“But SSRS can’t do that!” A guide to some of the more advanced features of SSRS, and how you can utilise them to do things you maybe didn’t think you could Getting more out of SSRS

Who am I (and who are you?)  Oz Locke  BI Analyst  Employed by Principality Building Society  Worked/works with: SSRS, SQL, MDX, HTML, CSS, SharePoint, Excel, LaTeX…  Loves all things tech  Learning JavaScript I’m pretty experienced with SSRS, what about you?

What are we going to talk about?  Some perceived limits of SSRS  Some features that can let us overcome them  Some practical uses of these features What if I know it all already? No point being bored, I won’t be offended if you sneak off for a coffee What are we going to see?  A list of some of these features  An explanation of some things we can do with them  A demo showing these features in use  A review of the build of the demo and how the features were used

So what are these features?  Parameters  Let users control what they see, dictate how a report is shown or even store values  Custom datasets  Let us create dropdowns exactly as we need them, and store local data  Built-in fields  Let us change the report based on it’s condition, user, runtime…  Actions  Not just report links; linked with parameters we can make dynamic reports

What can we do with parameters?  Let users change data ranges  Let users change how they see the report  Let users add commentary to their report  Add dynamic text and other elements to your report  Store choices when drilling down to another report…  …and then send those choices back up again

What can we do with custom datasets?  Create better datasets for parameter dropdowns  Write data locally that can be used by the report

What can we do with actions?  Drill down to other reports  Turn text boxes into buttons  Redirect to the same report with altered parameters for interactive reporting  Create dynamic and rules based actions for extra control

What can we do with built-in fields?  Dictated displays and actions based on set conditions  Automatically display as raw data when exported to Excel  Get the best visual presentation in any render format  Create pagination and runtimes  Restrict visibility based on current user, time of day, and much more  Change presentation based on current environment (great for reports in test)  Create a swish nav-bar when combined with Actions

Can we see it all in action? Let’s all pray to the Demo Gods, because it’s time to explore an example report using everything we’ve talked about!

Is there anything else?  There’s huge potential in combining these features  SSRS even allows you to add variables and custom code!  I’ve created custom code for aggregating on Lookups  With caching and subscriptions you can do even more Just remember; there’s rarely a time when you can’t make SSRS do what you want. Stack Overflow alone is full of amazing questions and answers that have saved my hide.

(Any questions?) Now’s your chance, ask away (I can’t promise I’ll have an answer though!)

“Thank you and goodnight!”