Pro SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services

CHAPTER 3  INTRODUCTION TO REPORTING SERVICES DESIGN WITH SQL SERVER DATA TOOLS

An SSRS report can use multiple datasets simultaneously. This extends the flexibility of your
reporting, as you can provide more data to the user in a single report. Multiple datasets are also useful
for populating parameter drop-down lists, which you will do in Chapter 6. However, having too many
datasets could affect a report’s performance, so it’s important to make sure the execution times for each
result set are within acceptable ranges.
The RDL file for each report contains a section for each dataset defined for the report. Listing 3-2
shows a sample of the RDL for the dataset you’ve defined in this chapter.

Listing 3-2. Dataset Section of RDL

When creating a dataset, several additional tabs contain other configuration properties:

Fields: Defines additional fields such as calculated fields or fields that aren’t

automatically defined with the data source. You derive calculated fields from an

expression.

Options: Sets several options specific to the data as it’s retrieved from the data

provider, such as case sensitivity and collation.

Parameters: Defines the query parameter values for the dataset and the order in

which they’re evaluated. Stored procedures with declared parameters

automatically generate the query parameters in SSRS.