Oh SSRS, why do you hate me? These
resounding words represent my usual state after a day spent in the life of this
reporting package. My current task is to learn how to design reports in Visual
Studio without using the Wizards. Almost every time I experience a light bulb
moment and think I’ve figured something out, some other factor comes out of the
blue and throws me completely off-balance.
Take
today for example. I thought if I broke the large report I was trying to create
into different subsections I would be able to individually construct those
subsections and then assemble them into the large report. If only things were
so easy…
I
first attempted to create a simple customer list. I connected to my Datasource
and placed the Customer Name and Customer ID nodes into a List Data Region. On
the first try a new box appeared in the Preview window asking for a Parameter.
I couldn’t continue without entering a Parameter, and whatever I entered into
the box produced the same output. Thinking it must be me, I opened a new
report, reestablished the Datasource connection, and created the same template.
Sure enough, the Parameter box disappeared from the Preview window. However,
rather than just list my Customers hexographically, they appeared multiple
times in random locations.
While
some may have given up at this point, I pressed on thinking that if I
redesigned my query I might be able to get the desired results. This idea was
on the right track, and after several tries I created a query that would indeed
create my Customer list. The only problem was that the new query excluded the
other relevant data necessary for my sales history report.
I stared at the screen
blankly for a while until another “Ah-ha!” moment popped into my head. Why not try
to reverse-engineer the template created by the Wizard? Sounds good in theory
until you open up the old template and start examining it. The template
contains three Lists which oddly enough have the properties associated with
SSRS’s rectangles. The first List contains the other two as well as the Company
Name and Company ID. The second List contains the Third and nothing else. The
third List contains the table of data.
At this point I am
sufficiently perplexed. Turns out I may as well have chased my tail for a few
hours instead of trying to dissect the report created by the Wizard. Well,
until next time!
