Reporting Services: Customize Automatically Created Parameter Support Objects - Page 2

Preparation

Our first objective is to create a copy of the Sales Reason Comparisons sample report, within which we can implement the solutions that we propose to meet our client’s requirements. The focus of our efforts in this, the first half of this article, will be the elimination of the “All” level we have described earlier. In Part II of this article we will examine the addition of intuitive parameter defaults for the same parameters. Because of time limitations, we will be working with a simple, pre-existing sample report – in reality, the business environment will typically require more sophistication. The process of setting up basic parameterization is the same in real world scenarios, with perhaps a more complex set of underlying considerations. (I virtually never encounter a client reporting requirement that does not involve at least basic parameterization.)

We will perform our practice session from inside the MSSQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio. For more exposure to the Business Intelligence Development Studio itself, and the myriad design, development and other evolutions we can perform within this powerful interface, see other articles in this series, as well as within my Database Journal series Introduction to MSSQL Server Analysis Services. In this article, we will be commenting only on the features relevant to our immediate practice exercise, to allow us to keep to the focus of the article more efficiently. We will examine a solution for the elimination of the default “All” selections within the parameter picklists, then, within the first half of this article, and position our report for the addition of intelligent parameter defaults in the second half.

Preparation: Create a Clone Report within the Reporting Services Development Environment

For purposes of our practice session, we will create a copy of the Sales Reason Comparisons report, one of several samples that are available with (and installable separately from) the MSSQL Server 2005 integrated business intelligence suite. Making preparatory modifications, and then making the enhancements to the report to add the functionality that forms the subject of our lesson, can be done easily within the Business Intelligence Development Studio environment. Working with a copy of the report will allow us the luxury of freely exploring our options, and will leave us with a working example of the specific approach we took, to which we can refer in our individual business environments.

Open the Sample Report Server Project

For purposes of our practice session, we will open the AdventureWorks Sample Reports project, which contains the sample reports that ship with the Reporting Services component of the MSSQL Server 2005 suite. We will complete our practice session within the sample project so as to save the time required to set up a development environment from scratch within the Business Intelligence Development Studio.

To open the AdventureWorks Sample Reports project, please see the following procedure in the References section of my articles index:

Ascertain Connectivity of the Shared Data Source

Let’s ensure we have a working data source. Many of us will be running “side-by-side” installations of MSSQL Server 2000 and MSSQL Server 2005. This means that our installation of the latter will need to be referenced as a server / instance combination, versus a server name alone. (The default for the Adventure Works DW project sample’s connection is localhost, which will not work correctly in such a side-by-side installation, as MSSQL Server 2000 will have assumed the identity of the local PC by default.)

If you do not know how to ascertain or modify connectivity of the Analysis Services data source, please perform the steps of the following procedure in the References section of my articles index:

Create a Copy of the Sales Reason Comparisons Report

We will begin with a copy of the Reporting Services 2005 Sales Reason Comparisons OLAP report, which we will use for our practice exercise. Creating a “clone” of the report means we can make changes to select contents (perhaps as a part of later exploration with our independent solution), while retaining the original sample in a pristine state for other purposes, such as using it to accompany relevant sections of the Books Online, and other documentation. We can, therefore, use the original as a part of learning more about Reporting Services (particularly an OLAP report using an Analysis Services data source), and other components of the Microsoft integrated business intelligence solution, in general.

If you do not know how to create a copy of an existing report, please perform the steps of the following procedure in the References section of my articles index:

We now have a clone OLAP report file within our Reporting Services 2005 Project, with which we can proceed in the next section to make modifications for our subsequent practice session.

Preparation: Modify the OLAP Report for Use within Our Practice Session

We will next make a few modifications to prepare the report for our practice session. Our objective will be to begin the session with a simple OLAP report that contains basic parameterized filters as required by our client colleagues. Let’s open the report in Layout view (for those of us not already there) and make the necessary settings to place it into a state from which we can commence our “from scratch” practice steps.

We will begin by adding additional parameters to our sample report. These parameters will initially be of a standard, basic picklist variety. We will then work with these parameters as we explore our options for eliminating a characteristic default behavior of their respective picklists (in this half of our article), and for adding intuitive parameter defaults to our report (in the second half of our article).

Add Additional Parameters through the Query Builder Interface and Review the Automatic Creation of Support Objects

As we stated in Mastering OLAP Reports: Parameters for Analysis Services Reporting, Pt. I, and elsewhere within this, and other of my, series’, the Design Mode button in the toolbar of the Data tab allows us to easily shift between Design view and Query view, when working with our OLAP queries. The idea, obviously, is to provide those who are not at ease with direct MDX a means of creating queries within a graphical interface.

We have created the basic report with the core datasets, and are ready to add three rudimentary, date-related prompts that will meet our objectives. We will create these prompts within Design view, by taking the following steps:

We enter the Data view, which defaults to the presentation of the first of two pre-existing datasets, ProductData. To state what is probably obvious, we can tell that we are in Design view, primarily because we see the column headings for our query components in the Data grid, and we do not see MDX syntax. We also see that the Design Mode button is depressed, as depicted in Illustration 2.

We have returned to add three date-related filters (each of which we shall parameterize): one each for Calendar Year, Calendar Quarter and Calendar Month. Let’s first run the existing query to ascertain that all is in order with regard to the retrieval of data.

Data populates the Data pane, and appears similar to that depicted in Illustration 4.

Having ascertained that the core query is in working order, we will now add the date-related filters, as well as the “vanilla” parameters that we intend for them to support.

The Date dimension populates the Dimension column, within a newly created row of the Filter pane. The Calendar Year attribute hierarchy appears within the Hierarchy column, as well.

Our completed filter-with-parameter entry appears in the new row of the Filter pane, as depicted in Illustration 6.

We have successfully added a new parameter, in conjunction with a filter, within the dataset underlying our report. The addition of the parameter within the graphical interface, as we shall see, has already begun a sequence of events that will trigger the automatic creation of a corresponding Report Parameter. A supporting dataset will also be created, as soon as we move to the Layout tab. But first, we need to add entries within the Filter pane for the additional Date filters we intend to add.