Datasheet

Chapter 1: Introducing Reporting Services

We authors have learned a lot about this product with each project and continue to find creative

ways to stretch its capabilities. For the first edition of this book, we worked primarily with the beta -

release product. The second edition was based on our experience with Reporting Services for SQL

Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005. Over the past five years, we ’ ve had many conversations with

members of the Reporting Services product team at Microsoft as we put the product through its

paces to learn what Reporting Services could and couldn ’ t do well. We ’ ve also done a lot of

consulting work for Microsoft, designing integrated reports for several Microsoft products that are

currently on the market today. Over the years, we ’ ve presented sessions at industry conferences and

written books, white papers, and knowledge - base articles. As with most Microsoft products, we

found that there are about 18 different ways to implement each feature. Since then, we have deployed

Reporting Services in many corporate environments and trained thousands to use it. We ’ ve talked to

business users to understand their reporting needs and then designed reporting solutions for many

types of organizations. We ’ ve integrated reports into web sites and portals, intranet sites, and

desktop applications. We ’ ve designed reports for savings and investment banks, financial services,

support centers, software companies, sales and customer management system vendors, sportswear

companies, theme park and entertainment companies, manufacturing, construction, supply chain,

retail, wholesale, and medical, government, and telecom organizations. Having the luxury to invest

so much energy into the use of one tool, we ’ ve learned how to do a few things really well, but I

think we ’ ve also learned to keep an open mind toward using creative new methods to solve problems.

We ’ ve learned a lot about how not to design some reports and how to build reporting solutions more

efficiently — and which of those 18 feature options makes the most sense. This book is based on this

foundation of experience.

Who Uses Reporting Services?

Probably one of the most significant lessons of the past five years of teaching training courses on

Reporting Services is how diverse the demographics of the audiences are. The roles and backgrounds

of those who design and implement reporting solutions are diverse. As an application developer, I was

accustomed to teaching programmers and other technology professionals whose life quest is to

make the world a better place by writing program code and software. However, I quickly learned that

there wasn ’ t a stereotypical report designer. Some are very business - focused and aren ’ t necessarily in

love with technology and program code. Many are simply charged with managing or facilitating a line

of business. They need tools to get information quickly and don ’ t want to reinvent the wheel or work

with cumbersome tools. The figures in the following table aren ’ t substantiated by any kind of survey

or study but are merely this author ’ s objective observation of those who attend Reporting Services

training classes:

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