SQL Server 2016 Reporting Services Cookbook

Table of Contents

SQL Server 2016 Reporting Services Cookbook

Credits

About the Authors

About the Reviewers

www.Packtpub.com

Why subscribe?

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book 

Who this book is for 

Sections

Getting ready

How to do it…

How it works…

There's more…

See also

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Downloading the color images of this book

 Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Getting It Ready – Configuring Reporting Services

Introduction

Selecting the edition

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

See also

Installing Reporting Services with default configurations

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

See also

Installing Reporting Services-related tools

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

See also

Accessing Reporting Services Configuration Manager

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

See also

Configuring the service account of Reporting Services

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Configuring Reporting Services URLs

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Configuring the Reporting Services database

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

See also

Executing post-installation tasks

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

2. Authoring Reports with SQL Server Data Tools

Introduction

The designer tool - exploring SSDT

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Visual Studio 2015 support

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating reports with a table data region

Getting ready...

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Creating reports with a matrix data region

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating reports with a chart data region

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more....

Managing and configuring parameters

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

3. Advanced Report Authoring with SQL Server Data Tools

Introduction

Creating reports with multiple axis charts

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating reports with multiple data regions

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating reports with nested data regions

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating reports with a map data region

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Creating reports with cascading parameters

Getting ready

How to do it....

How it works...

Creating reports with dynamic datasets

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

How to publish reports

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

How to view the XML code related to reports

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

4. Authoring Reports with Report Builder

Introduction

Is this for a developer or business user?

Getting ready...

How to do it...

How it works...

Enhancements to Report Builder

Getting ready...

How to do it...

How it works...

Connecting Report Builder to Reporting Services

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

How to design reports with the wizard

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

How to design reports manually

Getting ready...

How to do it...

How it works...

Working with published data sources

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Working with published datasets

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

How to publish reports to Reporting Services

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Working with published report parts

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Changing reports published in Reporting Services

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

5. Improving User Experience – New Designing and Visualization Enhancements

Introduction

Positioning parameters

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Visualizing data with modern styles

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Visualizing data with the TreeMap data region

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Visualizing data with the Sunburst data region

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Integrating R with Reporting Services

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

See also

6. Authoring Reports with the Mobile Report Publisher

Introduction

Understanding the new Mobile Report Publisher

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

How to create a mobile report

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Using simulated data

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Setting up data sources

Getting ready

How to do it....

How it works...

How to use datasets for mobile reporting

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Understanding mobile report graphical elements

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Understanding the mobile report layout

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Configuring navigators

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Configuring parameters for drill-through reports

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

7. Consuming Reports – Report Access Enhancement

Introduction

Exploring the new Web Portal

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Managing reports with the Web Portal

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Viewing reports on any web browser

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Caching the report

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Refreshing the cache

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Creating a KPI with predefined values

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Creating a KPI with shared datasets

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Customizing the look-and-feel of the Web Portal

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Printing reports with the PDF rendering extension

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Embedding reports in other applications

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

See also

8. Reporting Solutions for BI – Integration

Introduction

Making Reporting Services as a part of BI

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

See also

Creating a report using Multidimensional models

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Getting formatting from the Multidimensional model

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Getting aggregated values from the Multidimensional model

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Creating a report using Tabular models

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Connecting to the HDInsight cluster and getting unstructured data

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

See also

9. SharePoint Integration

Introduction

Configuring SharePoint for Reporting Services

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Handling security with SharePoint

Getting ready

How to do it...

Adding a user to your SharePoint site

Altering permissions to a document library

Altering permissions to a specific report item

Removing a user's permissions from a report

How it works...

There's more...

Creating dashboards using Reporting Services

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Configuring e-mail with SharePoint

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Configuring subscriptions

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Configuring data alerts

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

10. Administering and Managing Reporting Services

Introduction

Managing data sources

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Assigning configured data sources to published reports

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Caching reports

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Creating snapshots of reports

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Backing up Reporting Services

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Monitoring Reporting Services

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

11. Securing Reports in Reporting Services

Introduction

Authenticating users for Reporting Services

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Becoming a Report Portal System Administrator

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Authorizing users for accessing reports via SSRS roles

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Creating new roles in Reporting Services

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Editing existing roles in Reporting Services

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Filtering data for the current user

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Handling security on shared data sources

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Securing the channel using certificates

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

12. Custom Programming and Integration to .NET Applications

Introduction

Adding embedded codes to reports

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Referencing external .NET assemblies

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

Opening reports using URL access

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Using ReportViewer control for accessing reports

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

SQL Server 2016 Reporting Services Cookbook

SQL Server 2016 Reporting Services Cookbook

Copyright © 2016 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: November 2016

Production reference: 1211116

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

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ISBN 978-1-78646-181-0

www.packtpub.com

Credits

About the Authors

Dinesh Priyankara  is an experienced professional and database enthusiast with skills in database management systems and business intelligence, especially on the Microsoft SQL Server product suite. Possessing over 16 years of experience on data related technologies, he does training, consulting, and is a top contributor to the local SQL Server community. In recognition of his contributions and expertise he has demonstrated, he was awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award for SQL Server for 11 consecutive years since 2006.

Dinesh is the Founder/Principal Architect of dinesQL (Pvt) Ltd (http://dinesql.com), a company that provides services on database, business intelligence, and training. In his spare time, he runs a blog at http://dinesql.blogspot.com  with a follower base of over 100,000 from around the world and is a co-organizer of SQL Server Sri Lanka User Group (http://www.meetup.com/ssslug/).

Even though he has written many articles on the database area, this is his first official book as a co-author.

I would like to especially thank my daughter, Minupama Dulnethmi, who always encouraged me to complete my book with her fullest support. And I would also like to thank all of my family members and friends who helped on this in many ways.

My sincere appreciation to the entire team at Packt Publishing, with special thanks to Amrita Noronha and Vinay Argekar.

Robert C. Cain (http://arcanecode.com) is a Microsoft MVP, MCTS Certified in BI, and is the owner of Arcane Training and Consulting, LLC. He is also a course author for Pluralsight, with over 11 courses to his credit. Robert is a team mate at Linchpin People, and co-author of four books.

A popular speaker, Robert has presented at events such as the SQL PASS Summit, IT/Dev Connections, TechEd, CodeStock, and numerous SQL Saturdays. Robert has over 25 years’ experience in the IT industry, working in a variety of fields including manufacturing, insurance, telecommunications and nuclear power.

I would like to thank my wife and daughters for their patience as I worked on this book. I also wish to thank my coauthor, Dinesh. Without his help, this book would not have been possible. My editor, Amrita, needs special thanks; this book would not be what it is without her patience and guidance.

I would also like to thank two long-time mentors. The first is Adam Curry. From his humble beginnings as a radio personality and MTV VJ, Adam became a pioneer in the early days of the Internet. In addition, his implementation of the podcasting platform opened a wealth of knowledge to both myself and many others.

I would also be remiss not to acknowledge John C. Dvorak. From his early columns in PC Magazine to his various TV shows and podcasts, John provided a wealth of information that guided my career.

Finally, I would like to thank the pair of them for their work on The No Agenda Show ( http://noagendashow.com ). I spent many late nights working on the demos for this volume listening to their entertaining and informative podcast.

About the Reviewers

Gogula Aryalingam is a database and business intelligence professional with more than 11 years of experience in the field. He is a Microsoft MVP for 9 years on the data platform and SQL Server, and PASS Regional Mentor for South Asia. His passion is in building business intelligence solutions, writing about the things he works with and talking about them. He is actively involved with the technical community; he co-runs the SQL Server user group in Colombo, Sri Lanka, speaks at local and international technical events and blogs his experiences. Gogula possesses an MSc and is a Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert, while also having played a part in developing exams for Microsoft certifications.

Dave Wentzel is a Data Solutions Architect at Microsoft with the Azure Enablement Team.  He helps customers with their Digital Transformation, focused on all things data science, big data, and SQL Server. He knows how to converge big, fast, and unstructured data with traditional relational data to create actionable intelligence. He takes his customer experiences and feedback back to the product groups at Microsoft to make better solutions. Dave has been working with SQL Server for, let’s just say, a long time, and with SSRS since its infancy. Dave shares his experiences at http://davewentzel.com/.  He’s always looking for new customers. Would you like to engage?

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Preface

SQL Server 2016 Reporting Services is truly revolutionary. SQL Server Reporting Services saw few enhancements since the SQL Server 2008R2 release. With SQL Server 2016, all of that has changed.

Many longstanding complaints of users have been addressed. Reports now render in HTML 5, allowing compatibility across a multitude of platforms. The old Report Manager has received a major overhaul, and with that a new name, the Report Portal.

The Report Portal provides many new capabilities. It will, of course, host the traditional SSRS reports (now renamed Paginated Reports). Now, though, it can host a variety of other items, such as KPIs and PowerBI Desktop reports.

An exciting new addition is the Mobile Report Publisher, allowing you to create reports that can easily be viewed across computers, tablets, and phones.

The installation and configuration has been enhanced and streamlined to make setting up a new instance of Reporting Services even easier. Management tools have been updated as well, providing an easier to use experience for administrators.

In this book, we’ll explore all the new, exciting enhancements that come with SQL Server 2016 Reporting Services. The recipes have been designed to get you up to speed quickly, allowing you to jump right in to all the great features included in SSRS 2016.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Getting It Ready  – Configuring Reporting Services, will show you how to plan for and install Reporting Services. We’ll see how to configure SSRS for Native mode, as well as gain an understanding of backend databases.

Chapter 2, Authoring Reports with SQL Server Data Tools, will begin your authoring of reports by working with SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT). You’ll see how to create a variety of reports using tables, matrixes, as well as charts. Finally, you’ll see how to publish reports to the SSRS server from within SSDT.

Chapter 3, Advanced Report Authoring with SQL Server Data Tools, will continue your education on SSDT by moving into some advanced report topics. You’ll learn how to use multiple datasets in the same report, and create charts and tables with multiple axis. You’ll also get a view of SSRS behind the scenes, looking at the XML code used within an SSRS report file.

Chapter 4, Authoring Reports with Report Builder, will focus on the newly revamped Report Builder tool. You’ll see how an end user could leverage this tool to create a variety of objects. Not just reports, but data sources and data sets.

Chapter 5, Improving User Experience – New Designing and Visualization Elements, will focus on the new visualization and design elements introduced with SSRS. You’ll see the new Sunburst and Treemap charts, as well as learning how to integrate the R language into your reports.

Chapter 6, Authoring Reports with the Mobile Report Publisher, explains that Microsoft addresses the need for reporting on mobile devices, such as phones and tablets, through the addition of the Mobile Report Publisher. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to use this brand-new tool to create reports customized for a variety of platforms.

Chapter 7, Consuming Reports – Report Access Enhancement, will explore the new Report Portal, the redesigned Report Manager. You’ll see how to manage reports and data caching. You’ll also see how to create the new KPIs, as well how to customize the portal for your environment.

Chapter 8, Reporting Solutions for BI – Integration, shows that Reporting Services is not the only tool in a BI developer’s tool box. In this chapter, you’ll see how to integrate other tools, such as PowerBI and SQL Server Analysis Services, into your SSRS reports.

Chapter 9, SharePoint Integration, explains that, in addition to the Report Portal, SharePoint can also act as a host for your SSRS reports. In this chapter, you’ll see how to configure SharePoint and SSRS to work together.

Chapter 10, Administering and Managing Reporting Services, reveals that as good as Reporting Services is just out of the box, understanding how to manage key components will make the experience even better. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to manage data sources, history, caching, scheduling, and other key topics that will create a better experience for your users.

Chapter 11, Securing Reports in Reporting Services, highlights that it is critical to protect your data from unauthorized eyes. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to secure your server and its reports. In addition, you’ll find recipes explaining how to secure the data within your reports.

Chapter 12, Custom Programming and Integration to .NET Applications, explains that .NET developers often have need to integrate reporting into their application. In this chapter, we’ll see the various techniques developers can use leverage the power of SSRS within their programs.

What you need for this book 

To work through the recipes in this book, you will, of course, need a copy of SQL Server 2016. If you don’t have one, Microsoft has now released the SQL Server 2016 Developer Edition as a free download, and it will work just fine for working through the recipes.

You can download the developer edition at:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-editions-developers

or use the shortcut:

http://bit.ly/sql2016dev

In addition, you will want a copy of the brand-new SQL Server 2016 sample database, WideWorldImporters. Specifically, the data warehouse version of the sample, WideWorldImportersDW, was used for the examples in this book. You can find the samples on GitHub, at:

https://github.com/Microsoft/sql-server-samples/tree/master/samples/databases/wide-world-importers

or use the shortcut:

http://bit.ly/wwisample

You also need AdventureWorks 2014 multi-dimensional and tabular databases since they were used with some examples. You can find the samples database at: https://msftdbprodsamples.codeplex.com/releases/view/125550

Who this book is for 

A wide variety of users will find this book valuable. Naturally, IT Professionals whose chief duties are the development of reports will find these recipes useful.

In today’s world, many end users are also developing their own reports, using tools such as Report Builder and the Mobile Report Publisher. They will find the recipes quite useful as they continue to develop their own reports.

Additionally, system administrators who are responsible for installation, security, and maintaining Reporting Services will find valuable information herein to guide them as the manage SSRS.

Finally, we’ve included a whole chapter aimed at .NET developers, showing how to integrate SSRS directly into their applications.

Sections

In this book, you will find several headings that appear frequently (Getting ready, How to do it, How it works, There's more, and See also).

To give clear instructions on how to complete a recipe, we use these sections as follows:

Getting ready

This section tells you what to expect in the recipe, and describes how to set up any software or any preliminary settings required for the recipe.

How to do it…

This section contains the steps required to follow the recipe.

How it works…

This section usually consists of a detailed explanation of what happened in the previous section.

There's more…

This section consists of additional information about the recipe in order to make the reader more knowledgeable about the recipe.

See also

This section provides helpful links to other useful information for the recipe.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, path names, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: We can include other contexts through the use of the include directive. 

A block of code is set as follows:

[default]

exten => s,1,Dial(Zap/1|30)

exten => s,2,Voicemail(u100)

exten => s,102,Voicemail(b100)

exten => i,1,Voicemail(s0)

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

[default]

exten => s,1,Dial(Zap/1|30)

exten => s,2,Voicemail(u100)

exten => s,102,Voicemail(b100)

exten => i,1,Voicemail(s0)

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

# cp /usr/src/asterisk-addons/configs/cdr_mysql.conf.sample      /etc/asterisk/cdr_mysql.conf

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: clicking the Next button moves you to the next screen.

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.

Reader feedback

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