Preparation: Set up the Reporting Services Environment
For purposes of our practice session,
we will create a copy of the Foodmart Sales report, one of several
samples that are available for installation with Reporting Services 2000.
Creating a "clone" of the report means we can make changes to our
report while retaining the original sample in a pristine state – perhaps for
other purposes, such as using it to accompany relevant sections of the Books
Online, and other documentation, in learning more about Reporting
Services in general.
Before we can work with
a clone of the Foodmart Sales report, we need to create a Report Server
project in the new SQL Server Business Intelligence Development
Studio. Making preparatory modifications, and then making the enhancements
to the report to add the functionality to support the subject of our lesson,
can be done easily within the Studio environment. Working with a copy of
the report will allow us the luxury of freely exploring our options, and leave
us a working example of the specific approach we took, to which we can refer in
our individual business environments. (If you already have a project within
which you like to work with training or development objects, you can simply
skip the Create a Report Server Project section, and add the FoodMart
Sales report copy to the project of your choice.)
If the sample FoodMart
2000 Analysis Services database or the Foodmart Sales report was not
created / installed as part of the initial installation of the associated
application, if either was removed prior to your beginning this article, or if
either or both applications have yet to be installed, etc., see the respective Books
Online and other documentation supplied with MSSQL Server 2000, Analysis
Services 2000 and / or Reporting Services 2000 for the necessary
procedures to prepare for the exercises that follow.
Create
a Report Server Project
To
begin, we will launch the new SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio.
1.
Click Start.
2.
Navigate to,
and click, the SQL
Server Business Intelligence Development Studio, as appropriate.
The
equivalent on my PC appears as depicted in Illustration 1.
Illustration 1: Launching
SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio
We
briefly see a splash page that lists the components installed on the PC, and
then Visual Studio .NET 2005 opens at the Start page.
3.
Select File
--> New from the main menu.
4.
Click Project
from the cascading menu, as shown in Illustration 2.
Illustration 2:
Selecting a New Project
The New
Project dialog appears. Business Intelligence Projects appears in
the Project Types tree, indicating an installation of Reporting
Services.
5.
Click Business Intelligence Projects in the Project Types tree, if necessary.
6.
Click Report
Server Project in the Templates list.
7.
Type the
following into the Name box, leaving other settings at default:
RS023_MULTI_VAL_PARAM
8.
Navigate to a
location in which to place the Report Project files.
The New Project
dialog appears, with our input, as depicted in Illustration 3.
Illustration 3: The New
Project Dialog, with Our Input
Our
new project appears in the Solution Explorer (upper right corner
of the Visual Studio .NET interface), as we see in Illustration 4.
Illustration 4: The New
Project Appears in the Solution Explorer
10.
Close the Start
page within the Visual Studio .NET 2005 interface to clear space in
which to work.
Having
created a Reporting Services 2005 Report Project, we are
ready to proceed with creating the clone of a Reporting Services 2000 report.
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