Mastering Reporting Services Expressions, March 26

As part of SQL Server Pro eLearning series, I’ll be presenting three 75 minute sessions on March 26th on using Expressions to enhance report capabilities.  The sessions are online with live chat from 11:00 to 4:30 Eastern Time.

Register today to get in on the early-bird discount.  the cost for all three sessions is $199.  If you have questions, follow the link to the registration site and use the contact links or numbers at the bottom of the page.  I’ll look forward to seeing you there.

Summary:

With some essential expression skills, you can take your report designs to the next level and give your business powerful reporting and analytic capabilities. During this class you will learn how to:

• Use parameters to drive dynamic report features with selectable table columns, chart elements and data measures.
• Conditionally visualize data elements to highlight threshold values and outliers; using color, size, fonts and icons.
• Build one report to visualize and format data in different ways, based on a variety of requirements and conditions.
• Define custom drill-through targets, allowing users to navigate to different detail reports under different conditions.
• Create one report with dynamic filtering that responds to user-interaction.

Complete description:

SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) is Microsoft’s flagship reporting tool. A very capable and mature product introduced in 2004, SSRS is the go-to tool for all types of report designs. Report wizards and drag-and-drop features will get you started but the learning curve goes up if you need to design more than basic reports.

Using Report Builder 3.0 or the Visual Studio report designer, it’s fairly easy to create basic reports with no programming and only fundamental technical skills. Sure, easy reports are easy to design if you keep things simple. But if you need to build highly functional reports, you need to know how to write and use expressions. With some essential expression skills, you can take your report designs to the next level and give your business powerful reporting and analytic capabilities. Using these skills and design patterns, you can:

• Use parameters to drive dynamic report features with selectable table columns, chart elements and data measures.
• Conditionally visualize data elements to highlight threshold values and outliers; using color, size, fonts and icons.
• Build one report to visualize and format data in different ways, based on a variety of requirements and conditions.

After you have mastered expression basics, you can apply the same techniques in more advanced and creative ways, such as:

• Define custom drill-through targets, allowing users to navigate to different detail reports under different conditions.
• Create one report with dynamic filtering that responds to user-interaction.

Instead of having many different reports for all of your user needs, wouldn’t it be great if just a small number of reports were flexible enough to meet the needs of different business users? That would make the choice easier for users with fewer reports to maintain.

Have you ever created a report that doesn’t export to Excel in a format that works for the user? How would it be if the report were smart enough to know how it was being viewed or exported—and formatted itself accordingly? You can do that with expressions.

Getting Started and Getting Creative with Report Expressions

In three technical presentations, report solution design expert and SQL Server MVP Paul Turley will show you how to get more out of Reporting Services using simple and advanced techniques. To get the most out of this unique training experience, you should be able to create basic reports for SQL Server 2008 R2 or 2012 with Report Builder 3.0, Business Intelligence Development Studio or SQL Server Data Tools.

In these three one-hour sessions, he will help you graduate from Basic Report Designer to Report Design Artist and will show you how to solve complex business problems using expressions. You will have working sample reports and reproducible demonstrations that you can use to model your report solutions.

Sessions (each session runs approximately 75 minutes):

Session 1: Introducing expressions in basic report design

• How expressions work
• Visual Basic.NET expression fundamentals
• Parameter basics and incorporating parameters in expressions
• Decision making – IIF() and SWITCH() functions
• Handling empty values and evaluation errors
• When to use calculated fields and calculated values
• Making properties dynamic

Session 2: Extending report features with expressions

• Dynamically changing report content
• Hiding and showing table columns
• Managing group visibility
• Dynamic chart element colors
• Modifying query logic with expressions

Session 3: Dynamic report features and creative designs

• Expression best practices
• Reporting Services design patterns – working with the tool
• Managing complex expressions and writing custom functions
• Defining selectable drill-through targets
• Creative ways to visualize information
• Creating an interactive dashboard
• Customizing report exporting and dynamic formatting

Instructors

Paul Turley is a Mentor with SolidQ and a Microsoft SQL Server and business intelligence MVP. He consults, writes, speaks, teaches, and blogs about business intelligence and reporting solutions. He works with companies around the world to visualize and deliver critical information to make informed business decisions. He is the lead author of Professional SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services and 11 other titles from Wrox & Microsoft Press. He has been architecting, managing and developing applications and business intelligence solutions for large and small businesses since 1992. Prior to specializing in BI solution design, his expertise has included project lifecycle management, database modeling and design using SQL Server versions 6.0 through 2011, application development and user interface design using ASP.NET, and enterprise BI solutions using SQL Server Reporting Services, Integration Services and Analysis Services.