CHAPTER 13 CREATING REPORTS USING REPORT BUILDER 1.0, 2.0, AND 3.0
Save this report out to the Pro_SSRS folder on the Report Server as in our previous examples and
name it Service Type Estimated Cost by Branch Wizard. In the sections that follow, we’ll walk through
another way to create the same report without using the wizard. We will also show you how to perform
format changes to the Report Builder reports.Creating Reports with Report Builder 2.0
As I just mentioned, we do not have to use the wizard when creating reports. Alternatively, if we didn’t
want to utilize the New Table or Matrix wizard, we could create a new data source and dataset
separately. In this section, we are going to create the same report without using the wizard.
To get started, if you have the Service Type Estimated Cost by Branch report still open, click on the
circular ribbon icon on the top left of the screen. This ribbon icon, acts as the File menu option in other
Microsoft products. After clicking on the ribbon icon, select New to create a new report. If you do not
have Report Builder 2.0 open, navigate to the Report Builder thick client under the Microsoft SQL Server
2008 Report Builder 2.0 from the All Programs menu. If you have been following along, the blank design
environment of Report Builder 2.0 should look familiar to you as it is the same as shown in Figure 13-44.
To get started on creating a report from scratch without using the wizard, we will need to create a
data source and a data set before getting to the report design. After we have these created, we will be able
to add a table to our design pane and then start adding columns and groups. The following four steps
will walk us through create the data source and dataset for our report.- Click on the New button on the Report Data pane and then select Data Source.
If you do not see the Report Data pane, click on the View tab and then select
the Report Data checkbox. - Name your data source Pro_SSRS and set the Use a shared connection or
report model option. Instead of having an embedded data source, we can use a
shared one on the server. This helps when deploying reports to different
environments. If the reports use shared data sources, if the database server is
changed during the lifecycle of the report, the only object that will require
updating is the shared data source itself. Conversely, if you always use
embedded data sources, each of the reports that utilize the data source would
also need to be changes. This makes it harder to manage and as such, one
should use shared data sources when possible. - Now, select the Browse... button to navigate to the DataSources folder under
the Pro_SSRS folder and select the Pro_SSRS data source. Click Open to return
back to the Data Source Properties window as shown in Figure 13-51. Click OK
to save the Pro_SSRS data source to return back to the Report Builder. After
you save the data source, Report Builder adds it the Report Data pane.