Report structure from table - reporting-services

I have a large project with a lot of reports, but the items in the reports are quite standard, reusable with parameters. So I've made subreports, that's OK. Now I assemble the reports by adding subreports to them by hand, plus setting the parameters, also by hand.
I think that this is not flexible enough, I'd like to have a table that defines the structure of the report: like one row per subreport, specifying the name and its parameter values. Then the report would be assembled together runtime in a list or something like that, by calling and inserting the subreport by name.
Is it possible somehow?

I can't think of a way to dynamically assemble a report like that without coding something that would generate the required RDL, upload it to the report server and then execute the report.
Another option might be to create one master report with all possible subreports in it. You could then use a table to control the visibility of each subreport, to simulate generating different reports. Obviously you don't want to execute long running queries for subreports that are hidden, so you would have to add a parameter to all your subreports so that if the subreport is hidden the dataset returns no data, e.g.
WHERE
(....) OR (#SubReportHidden = 'Hidden' AND 1=0)

Related

SSRS - Two different reports in one Excel?

I am pretty new to SSRS, so forgive me if I am asking something that is either obviously not possible (or easy) - I haven't found what I am looking for so far!!
I have a Detailed report, which splits by group onto multiple Excel tabs (pages). I also have a separate Summary report which outputs onto one page.
I want to merge these two into one report, so the users receive just one email, with tab 1 showing the Summary report and tab 2 on wards showing all the Detail.
The datasets come from two stored procedures and whilst related, they are different so I can't use the same dataset.
Is this possible in SSRS?
Thanks
Mark
Take your Detailed report and insert a subreport at the start of it. Set the subreport properties to point your Summary report.
If you have any manually set parameters in the Summary report, you'll need to set them up in the Detailed report (if they don't already exist) so you can pass the parameters to the subreport.
Now you have a single report with everything in.

Access - Modular reusable subreport

I would like to create a report which I can use as a sub-report multiple times on the same parent report. However, each occurrence of the subreport should have different values.
For instance, there is a table called DailyReport.
Records in this table contain:
Date, member, team, description
The sub reports should be for each team within a certain date range. However, the date range per subreport/team will not be the same.
So, if the date range for all teams was consistent, then I could create a single subreport, and do some Ordering on the resulting records to separate things out into teams.
However, with inconsistent date ranges, I can't utilize a single query, so the most straight forward solution I see is to create separate subreports and queries for each range of each team.
The problem with this solution is that if I decide to change the format of the subreports I must do so in each specific subreport--a lot of duplicate work.
I would like to create a generic query and subreport. The query and sub report would call VB functions which would return the relevant value.
This means my parent report has the same generic report on it multiple times. As each subreport is rendered, I would like to increment a value behind the scenes so that the functions which the generic query and subreport call know to return a different value.
However, it seems that's not how things work in Access. The subreports on a report are not rendered linearly. A subreport is created, and then "stamped" onto a report where ever required. This means that all of my generic subreports have the same data.
How can I define a generic report and query? Then plug in different values into the report and query while the report is being reused multiple times on the same parent report.
You need to look into the LinkMasterFields and LinkChildFields property of reports. They are designed for exactly this purpose -- to filter a subreport based on current data in the main report, without needing any code or even queries.
You are correct that LMF/LCF do not work on date ranges, only values. So use LMF/LCF for the team filter.
For the date range filtering, you can use an unbound form that launches the report as two parameters defined in the base query. Create frmLaunch, and add two text boxes minDate and maxDate. Set their Format property to Short Date so Access with interpret them correctly and provide the date pickers. Now modify the base query, adding two Date/Time parameters [Forms]![frmLaunch]![minDate] and [Forms]![frmLaunch]![maxDate]. Now, find your date field and set its criterion to Between [Forms]![frmLaunch]![minDate] and [Forms]![frmLaunch]![maxDate]. Add a button to frmLaunch that runs the code DoCmd.OpenReport "YourReportName", acViewPreview.
So, the goal was to make it possible to re-use the same sub-report multiple times on the same parent report, with full flexibility on how the subreport retrieves data.
I placed multiple instances of the same subreport on a parent report. On the subreports Open event I placed a line like
Me.Report.RecordSource = "SELECT * FROM someTable WHERE " & getCriteria()
nextCriteria()
Maybe its possible to pass a value that identifies which instance of the subreport is opening to the getCriteria function. Probably like a getCriteria(Me.Report.Name). But in this case I kept track of how many subreports had been produced in vb.
Unfortunately, if your subreport has controls which have a data source which is a vb function, all reports will show the same value for that control. To get around this I added something like getSomeValue() & "As [Some Value]" into the SELECT of the SQL statement above. Don't forget to add single quotes or hashes around getSomeValue() if you are passing a String or date.
That's basically it, it's a pain. But I couldn't find a more elegant way to do it.
Edit:
One major caveat I experience with doing this, is that although the print preview works correctly, when actually printing or exporting to PDF, some subreports would not be included. Maybe there is something else causing this...

use expression to dynamically decide which subreport to open

I have a report that contains several pages with graphs, tables and so on.
This report is used by different customers who always want small modifications to the report. At the moment if a customer wants a change on page 5 the whole report is recreated with the modifications, even though the only change is in the graph on page 5.
More so, some customers don't want to see page 3, others want a custom table at page 6.
My boss would like the report to be modular so he can simply switch parts on/off depending on what the customer wants. At the moment a change in a report means development followed by deployment.
My idea is to create a report with a number of subreports. Each graph/table would be a subreport so that if a change is needed we only need to change thàt specific subreport.
Ideally a dataset would be attached to the mainreport detailing which subreport to show: for customer X we would show SubreportX, Customer Y would see subreportY.
I know this can be done by adding all possible subreports to the mainreport and switching visibility per subreport but more elegant would be to dynamically decide which subreport to show. On drillthrough reports this is possible by using an expression to determine which report to open;
eg IIF(customer = X, "subreportX", "SubreportY")
but is this possible with subreports?
To be clear: I am looking for a way to decide dynamically at the moment of opening the report which subreports to show. Something like using an expression to get the name of the wanted subreport.
I have been searching for this (in VS2012 and through Google) but I cannot seem to find a definitive answer whether it is possible to decide at opening the report which subreports to show....
I found the following but again that seems merely to be using toggling visibility:
Dynamic subreport in SSRS 2008
I am very much hoping for suggestions, answers or even general directions. Thanks for thinking with me!
I would create a Dataset that returns the list of valid subreports for the selected Customer. I would add all the possible subreports to the master report. I would set the Visibility property of each sub-report using a Lookup expression, targeting that dataset.

Get data from a subreport into the main report

I have made one main report containing a few subreports. At the end I would like to compare some figures from the different parts of the report and also make some calculations with numbers received from the different parts.
Does anybody know a way to get values from the subreport into the main report? All calculations e.g. aggregates that will be made at the end refer only to the dataset for the main part and the other subreports have their own datasets, fetched from other tables.
I must second #JoaoLeal's comment, I think the method you propose (retrieving data from a subreport in the main report) is technically not possible.
However, there's another way to achieve what you want (show aggregate info on the data displayed in subreports). You could encapsulate your dataset queries in a way that they can be reused by the main report. There are two main/basic options:
Use a stored procedure to query the data
Use a database view for the data
Your datasets will be very simple: the subreports will select all the data. The main report can then either have a dataset query that aggregates data appropriately from the view / proc, or also retrieve all results and do the aggregation in SSRS.
I think in RDLC report there is no way for share variable between main report and subreport . So the only way is use another dataset or passing new vaiable. Hope this will help...
I have myself managed to achieve what I expected through using different datasets on the main form which also contains data for the sub reports.
But also I found this way (not tested):
[Reports]![YourReportName]![YourSubReportName]![TheValueFromTheSubReportYouWantToReference]
There is also a long discution about this on SQL Server Central.

SSRS 2005 report with multiple datasets need to change parameter

All,
I've been working on a custom timesheet report that uses multiple datasets (8 to be exact). Each dataset selects the data by the same ID field which is currently input as a parameter. It works great like that. But now I'm told that the end user wants to input a date and have all the reports printed out for that date rather than having to enter in an ID each time. Each timesheet is 2 - 3 pages. It is intended to emulate a form and contains some data but a lot of blank areas to allow the field people to write in any changes that have occurred.
My question, is this: what is the best way of accommodating the new requirement? Should I build it all as one big dataset and use the date as a parameter?
Should I create a wrapper report that would prompt for the date and then use the existing report as sub report? Would that even work?
Is there any way I can just create a new date parameter and put that ahead of the ID parameter and get them to print out like that? I've got a few hidden parameter fields on the body that get used in the page header and are used to link some of the datasets.
any help is appreciated.
Easiest way to achieve this is indeed by creating a wrapper report with the date parameter. The data set in this report will then fetch all items (with ID) that match the query by the user. The report can then have a list for that dataset, with the original report as a subreport. If you pass the ID parameter from the dataset to the subreport you wouldn't need to change hardly anything in the original report.
Two things to watch out for:
the Report Header and Footer in a subreport are not rendered - these are only rendered for the wrapper report
you may need to tweak your page breaks in the subreport and on the new list in the wrapper report so each new form starts on a fresh page