Reporting Services - Report reutilization - reporting-services

I have designed and tested a report and it's working fine.
After some refinements, we manage to reduce it so it takes only 1/8 of a page, so at 2 per "row" we can fit 4 rows in a regular A4 page.
Now, a requirement dropped out of nowhere saying that this report must be printed multiple times in a same page.
Is there a way to re-utilize my previous report as a template, maybe throw it into a "foreach"?
EDIT 1
I've managed to use the "subreport", what i need now is a way to add them on the fly, based on how many rows the dataset returns...

If each of the 8 reports has the same parameters, you can just create 8 subreports in one report.

A simple solution would be to place the subreport 8 times on your main report and define expressions whether to make them visible based on a parameter you provide.
It's not really that dynamic, but it'll get the job done. As you only want a single page filled, it shouldn't be much trouble.

Related

Which is a better approach, using 2 sub-reports or 2 tablix in an SSRS report?

I have 2 different data sources, and data from both the sources needs to be displayed on a single page.
There are 2 different approaches for this,
- using 2 different tablix, where each tablix will be linked to a different data source and
- using 2 subreports, where each sub report is a seperate report which is referenced into the main report.
Which is a better approach?
Question is opinion based so I will add my 2 cents.
I heavily use SSRS and I really like using it.
If you are happy to use 2 tablix on a page and can combine/adjust showing relevant data then go for it.
But if you wish to keep logic/ data separate in two reports then go for subreport.
Personally I like and use subreport a lot. I use them mostly when my data becomes complex and I want to show data in a single table.
But you should also consider maintaining 2 reports in this case and also you should have to check/dependencies on child and parent report.
If your requirement is to display both reports on a single page, you should just use two tablix, one for each of your data source.

Combining multiple drill through reports into one

First time posting here so please be kind.
I've come from using PowerBI to achieve pretty much everything I need to with a couple of clicks to using SSRS 2008... and I'm having a hard time. Here's what I'm trying to do:
I have a main report that summarizes some data on how long it takes to close down help desk tickets. On that report I have a table with summary figures (ie 220 tickets were picked up after 5 working days, 18 tickets were reopened etc). I want to click the text-box that contains 220 and be taken to a drillthrough report that contain the same table with column headers and just different row sets in each case. There will be 8 drill through actions in total and I currently have 8 drill through reports. Only 2 of those are parameter based, the others just filter the dataset based on some conditions.
What I'm trying to work out is this: can my 8 drill-through reports be rolled into one, if they're just different views of the same dataset? I've created some calculated columns with values (Yes/No because boolean doesn't allow multiple values) which are easier to pass to parameters. I also have 8 parameters on my detail data set. I've set up actions (where parameter1 = yes for instance) to take me to my detail report and use the corresponding parameter each time. It should work... but it doesn't and I can't work out why. Currently its' complaining that I can't compare a boolean to an int16 - neither the value in my calculated column nor the default parameter value is boolean or int. So, am I trying to do something that just isn't possible? Has anyone else achieved this?
Edit: here's the parameter
The error I'm getting is
The calculated column that should be checked against the parameter is
=IIF(IsNothing(Fields!DatePickedUpByAgent.Value), "Yes", "No").
Here's how I defined the action to take me to the drill through report in this case
Here are the filters on the subreport dataset based on the parameters passed through from the main report. "NotYetPickedUpByAgent" is the example we've been discussing here. enter image description here
Could you please go through each of your parameters one by one.
I would suggest deleting all the filters and trying to run the report and subreport.
Then keep adding filter one by one.
I think issue can be any of the filter and not the one you think.

2 Page Report per record

I am having issues recreating an old report with SSRS. The original report would pull about 5-6 records from SQL, and then have a corresponding 2 page report for each record. This would be easy if I could just create an individual report for each record, which is possible, but is not what is being asked of me.
I need to be able to have 2 pages for each record I return. For example:
Page 1 will have a different table than page 2 for the same record and will be view-able as:
record 1:
page 1,2
record 2:
page 3,4
record 3:
page 5,6
No grouping is necessary for records. They just need multiple pages to repeat.
Someone I work with suggested a sub-report, but I'm not sure how that would work.
I use the report builder to create reports.
Thanks for any help. I will gladly clarify if necessary.
The nature of SSRS is that it grows based on whatever data is available when it is run. In order to force it to take up two pages per record, you'll need to set a placeholder. One way to do that is to have a table that spans two pages. Make sure the "CanShrink" property is set to False for the cells in at least one of the columns. You can remove the borders to make the column invisible if the length of the report varies.
Next, you can add columns as needed for your other report data. It doesn't really matter if you want to use a subreport or not, either way will work.

Matrix report - Page breaks for each column group

I'm using VS2005 to create my reports.
I have a matrix report that works beatifully. I have country going down on the left hand side (row group called "matrix1_country_name") and data going across for 2 column groups, product_node and month (column groups "matrix1_Node" and "matrix1_calendar_month_name" respectively)
The only thing I want to improve is that this report will always show 5 year/60 months of data, and with multiple nodes I'd rather have each node be on its own page (Ideally I'd love to have it on the same page but in the rows just below to first node, but I'm not sure that's even possible).
I've seen numerous responses on these boards about putting in page breaks on column groups, but I can't seem to find how to do that in VS2005. The examples I've read that can do that seem to have a different interface so I'm guessing they aren't in VS2005.
Does VS2005 allow you to add page breaks after each group item and I'm just missing it? Or is there a trick I can do to get that to happen? I've also read about nestin matrix reports in list reports but that seems more complicated than doing the page break on the column group, so I'd rather do the easiest solution if I can.
Ah, I see pagebreaks are ignored on column_groups. Well I guess I'll try one of these workarounds.
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sqlreportingservices/thread/ea9d795b-8d17-41d2-a1d7-a4069ebb4539

Building a rdl report for CRM

I'm creating my first report for CRM 2011 using SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio and i've managed to do a decent amount but as I move into the more complex parts i'm becoming stuck, and I was wondering if someone would be able to help me with a few questions I have:
I'm using fetchXml to get the data from CRM for some accounts that the report is for, I need to include some data from a child entity but can't include them in the same way that I can for a parent entity to accounts. So for this I'm assuming I need to use a separate fetch query, but how do I pass the ID of the account the report is looking at into the second fetch query as a parameter?
Once I've got the names of all the child items with the fetchXml, whats the easiest way to display them all in a numbered list?
EDIT: For 1 and 2 I found that I can use a subreport with the child data in it. Using a list item I can show all in a bulleted list and I can pass the parameter through from the main report to the subreport
I'm listing the account's address on the report but since they might or might not have the lines 2 and 3 fields completed i'm unsure of how to display it without either missing off some of the address or leaving big gaps. I've tried creating different text boxes with the different combinations of line 1, 2 and 3 and then make only one visible with the use of expressions but the iif statement always returns false. Is there an easier way to do this?
EDIT: I've found out how to do this using a number of different text boxes containing the different combinations and hiding them using the visibility rule. What was initially confusing though is that the rule is for if the box should be hidden, rather than if it should be shown
When I add a field onto the report it always has a "First()" statement on it. Is this required or will it limit my report in any way?
EDIT: This doesn't seem to have an effect on the report as the record to run it against is always selected beforehand, so the First() statement doesn't restrict any data
If anyone could help me with any of these questions at all then that would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
I've found the answers to my questions, i've put them in the original post.