Early User Questions for developing large number of reports

Hi All,
Firstly, let me say who we are.....a group of us are developing a BI
product where we have decided to use Report Services as the reporting
tool. We are long term BI experts and IT consultants......We are
experienced in all manner of reporting and query tools we are just new
to RS. We settled on RS as our 'lower end' reporting tool for our
product and we will give our clients the 'option' of selecting other
reporting tools but the 'out of the box' reports will be in RS.
We have been dilligent and done our reading (WROX RS book) and testing
and figured out most of what we want to do. We have our first report up
and running and we are learning what the limits of RS seem to be to us.
So hopefully I will not ask too many 'dumb' questions... :-)
We also hope by asking questions here that other users of RS might also
benefit from the public discussion.
Q1. We are also working on our 'templates' for reports and looking at
how we develop a large number (200-300) of reports according to a
'template'. In the WROX Book they talk about codesmith and a way of
handling templates. But we didn't 'get' it...Also, when we try using
the VS.NET report wizard it seems that it insists on a query rather
than a stored procedure for it's data for the wizard to work.
So we are thinking we need to write each report by copying the rdl xml,
editting it by hand and then putting it into vs.net to further edit.
We have no real problem with that but we were thinking someone must
have come up with a better idea than editing the XML by now!!!
Has anyone published papers/ideas/tools (fee or free) to manage the
development and deployment of large numbers of reports?
Q2. We see MSFT has been out talking up RS2005/SQL Server 2005 and
talking about the pricing of SQL Server 2005. But we have not seen any
comment on the possible cost of RS2005 if it is NOT purchased with SQL
Server 2005. We would like to have the option of deploying our product
onto SQL Server with RS running either on that machine or elsewhere. Is
there any public comment from MSFT as to the possible pricing of RS2005
when not purchased with SQL Server?
Q3. Is there any published information on 'best practice' or 'best
examples of usage' of report services? For example MicroStrategy,
Business Objects etc post demos of their products to showcase the 'best
possible use' of the product. Dundas have also put out some really
great demos. But the RS demos from MSFTs web site look a little
'plain' especially the graphics. Are there any really great examples
of RS 'out there' or are the demos on the MSFT web site the best there
is? We have decided to go with DNN for the portal and we are currently
testing RS/DNN integration.
Q4. Layout of prompts on a report.
We have reports with quite a few prompts and they are 'grouped'. For
example we have a set of 4 prompts for the user to select the levels in
the company reporting structure. ANd then we have prompts for the
client to select year and month. Then we might have campaign structure
selection which is 3 levels....so we would like to lay out
Line 1: 4 prompts
Line 2: 2 Prompts
Line 3: 3 prompts
We are told this is not supported...but it also seems like it only
ever places two prompts on one line? If we cannot group prompts can we
at least get it to put more than 2 prompts per line?
Thanks in Advance
Peter Nolan
www.peternolan.comRS is like most of the other MS products: a "back-end" tool with high
custimization available. You can extend it from many way.
Q2:
The licensing is the same as 2000. RS is part of SQL 2005 and if you want
report capabilities only, you have to buy a license of SQL 2005. But the RS
repository required SQL Server.
So for your answer, yes RS can be purchased "separatly" but at the full
price of SQL 2005.
Q3:
On the MS web site, there is some samples reports for different usage:
CRM, Exchange, Axapta, SQL Logs, RS logs.
Best pratices & usages depend on your needs.
Designing printing reports is different from web based usage only reports.
Today there is nothing except simple samples. But these small samples don't
limit me to use RS.
Generally I start from an overall report, then I link to detailed reports.
Q4:
Create you own prompt page if you want to create a specific layout.
Remember that RS is designed for developpers to include reporting capability
into their applications.
But there is a lack of sample and helps to create front end tools around RS.
"Peter Nolan" <peter@.peternolan.com> wrote in message
news:1120988013.636226.99630@.o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> Hi All,
> Firstly, let me say who we are.....a group of us are developing a BI
> product where we have decided to use Report Services as the reporting
> tool. We are long term BI experts and IT consultants......We are
> experienced in all manner of reporting and query tools we are just new
> to RS. We settled on RS as our 'lower end' reporting tool for our
> product and we will give our clients the 'option' of selecting other
> reporting tools but the 'out of the box' reports will be in RS.
> We have been dilligent and done our reading (WROX RS book) and testing
> and figured out most of what we want to do. We have our first report up
> and running and we are learning what the limits of RS seem to be to us.
> So hopefully I will not ask too many 'dumb' questions... :-)
> We also hope by asking questions here that other users of RS might also
> benefit from the public discussion.
>
> Q1. We are also working on our 'templates' for reports and looking at
> how we develop a large number (200-300) of reports according to a
> 'template'. In the WROX Book they talk about codesmith and a way of
> handling templates. But we didn't 'get' it...Also, when we try using
> the VS.NET report wizard it seems that it insists on a query rather
> than a stored procedure for it's data for the wizard to work.
> So we are thinking we need to write each report by copying the rdl xml,
> editting it by hand and then putting it into vs.net to further edit.
> We have no real problem with that but we were thinking someone must
> have come up with a better idea than editing the XML by now!!!
> Has anyone published papers/ideas/tools (fee or free) to manage the
> development and deployment of large numbers of reports?
>
> Q2. We see MSFT has been out talking up RS2005/SQL Server 2005 and
> talking about the pricing of SQL Server 2005. But we have not seen any
> comment on the possible cost of RS2005 if it is NOT purchased with SQL
> Server 2005. We would like to have the option of deploying our product
> onto SQL Server with RS running either on that machine or elsewhere. Is
> there any public comment from MSFT as to the possible pricing of RS2005
> when not purchased with SQL Server?
>
> Q3. Is there any published information on 'best practice' or 'best
> examples of usage' of report services? For example MicroStrategy,
> Business Objects etc post demos of their products to showcase the 'best
> possible use' of the product. Dundas have also put out some really
> great demos. But the RS demos from MSFTs web site look a little
> 'plain' especially the graphics. Are there any really great examples
> of RS 'out there' or are the demos on the MSFT web site the best there
> is? We have decided to go with DNN for the portal and we are currently
> testing RS/DNN integration.
>
> Q4. Layout of prompts on a report.
> We have reports with quite a few prompts and they are 'grouped'. For
> example we have a set of 4 prompts for the user to select the levels in
> the company reporting structure. ANd then we have prompts for the
> client to select year and month. Then we might have campaign structure
> selection which is 3 levels....so we would like to lay out
> Line 1: 4 prompts
> Line 2: 2 Prompts
> Line 3: 3 prompts
> We are told this is not supported...but it also seems like it only
> ever places two prompts on one line? If we cannot group prompts can we
> at least get it to put more than 2 prompts per line?
>
> Thanks in Advance
>
> Peter Nolan
> www.peternolan.com
>|||Hi Jerome,
Q2. In licensing MSFT talks about buying RS when it needs to be
deployed on a server other than the SQL Server...and the WROX book
talks about this as being a 'medium' sized deployment.....if that
means that we need to buy a full SQL Server license (I guess workgroup)
to run RS on a separate server that's ok...we just wanted to
know....but that seems a bit pricey....
Q4. I found examples on odetocode web site but most of the examples I
am finding are 'fragments' intended for developers to include into
already designed/built apps.....that's ok..if there are no other
examples out there we can start from where we are at...just wanted to
check there was not something more publicly available before we spent
our time and effort...it's kind of suprising MSFT has not published
some more things to give developers a better base to work from to go up
against the likes of Crystal/Business Objects/Cognos...maybe more is
coming'
Best Regards
Peter|||Q1, Q3, and Q4--answered in depth in Peter Blackburn and William Vaughn's
Hitchhiker's Guide!
Amazon: http://shrinkster.com/6km
"Peter Nolan" <peter@.peternolan.com> wrote in message
news:1120988013.636226.99630@.o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> Hi All,
> Firstly, let me say who we are.....a group of us are developing a BI
> product where we have decided to use Report Services as the reporting
> tool. We are long term BI experts and IT consultants......We are
> experienced in all manner of reporting and query tools we are just new
> to RS. We settled on RS as our 'lower end' reporting tool for our
> product and we will give our clients the 'option' of selecting other
> reporting tools but the 'out of the box' reports will be in RS.
> We have been dilligent and done our reading (WROX RS book) and testing
> and figured out most of what we want to do. We have our first report up
> and running and we are learning what the limits of RS seem to be to us.
> So hopefully I will not ask too many 'dumb' questions... :-)
> We also hope by asking questions here that other users of RS might also
> benefit from the public discussion.
>
> Q1. We are also working on our 'templates' for reports and looking at
> how we develop a large number (200-300) of reports according to a
> 'template'. In the WROX Book they talk about codesmith and a way of
> handling templates. But we didn't 'get' it...Also, when we try using
> the VS.NET report wizard it seems that it insists on a query rather
> than a stored procedure for it's data for the wizard to work.
> So we are thinking we need to write each report by copying the rdl xml,
> editting it by hand and then putting it into vs.net to further edit.
> We have no real problem with that but we were thinking someone must
> have come up with a better idea than editing the XML by now!!!
> Has anyone published papers/ideas/tools (fee or free) to manage the
> development and deployment of large numbers of reports?
>
> Q2. We see MSFT has been out talking up RS2005/SQL Server 2005 and
> talking about the pricing of SQL Server 2005. But we have not seen any
> comment on the possible cost of RS2005 if it is NOT purchased with SQL
> Server 2005. We would like to have the option of deploying our product
> onto SQL Server with RS running either on that machine or elsewhere. Is
> there any public comment from MSFT as to the possible pricing of RS2005
> when not purchased with SQL Server?
>
> Q3. Is there any published information on 'best practice' or 'best
> examples of usage' of report services? For example MicroStrategy,
> Business Objects etc post demos of their products to showcase the 'best
> possible use' of the product. Dundas have also put out some really
> great demos. But the RS demos from MSFTs web site look a little
> 'plain' especially the graphics. Are there any really great examples
> of RS 'out there' or are the demos on the MSFT web site the best there
> is? We have decided to go with DNN for the portal and we are currently
> testing RS/DNN integration.
>
> Q4. Layout of prompts on a report.
> We have reports with quite a few prompts and they are 'grouped'. For
> example we have a set of 4 prompts for the user to select the levels in
> the company reporting structure. ANd then we have prompts for the
> client to select year and month. Then we might have campaign structure
> selection which is 3 levels....so we would like to lay out
> Line 1: 4 prompts
> Line 2: 2 Prompts
> Line 3: 3 prompts
> We are told this is not supported...but it also seems like it only
> ever places two prompts on one line? If we cannot group prompts can we
> at least get it to put more than 2 prompts per line?
>
> Thanks in Advance
>
> Peter Nolan
> www.peternolan.com
>|||thanks for the pointer goodman 93...I'll see if I can get a copy of
that too.....
Peter