Pro SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services (Books for Professionals by Professionals) [Paperback]

Rodney Landrum (Author), Walter J. Voytek II (Author), Shawn McGehee (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1590599926 | ISBN-13: 978-1590599921 | Publication Date: August 21, 2008 | Edition: 1

Take full advantage of everything SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services has to offer and deliver customizable, web–enabled reports across your business at a reasonable cost. Learn best–practices from professionals who use SQL Server Reporting Services daily to deliver solutions to paying clients and gain the competitive edge on using Microsoft’s enterprise–level reporting platform.

• Provides best–practices for using Reporting Services
• Written by practicing professionals with paying clients
• Your key to delivering business intelligence across the enterprise

What you’ll learn

• Write efficient queries on which to base a report
• Build and lay out a report using Report Designer
• Enable end users to create ad hoc reports on demand
• Combine Reporting Services with Analysis Services, SharePoint Portal Server, and other technologies to deliver business intelligence across the enterprise
• Secure and audit your reports as part of your regulatory compliance efforts
• Customize your reports using C# assemblies and embedded Visual Basic .NET code

Who this book is for

Data analysts, developers, database administrators, and others who develop and deploy reports using Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Rodney Landrum is a MCSE working as a systems engineer, database administrator, and data analyst for a software development company in Pensacola, Florida, that specializes in applications for the healthcare industry. He writes software reviews and feature articles for numerous magazines, including Windows and .NET, SQL Server, Connected Home, T-SQL Solutions, Microsoft Certified Professional, and Electronic House.

Walter J. Voytek, II is founder, chief executive officer, and president of HealthWare Corporation, a Microsoft Certified Partner that specializes in IT solutions for the healthcare industry. Voytek has worked in IT for over 30 years, and he spent the past 20 years in healthcare IT. Voytek has spoken publicly at several national conventions and continues to speak at various HealthWare gatherings each year. As chief software architect for HealthWare, Voytek has helped shape the company's award-winning solutions.

Shawn McGehee is the senior database administrator for a nationwide health care company, residing in the Orlando area. He has been working in the IT industry for over 12 years and came from a development background before he moved into database administration in 2004. Shawn contributes to several online publications and speaks at SQL Saturdays and Code Camps as much as possible. Shawn was a co-author on Pro SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services, also by Apress. Shawn works with his local SQL Server user groups and was a founding member of the Pensacola SQL Server Users Group before making the move to the Orlando area and becoming active with OPASS.

Product Details

• Paperback: 424 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (August 21, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590599926
• ISBN-13: 978-1590599921
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #653,939 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Find and Replace Failure!, November 29, 2008

By 

Giovanni8089 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pro SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services (Books for Professionals by Professionals) (Paperback)

Let me start by saying, anyone who gives the book higher than 1 star rating is either profiting from the sale of this book or didn't actually read it.

It's obvious that the instructions were either written for a previous version of SSRS or a 2008 pre-release.

The instructions have way too many discrepancies with reality!!! "Right click this and then select that..." Well, "that" doesn't exist. This issue happens all throughout the book and it's extremely frustrating.

Everyone deserves a refund! Buying this book is a waste of your money.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't waste your money, November 24, 2008

By 

K. Frost "Short-term decisions lead to long t... (clt, NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pro SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services (Books for Professionals by Professionals) (Paperback)

I have the 2005 version of this book I purchased several years ago but ended up not being able to look at it. I opened it up a couple of weeks ago and realized I might as well start on 2008 since that's the platform I predominantly use and the 2005 didn't synch up well with the 2008 interface.

So I ordered this book. First it's the same book with an attempt to go in and edit where necessary where there were changes in 2008. So with that I'm kind of miffed I paid $39.99 for the same book I already have with minor changes.

To make matters worse, this must have been edited during the beta because I'm through chapter 3 right now and the start versions of the reports I've yet to find one that works by just following what's in the book.

Things such as right click to open up properties of a row group is incorrect, you must also select group properties. They tell you to go to the layout tab but it's called the Design tab in 08. These couple of things are minor but it tells me this book was hastily done without much attention to detail and in my opinion doesn't warrant it's cost. Also, how about an upgrade price for persons who purchased the first one?

The group on's don't work like mentioned in the book in most cases following the procedures in the order presented in the book.

Bottom line, for me to make a purchase such as this, I do it so I don't have to hassle with tinkering. To me this is a book in the category of do what I mean versus what I say. Again, for my purpose of spending $40 on a book, it totally defeats the purpose of the purchase if I have to fill in blanks to get things to work.

If I want to waste the time doing that I'll go on line and just use the documenation.

The download also contains a start version and an working version. It's starting to become clear that the RDL definitions from previous versions will work but trying to follow the instructions of making the start.rdl's work clearly don't work.

Take image.rdl versus's Image Start.rdl. Image.RDL is in a Tablix but Image Start.RDL is not so the fields in it aren't bound.

I had to play around for 30 minutes of manipulating to figure out a way to get it to work. Again, complete waste of money if you look for books that you appear to be as close to error free so you can learn and then use as a reference.

Wait for a book that written from scratch on the RTM of BI 2008 tools.

Note: I submitted errata for this book last week and still haven't heard a response so I'm checking into the hassle of trying to return this and get my money back.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Difficult to follow, September 8, 2009

By 

Brian (Naperville, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pro SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services (Books for Professionals by Professionals) (Paperback)

I've used over a hundred technical books and this is easily one of the most confusing and incomplete ones that I have ever used. Frequently you will find yourself trying to reverse engineer the source code samples because the instructions in the book are missing a variety of key steps that need to be done in order to follow along. I recommend looking for another book if you need help with SSRS.