I've been pulling my hair out for almost a week now trying to figure out how to insert a line graph into a form in Access 2013 to plot temperature vs time. Just a simple x/y line graph, with time on the bottom and temp as the y axis. I cannot for the life of me find any sort of introductory "how to use ms graph" help file, forum, or tutorial. I'm not at all familiar with using SQL to write my own queries, and everything that access has generated for me might as well be complete nonsense. None of it looks anything like a line chart, and looking through the code that it made, I can't figure out how to modify it to suit my needs. Is there anyone who can explain how to format a Microsoft Graph to display data from a table where the first column is a DateTime and the second is an integer, so that I'm looking at plot of temperature over time? It blows my mind that a database program should have such a user-unfriendly approach to analyzing data visually.
Also, because I've seen this in other forums, I'm trying to avoid any interaction with excel. The end goal here is to make a form that will run using MS Access runtime to analyze information gathered from a PLC, to provide a neat little visualization for the machine's operators. I just can't believe that I managed to get the form to call the right DLLs to pull data from a PLC, but Access's built-in chart is kicking my butt!
Pivot chart reporting was removed in Access 2013 it was in 2010 but it seems that microsoft seem to be decapricating access in favour of excell which is getting most attention.
The nearest you can do is create a data connection to access then do the chart in excel
http://blogs.office.com/2013/01/22/visualize-your-access-2013-web-app-data-in-excel/
A bit pants I know, sorry
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I just recently started my first job doing reporting and analytical on a project team. Currently a lot of data and reports are sitting in excel spreadsheets and in some database tables. Reports are drawn from this data in a very manual adhoc approach. It would seem that this has/is quickly becoming very problematic as the reporting requirements are increasing rapidly. The project will soon be rolled out more quickly, and our manual efforts won't suffice. Currently we are spending a lot of time manually doing etl like activities, the results are then sliced and diced in excel, and graphs and tables exported for management. After which the process has to be repeated for the next reporting cycle. We need to implement some automation in this regard.
As this is only a medium term project a full blown etl and reporting solution seems out of the question- neither time nor resources permits. Being a fresh graduate I know what has to be done, i just don't know what tools, utilities and software to implement. Google is just confusing me more. Any suggestions? Really feeling like I'm in over my head.
If number of Excel files are in tens rather than hundreds, I would suggest importing them to Access manually, and/or with bit of VBA standardise the data before importing.
Then, you can use Access to make reports.
Essentially, answer to your question boils down to this: Is It Worth the Time?
I believe you really need at least a reporting tool for automate this job, a tool that really covers most of what you need it's DBxtra, it connects directly to MySQL, exports to Excel and it can send the exported results (or a pretty designed report) to anyone by email automatically (for example every Monday at 6:00 AM), the biggest problem is that you point that your data is not fully "curated" for reporting, but if you can implement SQL logic to clean it up then you can automate almost the full processs, otherwise, you can automate the exporting to Excel, do the clean up work by hand, and automate the sending of the report to the managament guys (DBxtra can also connect to Excel directly and create reports from it).
If you want to do it by hand, you can do an application on any .NET language and look up for a way to connect to MySQL (ADO.NET) and export to Excel (Excel Interop or third party library).
I have excel sheet with monthly sales/cost data. Every month I use excel to generate all sort of graphs and then publish them as a pdf. But I want others to be able to play around with the different data they have on the graphs. I want to publish reports on webpage which generate charts based on a table when it loads up.Then, I want the users to be able to use buttons or sliders to change the range of the dataset (mostly having dates or quaters or product type etc) and then the charts to update with the new results.
Also, can anyone help me find the equivalent of this doc for sql 2008? I am looking for charts like This
I did some reading and found that SSRS can create all the charts that Excel can do. But I don't know if it can do all the calculations as well?
I also read we can make pivot tables in sql but am not sure if they are the same as the ones in excel where we can use them to filter data and the graphs show the changes real time.
I also read about MS Chart Control using ASP.net but I don't know asp and I don't know how much would researching about it help me in my case.
I just want my visitors to be able to manipulate the dataset that is generating them graphs on their visit. Thats it. Dont' want to store their changes or anything.
What do you guys recommend?
btw I have sql 2008 in mind to do this.
Do you guys recommend me to use Access 2007
Do they need to view the report on a webpage or could it open in Excel (or the Excel IE browser plugin)? SoftArtisans OfficeWriter has the ability to design rich Excel reports for SSRS with a template-based approach. The output will be a true Excel file with live charts, formulas and pivot tables that can be manipulated by the user. The out-of-the-box Excel export functionality doesn't have real formulas and charts.
Disclaimer: I work for SoftArtisans
Excel Charts and ability to dynamically customize is a pretty advanced feature compared what is provided in SSRS... Matrix is the equivalent of pivot in SSRS. You can follow this MSDN article to get an idea of Tables, Matrices, and Lists (Report Builder and SSRS). This can be helpful in terms of Reproduce an Excel Pivot table in SSRS 2008
Here is a better tutorial if you could take a look..
The most important aspect would be:-
Set Datasource to Chart Control
Define Fields to be used by Chart Control
Using parameters would be the best catch on filtering datasets. So you will need to have a secondary dataset on top of the main dataset.
How to filter one dataset value with another dataset Table value in SSRS.
References:
Can SSRS use pivot tables such like excel drag and drop
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/sqlreportingservices/thread/4b4664e2-415b-41d4-99e6-1421aa70e7ac
Is there any way to alter the format of a graph in a Microsoft Access report programmatically?
I know my way around the automation of a report, I just don't know how to access the properties of an axis (or whatever) of a graph to change them.
Charting in access is almost the same as in excel. So if you need to know something record a macro in excel and you will see the code.
This is the best one can do while ever you are not showing code.
I'm fairly new to database programming in WinForms, and have been using BindingSource, DataSet, and TableAdapter controls to display data from an Access database in grid and Component One Chart controls.
The app is fairly simple right now - the user selects a row in the grid, and a related set of data points is plotted in the Chart control.
TThe BindingSource approach provided much instant gratification at first, but I'm now trying to make it work with Component One Report controls as well, and have started getting some run time errors that don't make sense at my current level of knowledge.
I'm starting to wonder if it's worth continuing on this path, or whether I should put my effort into a more powerful approach right from the beginning (LINQ looks very promising, for example).
My question - what are the limitations of the BindingSource approach compared to LINQ?
And how does ADO.Net compare?
-Tom Bushell
PS If you read this question, please vote it up so I can at least get enough rep points to start commenting. Thanks!
Unfortunately Linq to SQL is not supported with MS Access. As for ADO.NET, well you are already using it (DataSet is part of ADO.NET). If you meant ADO.NET Entity Framework, you are again out of luck as it also does not support MS Access.
If you switch to SQL Compact Edition you will be able to use other technologies (like Linq to SQL) but you will still find that a BindingSource or BindingList is the best way to get data bound to your winforms without implementing your own version.
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.