Datasheet

companies, sales and customer management system vendors, sportswear companies, and theme park
and entertainment companies. We’ve learned a lot about how not to design reports and how to build
reporting solutions more efficiently. This book is based on this foundation of experience.
Who Uses Reporting Services?
Probably one of the most significant lessons of the past two years spent teaching training courses on
Reporting Services is how diverse the demographics of the audiences are. I’m not talking about age and
gender but the roles and backgrounds of those who design and implement reporting solutions. 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 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 my objective observation of those who attend Reporting Services training classes.
Approximate Percentage Role
15% Business Managers
15% System Administrators
30% Software Developers
40% Business Information Workers
Wait a minute! This is a book about creating reports to display information in meaningful and interest-
ing ways. I can’t just display this information in a boring list, so I’ve created a simple report and put it
into a chart (an exploded, semitransparent doughnut chart to be specific) shown in Figure 1-1.
Of those who are working seriously with Reporting Services, have attended classes, or have engaged
consulting services, about one-sixth are nontechnical business managers. Members of this role are
mainly interested in the bigger picture: how reports can address their analytical needs and help them
make informed decisions. These folks have little interest in the implementation details or the technology
used to make it work. They direct people who can do the detail work.
System administrators consist of server system builders, hardware professionals, and database adminis-
trators. In smaller organizations, this role is often shared with the software developer. Administrators
are typically concerned with the setup and ongoing maintenance of servers and the infrastructure to
keep reporting solutions available and working. They typically spend their time and energy managing
security and optimizing the system for efficiency.
The software developer represents slightly less than one-third of the audience. To achieve advanced report-
ing features, software developers will write complex queries and custom programming code to process
business rules and give reports conditional formatting and behavior. Developers typically feel right at
home with the report design environment because it’s very similar to familiar programming tools.
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Chapter 1
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