Open and
Review the Sales Reason Comparisons Report
As we have noted, we will begin by opening the Reporting Services 2005 Sales Reason Comparisons report, whose existing matrix data region we will use as a guide to the quick creation of a new matrix data region that presents identical information. We will then be in a position to leverage further features of the matrix data region that support the specific enhancements requested by the information consumers, while retaining a copy of the original data region, with which we can perform quick number comparisons to gain comfort in the accuracy and completeness of our replacement matrix .
As we noted in the Objective and Business Scenario section above, the information consumers with which we are working have outlined a few enhancements that they wish to make to the report clone, to outfit it to meet a specific business need that is different than the need addressed by the original report. Again, we will use the original data region as a guide in creating a new matrix region that will serve to meet the expressed needs. We will accomplish this within a replica of the original .rdl file, so as to leverage the existing DataSets as well as the existing data region, primarily to allow us to save time and steps in getting to the focus of this article.
We are now ready to "clone" the sample OLAP report
and proceed with the practice exercise.
Create
a Copy of the Sales Reason Comparisons Report
As we
have noted, we will begin with a copy of the Reporting Services 2005
Sales Reason Comparisons report file, which we will use for our
practice exercise in meeting the business requirements of the Adventure
Works information consumers.
1.
Right-click
the Reports folder underneath the Shared Data Sources folder, in
the Solution Explorer.
2.
Select Add
--> Existing Item ... from the cascading context menus
that appear, as shown in Illustration 12.
The Add
Existing Item – AdventureWorks Sample Reports dialog appears.
3.
Navigate to
the actual location
of the sample reports (we provided the default path earlier), if the dialog has
not defaulted thereto
already.
An
example of the Add Existing Item – AdventureWorks Sample Reports dialog,
having been pointed to the sample Reports folder (which contains the Sales
Reason Comparisons report file we seek), appears as partially shown in Illustration 13.
Illustration 13:
Navigating to the Sample Reports Folder ...
4.
Right-click
the Sales Reason Comparisons report inside the dialog.
5.
Select Copy
from the context menu that appears, as depicted in Illustration 14.
Illustration 14:
Performing a Quick Copy of the Sales Reason Comparisons Report
6.
Right-click
somewhere in the white space inside the Add Existing Item – AdventureWorks Sample Reports dialog.
7.
Select Paste
from the context menu that appears, as shown in Illustration 15.
Illustration 15: Select
Paste within the New Folder ...
A copy
of the Sales Reason Comparisons report appears within the dialog.
8.
Right-click
the new file.
9.
Select Rename
from the context menu that appears.
10.
Type the
following name in place of the highlighted existing name:
RS026_Sales_Reason_Comp_Matrix.rdl
NOTE: Be sure to include the .rdl extension in the file name.
The
renamed copy of the Sales Reason Comparisons sample report appears as
depicted in Illustration 16.
Illustration 16: The New Report File, RS026_Sales_Reason_Comp_Matrix.rdl
11.
Click the
white space to the right of the file name, to accept the new name we have
assigned.
12.
Re-select the
new file by clicking it.
13.
Click Add
on the dialog box to add the new report to report project AdventureWorks
Sample Reports.
RS026_Sales_Reason_Comp_Matrix.rdl appears in the Reports folder,
within the AdventureWorks
Sample Reports project tree in the Solution Explorer, as shown in
Illustration 17.
Illustration 17: The New
Report Appears in Solution Explorer – Report Folder
14.
From the main
menu in the design environment, select File ---> Save All, as
depicted in Illustration 18.
Illustration 18: Select
File --> Save All to Save Our Work So Far ...
We now have a clone report file within our Reporting Services 2005 Project, with which we can proceed in the next section to make alterations per the specification we have received. Our efforts will consist, in Part 1, of the addition of a matrix data region to ultimately replace the existing data region that largely comprises the sample report.
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