Professional SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services

SQL Server reporting Services is the customizable reporting solution for report designers and programmers. This hands-on guide will get you up to speed quickly so you can design, deploy, manage, and even customize reporting solutions. You can create powerful reports without programming knowledge and extend reporting solutions using VB, C#, and ASP.NET.

Packed with detailed examples of building reports, designing report solutions, and developing deployment strategies for interacting with various platforms, this book prepares you to take full advantage of this revolutionary tool. Plus, you'll learn how to extend practically every feature of Reporting Services by implementing your own security architecture or adding custom data access.

What you will learn from this book

• Details of programming reports and report scripting
• Advanced report design, including drill-down reports, nested lists, drill-through, links and dynamic content
• High-level strategies for business and support systems
• Rendering reports using .NET code, .NET 10 namespace classes, and URL rendering deployment strategies to handle hardware, software, and platform considerations, licensing issues, and scaling options
• How to design reports for mobile services
• Various tools used to define data sources and semantic metadata models
• How to use parameters and expressions to define creative report solutions
• Advanced object-oriented programming techniques, with examples in C# and VB 2005.

Who this book is for

This book is for report designers, developers, administrators, and business professionals interested in learning the advanced functionality, report,server administration, and security issues of SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services.

Wrox Professional guides are planned and written by working programmers to meet the real-world needs of programmers, developers, and IT professionals. Focused and relevant, they address the issue technology professionals face every day. They provide examples, practical solutions, and expert education in new Technologies, all designed to help programmers do a better job.

Intended for both beginning and experienced report designers, this guide explains how reports process and render data, and provides instructions for query creation, SQL server database navigation, end user reporting with Report Builder, administration, and integration with other applications. The more advanced chapters provide code examples written in C# and VB.NET Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Paul Turley is a senior consultant for Hitachi Consulting. He architects database, reporting and business intelligence solutions for many prominent consulting clients. In addition to Reporting Services, he has created reporting solutions using Crystal Reports, Active Reports, and Access. Since 1988, he has managed IT projects, designed and programmed applications using Visual Basic 3, 4, 5, 6, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, and SQL Server. He obtained his MCSD certification in 1996 and other certifications include MCDBA, IT Project+, and Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) Practitioner.

He designed and maintains www.Scout-Master.com, a web-based service that enables Boy Scout units to manage their membership and advancement records online using ASP.NET, SQL Server, and Reporting Services.

Paul authored Beginning Transact SQL for SQL Server 2000 and 2005. He has been a contributing author on books and articles including Professional Access 2000 Programming, Beginning Access 2002 VBA, and SQL Server Data Warehousing with Analysis Services, all from WROX Press.

Todd Bryant has been creating custom data-focused applications and reporting solutions since the early eighties. He began using Microsoft technologies in 1998, and the love affair began. Todd has been contract programming, teaching, and developing custom courseware ever since. He is currently working half-time as a software architect for SoftWyre, a Little Rock, Arkansas, based software development company as well as training half-time at Netdesk Corporation in Seattle, where he concentrates on enterprise solutions, Com+ services, and object-oriented programming using both VB.NET and C#. His certifications include the MCSD, MCSE, MCDBA, and MCT certifications from Microsoft; the CNA certification from Novell; and both CompTIAa??s A+ and CTT+.

James Counihan started teaching himself binary in the early 1970s. He is now a Seattle-area consultant specializing in development on the .NET platform.

Dave DuVarney is a principal for Stateraa??s Seattle office. He has broad technical knowledge stemming from his experiences as a software developer, a certified public accountant, and a technology trainer. Dave has been involved in multiple software development projects ranging from contract management systems to human rights auditing. He is proficient in numerous development languages as well as Microsoft business intelligence technologies. Most recently he has been consulting and delivering on SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services, Reporting Services, and Integration Services. Dave is the coauthor of Professional SQL Server Reporting Services.

Acknowledgments.

Foreword I.

Foreword II.

Introduction.

Part One: Getting Started.

Chapter 1: What Can You Do with Reporting Services?

Chapter 2: Introduction to Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services 2005.

Chapter 3: Reporting Services Architecture.

Part Two: Report Design.

Chapter 4: Basic Report Design.

Chapter 5: Designing Data Access.

Chapter 6: Advanced Report Design.

Chapter 7: Report Solution Patterns and Recipes.

Part Three: Enabling End User Reporting with Report Builder.

Chapter 8: Reporting Services Report Models.

Chapter 9: Report Builder.

Part Four: Administering Reporting Services.

Chapter 10: Report Management.

Chapter 11: Report Server Administration.

Part Five: Reporting Services Integration and the Reporting Services Web Services.

Chapter 12: Integrating Reporting Services into Custom Applications.

Chapter 13: Extending Reporting Services.

Appendix A:Migrating Access Reports.

Appendix B: Reporting Services Object Model.

Appendix C: Transact SQL Command Syntax Reference.

Appendix D: Transact SQL System Variables and Functions.

Index.