried it myself. You could also use a shared dataset to avoid rewriting your queries if you need to use the dataset again in both of the reports.
According to this msdn social thread it doesn't appear to be possible to pass a value to the parent report from the subreport. However, another thread on sqlservercentral.com seems to have some promise but it didn't seem to work for everyone. Once again, I haven't tried it myself.
Good luck, and let us know if anything works!
I have report with some messages, and I would like to know is there a way for RS to have checkbox or link which will, when clicked mark message as read, or in other words, inserts/updates isRead column for that id?
Is this even possible?
Is it possible? Yes. Is it easy? Not a easy as most things in SSRS. Will it be elegant? Probably not.
You could create a check box icon which would link back to the report or some other action on the server. This would need to be set to handle a parameter indicating the checkbox clicked. Build a stored proc or other mechanism in the report to catch these clicks and make your column changes.
The biggest problem with this approach would be that, by default, the entire report would need to rerun and reload. You might be able to get something working that keep this smaller, but I'm not sure how.
My advice: don't do it. SSRS isn't designed to support this sort of interactivity with the data source. You'll be fighting against the tool. Look for another interface for this.
I would like to create an Access report in which the record source is created via ADO code and then set as the record source for the report when the report is run. The problem I am running into is how to add fields to the report since the recordset is bound to the report at run-time and not design time. Is there way I can manually add the field and make sure the field name matches what will be provided in the recordset field collection? Thank you.
The standard solution to this problem is to add all your fields in design view, up to the max available, and hide all of them, and show only the ones you need. Michael Kaplan explained that when he designed the Access Replication Conflict Resolver, this is the approach he used, precisely because adding controls at runtime quickly uses the lifetime limit on the number of controls on a form (700+, but I can't recall the exact number).
It's also just a bad idea, as #Jeff O says, to do design changes at runtime. For one, it means you can never distribute an MDE.
Several ways to do it, but all of them have their issues. create-dynamic report using vba
Other questions have found the folley in working in design mode programatically.
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.
I am developing a Reporting Services solution for a DOD website. Frequently I'll have a report and want to have as a parameter the Service (in addition to other similar mundane, but repetitive parameters like Fiscal Year, Data Effective Date, etc). Basically everything I've seen of SSRS 2005 says it can't be done... but I personally refuse to believe that MS would be so stupid/naive/short-sited to leave something like sharing datasets out of reporting entirely.
Is there a clunky (or not so clunky way) to share datasets and still keep the reporting server happy? Will SSRS2008 do this?
EDIT:
I guess I worded that unclearly. I have a stack of reports. Since I'm in a DoD environment, one common parameter for these reports is Service (army, navy, etc. for those non US users). Since "Business rules" cause me to not be able to use stored procedures; is there a way I can make 1 dataset and link to it from the various reports? Will Reporting 2008 support something like this? I'm getting sick of re-typing the same query in a bunch of reports.
I am not clear if you need to share a dataset, since you have some SQL results that you need to use twice, and don't want to re-compute the same data twice, or you want to do something regarding parameters. So with this "I didn't really understand the question" preface...
You cannot share a dataset. Meaning, you can't, lets say, have a dataset returning table A, and in dataset B try to join with A.
If this is really what you want to do, you could use temporary tables to store A and then in dataset B use the temporary table. There are best practices around that, but since I am not sure this is what you need, I won't spend time talking about that right now.
If you cannot use Stored Procedures, I hope you can use a view.
Else you could leave SQL Server and use CSV sheets as data storage.