Create the Report File
Creating
the Report File is straightforward, and handled through the following
steps:
10.
Right-click
the Reports folder in Solutions Explorer.
11.
Select Add
from the context menu that appears.
12.
Click Add
New Item from the cascading menu, as shown in Illustration 20.
The Add
New Item dialog appears.
13.
Click Report
in the Add New Item dialog.
14.
Type the
following into the Name box, leaving other settings at default:
MXAS017
The Add
New Item dialog appears, as shown in Illustration 21.
15.
Click the Open
button at the bottom of the Add New Item dialog.
The
design environment opens. We see the Data, Layout and Preview
tabs appear. Our report has opened in Data View, as shown in Illustration
22.
Illustration 22: The
Design Environment - Data View Tab (Compacted)
The
design environment that we see is known as Report Designer. We will
construct a very basic OLAP report at this point, primarily to illustrate the
use of the components that we assembled in MSAS. For more detail on the Report
Designer environment, or on Reporting Services in general, see my MSSQL
Server 2000 Reporting Services
series at Database
Journal.
Create the Data Connection
Our next step is to set
up a Data Connection, from which we create a Dataset within our
practice example.
1.
Select New
Dataset in the Dataset selector at the top of the Data tab,
as depicted in Illustration 23.
Illustration 23: Select
New Dataset in the Dataset Selector - Data Tab
As soon as we click the New Dataset selection, the Data
Link Properties dialog box appears, defaulted to the Connection tab.
2.
Click the Provider
tab to select the appropriate provider for our data source.
3.
Select Microsoft
OLE DB Provider for OLAP Services on the Provider tab, as shown in Illustration
24.
Illustration 24: Select Microsoft
OLE DB Provider for OLAP Services on the Provider Tab
4.
Click Next
to move to the Connection tab.
5.
Type the name
of the computer housing the targeted MSAS database, FoodMart 2000, in
the Data Source box near the top of the Connection tab.
6.
Enter the
appropriate security information / settings (I am using Windows NT
Integrated security for this lesson in my own environment).
7.
Select FoodMart
2000 in the initial catalog box at the bottom of the tab.
8.
Click the Test
Connection button to verify connectivity to the data source.
We
receive a message box, indicating a successful test connection, as depicted in Illustration
25.
Illustration 25: We Test
Positive for Connectivity
The
settings on the Connection tab of the Data Link Properties dialog
should resemble those shown in Illustration 26.
Illustration 26: Data
Link Properties Dialog - Connection Tab
9.
Click OK
to accept the settings we have made, and to close the Data Link Properties
dialog.
Report
Designer next
presents us with the dataset design tool, based upon our newly connected
source. We are immediately positioned to design our dataset query, which
brings us to the next step.
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