Professional Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services

Chapter 6

Designing Data Access

What's in this chapter?

Installing a report server

Building an enterprise deployment

Using tools for managing reporting life cycle

Exploring report server architecture

Leveraging reporting services extensions

In Chapter 4, you used Report Builder to design basic reports. When it comes to accessing data for reports, there are generally two schools of thought. You can use capable tools to allow advanced report designers to design complex queries and enable creative report functionality. Or you can use uncomplicated tools to keep the design experience for business users simple and error-free. Needless to say, trade-offs exist on either side of this equation. This is one of the most significant reasons that there are two different report design applications.

Report Builder is a great tool for designing reports, but it doesn't help you very much with designing anything but simple queries. At the PASS (Professional Association for SQL Server) Global Summit a few years ago, I attended a session where one of the other SQL Server MVPs introduced Report Builder 2.0. He explained that it was a great report design tool but it fell short in the query design category. After conversations with the Reporting Services product team members who designed and created it and numerous consulting engagements with clients who had self-service reporting initiatives, my perspective changed. Report Builder is right-sized for business users, making it an ideal choice for those ...