Mastering OLAP Reports: Extend Reporting Services with Custom Code

About the Series …

This
article is a member of the series MSSQL Server Reporting Services. The series is designed to introduce MSSQL Server Reporting
Services
(“Reporting Services”), presenting an overview of its
features, with tips and techniques for real-world use. For more information on
the series in general, please see my initial Database Journal article, A New Paradigm for Enterprise Reporting. For the software components, samples and tools
needed to complete the hands-on portion of this article, see BlackBelt Administration: Linked Reports in Report
Manager
,
another article within this series.

About the Mastering OLAP Reporting Articles …

One of
the first things that become clear to “early adopters” of Reporting Services
is that the “knowledgebase” for Analysis Services reporting with this
tool is, to say the least, sparse. As I stated in my article, Mastering
OLAP Reporting: Cascading Prompts
(where I treated the subject of cascading
parameters
for Reporting Services 2000), the purpose of the Mastering
OLAP Reporting
subset of my Reporting Services series is to focus on techniques for using Reporting
Services
for OLAP reporting. In many cases, which I try to outline in my articles at
appropriate junctures, the functionality of well-established, but expensive,
solutions (such as various applications offered by Cognos, Business
Objects
, and the like) can be met, and exceeded in most respects, by Reporting
Services
– at a tiny fraction of the cost.

The
vacuum of documentation in this arena, even taking into consideration the
release of several books surrounding Reporting Services 2005 in recent
months, continues to represent a serious “undersell” of Reporting Services,
from an OLAP reporting perspective. I hope to contribute to making this
arena more accessible for everyone, and to share my implementation and
conversion experiences as the series evolves. In the meantime, we can rest
assured that the OLAP potential in Reporting Services will
contribute significantly to the inevitable commoditization of business
intelligence, via the integrated Microsoft BI solution.

For
more information about the
Mastering OLAP Reporting articles, see the section entitled “About the Mastering
OLAP Reporting
Articles”
in my article Ad Hoc
TopCount and BottomCount Parameters
.

Overview

As I have emphasized throughout the articles of the series, the
most powerful characteristic of Reporting Services is the unprecedented flexibility
it offers us in creating reports specifically tailored to our business
environments. It affords us the capability to innovatively employ one or more datasets
in supporting myriad options, to use data groups and report items in all manner
of combinations, and to extend data reporting with many features, from basic to
advanced, including calculations, conditional formatting, and other options.

Because our reports are expression-based, we have a
great deal of control in getting the precise operation and presentation that we
need. Moreover, when the business requirements call for even greater
horsepower, we can design reports to process more complex logic through the
introduction of custom functions, which we can leverage from within property
expressions
to obtain just the results that we desire.

In this article, we will explore one approach to adding custom
code
to our reports. We
can embed Visual Basic .NET functions that we define to control a large
number of report items in the manner that we will explore. Along with the
expanded capabilities that this option offers us, the benefits of reusability
also accrue: we can reference embedded code from multiple places in the
report. (Even more extensive options are available when we access .NET
assemblies
: these external custom assemblies can be shared by multiple
reports via references that we add to the report properties. .NET assemblies
can also be built with any .NET language option, and are thus not
limited to Visual Basic .NET. We explore the use of .NET assemblies
within other articles of this series.)

In this article we
will gain some familiarity with using embedded custom code – how and why we might turn to
this option – and then get
some hands-on exposure to adding custom code within a sample report that is available to anyone who
installs Reporting Services 2005, along with the supporting Analysis
Services 2005
Adventure
Works DW
sample
database. As a part of our examination of embedded code in this article,
we will:

  • Open the
    sample Report Server project, AdventureWorks Sample Reports, and
    ascertain connectivity of its shared Analysis Services data source;

  • Create a clone
    of an existing sample OLAP report, containing a Matrix data region, with
    which to perform our practice exercise;

  • Make structural
    modifications to the clone report, including direct modifications to the MDX
    query
    underlying the primary dataset, to prepare for our practice
    exercise session with custom code within the Reporting Services development
    environment;

  • Create, within
    the Code tab of the Report Properties dialog, two custom
    function
    definitions to meet the business requirements of hypothetical
    information consumers;

  • Reference the
    new custom functions from within properties of report items on
    the Layout tab;

  • Preview the
    report to observe the conditional logic of the custom functions
    in action;

  • Discuss the
    interaction of the various components in supporting the runtime application of conditional
    logic
    resulting in effects that the end consumer sees;

  • Discuss the
    results obtained with the development techniques that we exploit.
William Pearson
William Pearson
Bill has been working with computers since before becoming a "big eight" CPA, after which he carried his growing information systems knowledge into management accounting, internal auditing, and various capacities of controllership. Bill entered the world of databases and financial systems when he became a consultant for CODA-Financials, a U.K. - based software company that hired only CPA's as application consultants to implement and maintain its integrated financial database - one of the most conceptually powerful, even in his current assessment, to have emerged. At CODA Bill deployed financial databases and business intelligence systems for many global clients. Working with SQL Server, Oracle, Sybase and Informix, and focusing on MSSQL Server, Bill created Island Technologies Inc. in 1997, and has developed a large and diverse customer base over the years since. Bill's background as a CPA, Internal Auditor and Management Accountant enable him to provide value to clients as a liaison between Accounting / Finance and Information Services. Moreover, as a Certified Information Technology Professional (CITP) - a Certified Public Accountant recognized for his or her unique ability to provide business insight by leveraging knowledge of information relationships and supporting technologies - Bill offers his clients the CPA's perspective and ability to understand the complicated business implications and risks associated with technology. From this perspective, he helps them to effectively manage information while ensuring the data's reliability, security, accessibility and relevance. Bill has implemented enterprise business intelligence systems over the years for many Fortune 500 companies, focusing his practice (since the advent of MSSQL Server 2000) upon the integrated Microsoft business intelligence solution. He leverages his years of experience with other enterprise OLAP and reporting applications (Cognos, Business Objects, Crystal, and others) in regular conversions of these once-dominant applications to the Microsoft BI stack. Bill believes it is easier to teach technical skills to people with non-technical training than vice-versa, and he constantly seeks ways to graft new technology into the Accounting and Finance arenas. Bill was awarded Microsoft SQL Server MVP in 2009. Hobbies include advanced literature studies and occasional lectures, with recent concentration upon the works of William Faulkner, Henry James, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Honoré de Balzac, and Charles Dickens. Other long-time interests have included the exploration of generative music sourced from database architecture.

Get the Free Newsletter!

Subscribe to Cloud Insider for top news, trends & analysis

Latest Articles