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What’s New in SSRS 2008 R2: Webcast

Well, our first PTI webcast is complete. Except for a few technical glitches everything turned out okay in the end for a first run through. Got a lot of emails post event thanking me for the presentation so it was well worth it. Now I just have to figure out what I will do for the next one! For those...

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SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 R2: Lookup Fields!

Posted by Arie | Posted in Featured, Reporting Services | Posted on 01-09-2010

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Well, I promised the XRM Virtual Users Group ( website | twitter ) and Julie Yack ( blog | twitter ) that I would provide them a blog of an example of using the Lookup feature in SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 R2….well, that time has come. I will throw out the caveat that I have been ill all day and am now under the heavy influence of, my friend, Mr. Nyquil. So if the post seems kind of disjointed then you will understand why.

So to start out with I am going to just create a simple Reporting Services project with a shared data source to the AdventureWorksLT database. Nothing fancy here.

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However, please note that I could have 2 separate data sources pointing to 2 totally different databases. I am just trying to keep things simple here for demonstration purposes.

So now let’s create a report with a couple of datasets in it. We are going to pretend that we have Sales information in one database while we would have all of our Customer information in another database. So I will create one dataset for Sales based off of the SalesLT.SalesOrderHeader table and the other one of Customer details off of the SalesLT.Customer and associated tables. Nothing crazy going on here.

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So now the problem is that since the data for the customers is in a totally separate dataset …How do we relate the two in order to remove CustomerID from our table and replace it with say the customer’s company name? That’s where the Lookup function comes in. I will add a column on the left of my report and set the header to Company. Next I will delete my CustomerID column from the report since I won’t need that anymore. Lastly, I add a lookup function as an expression for the field under the Company column. This is where it gets kind of tricky….

=Lookup(Fields!CustomerID.Value,Fields!CustomerID.Value,
Fields!CompanyName.Value,"Customers")

So in order to use the Lookup function I need to pass it four things.

  1. The value from the original dataset that is going to be used as the left side of the match.
  2. The value from the second dataset the is going to be the right side of the match. This is the tricky part because when you look at the two parameters they look to be the same. You just have to  remember that the field references are named the same in each dataset ..SSRS knows which one it is supposed to be looking in.
  3. The value from the second dataset that needs to be pulled out.
  4. The name of the second dataset where all this lookee upee stuff is supposed to be going on.

Now if we run our report we can see that everything turned out exactly as it should have.

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Now it should be stated that I could have used an expression for any of the values passed as parameters to the function. This allows us to do matching on things like complex keys(ie more than one column to denote a match) or bringing back complex values…like the full name of the customer.

It should also be noted that there are  two other Lookup functions: LookupSet and MultiLookup that return arrays of matching values. I will try to detail those in a follow up blog post.

I am including the sample project below to help you out .

Sample Reports

Cheers!
Aj

SSRS 2008 R2 in CRM

Posted by Arie | Posted in Featured, Presentations | Posted on 30-08-2010

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The webcast recording is up for my presentation to the XRM Virtual User’s Group on SSRS 2008 R2 in CRM. In it I go over some of the new features as well as some gotchas for people looking to upgrade to the newer version. 

http://www.xrmvirtual.com/events/ssrs_crm

Thanks to Julie Yack et all for putting everything together!

 

Cheers,
AJ

SSRS 2008 R2 Webcast for XRMVirtualUserGroup ( @xrmvirtual )

Posted by Arie | Posted in Featured, Presentations | Posted on 29-07-2010

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Okay, so I will be presenting another webcast on SQL Server 2008 R2 Features….this time specifically with a slant towards CRM for the XRMVirtualUserGroup on Aug 26th,2010.

SSRS in CRM with Arie Jones

Join Arie Jones, Principal Technology Manager of Perptech, as he shares with us what’s new in SSRS 2008 R2. This session will cover reporting basics and will have some deeper technical content as well. System customizers, power user, DBAs, developers, technical users, numbers people (pretty much anyone USING or MAKING CRM) will learn a great deal in this session.

**** Please note the timezone below !!!

**** PST = Pacific Standard Time   PST <> Pretty Standard Time

Schedule:

  • SSRS in CRM
    8/26/2010 9:00:00 AM (PST) – 8/26/2010 10:00:00 AM (PST)

You can Register here!

 http://www.xrmvirtual.com/events/ssrs_crm

 

For those of you that don’t know the XRMVirtualUserGroup(http://www.xrmvirtual.com/ ) covers all things related to XRM(CRM) and is coordinated by the (in)famous Julie Yack(MVP) (http://julieyack.com/)  from an undisclosed location deep in the Colorado mountainside. The virtual group is fairly large I believe with over 1000 members internationally…….so you may be asking yourself why you haven’t joined yet??…….yes, it is because you are a noob so stop wasting time and just do it!

Cheers,
AJ

What’s New in SSRS 2008 R2: Webcast

Posted by Arie | Posted in Featured, Presentations | Posted on 27-07-2010

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Well, our first PTI webcast is complete. Except for a few technical glitches everything turned out okay in the end for a first run through. Got a lot of emails post event thanking me for the presentation so it was well worth it. Now I just have to figure out what I will do for the next one! For those of you that missed it you can get the recorded video with the info below:

Recording Details
    Subject: Using the New Features in Reporting Services 2008 R2
    Recording URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/perpetualtechnologies/view
    Recording ID: H7DN6M

Feel free to share this with your friends and make sure to send me some ideas on what webcasts you are looking for so I don’t have to think too hard:)

Cheers,
AJ

My submissions to PASS Summit 2010

Posted by Arie | Posted in Community, Featured | Posted on 04-06-2010

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Well, I have finally completed my submissions to the PASS Summit. Hopefully, if I can get some of my topics picked up then I can get my company to sponsor this year. I am thinking about adding another submission for an all day event for One Day Data Warehouse with SQL Server 2008 R2 to basically demonstrate building a data warehouse from front to back with all the bells and whistles  involved. Let me know if this sounds good or if there is another topic you have been dying to see.

I have included some comments on these as I have presented on the topics before but as many of you know, I don’t like giving the exact same presentation twice so these would be revamped with newer and cooler demos and ideas.

Of course, I am not above shamelessly plugging my presentations. So anyone out there that would like to see these at PASS just send an email off to them:)

Also, if there are any PASS chapters  or SQL Saturdays out there that would like to see these or other similar presentations then drop me a line. I cannot promise that I can make every one but I will try get it on my schedule!

Cheers,
AJ

* This one is generally well received because I provide some handy advice as well as some scripts that can be used to automate and also report on you SQL Server environment.

Automate Your DBA World With Powershell

Approval Status: Proposed

Track: Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment

Session Type: Regular session

While SQL Server 2008 provided a myriad of tools to assist the DBA in managing large numbers of database instances, most companies do not have the funds to implement full Enterprise Edition deployments. Luckily, Microsoft has provided us with a platform to write our own custom scripts to do just about anything within our environment. This session will concentrate on showing DBAs how they can leverage Powershell to perform task automation and reporting within their database environments both large and small.

* A cool one because I actually set up an AJ ITunes type web page and use FILESTREAM to house the music. I was told by one college student at an earlier event that I was ‘Off the hook with this demo’…see IT people can be cool too.  :)

Handling FILESTREAM in SQL Server 2008 R2

Approval Status: Proposed

Track: Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment

Session Type: Regular session

SQL Server 2008 introduced the concept of the FILESTREAM support. Most DBAs whom have been around for a while have in one instance or another supported streaming applications by use of the VARBINARY(MAX) datatype in order to store file information within the database architecture. However, this has drastic limitations as the RDBMS are not typically set up to deal with data that is not accessible in terms of pages and extents. FILESTREAM support adds a new paradigm to the database platform by marrying the database system with the NTFS file system in order to overcome these old obstacles. In this session, we will delve into FILESTREAM support, Remote Blog Storage, what it takes to implement, and some of the extremely cool things that you can do with this new power.

* This is a really good demo for the developer. I am constantly amazed at how many people try to reinvent the wheel with a custom implementation when Microsoft has one baked into the product.

Monitoring Data Changes the Microsoft Way with Change Data Capture

Approval Status: Proposed

Track: Application and Database Development

Session Type: Regular session

Most modern enterprise database environments require some measure of auditing their data. Previously, the DBA would need to put together a complicated web of triggers and history tables in order to properly track data changes. Now in SQL Server 2008, Change Data Capture allows the DBA to readily enact a very straight-forward method for tracking the changes and understanding easily how they took place. In this session, we will examine how to set-up, configure, use, and administer the Change Data Capture process in your environment.

* This is an excellent under the cover look at replication. I show that it is really a pretty simple process to understand and how you can use that knowledge to customize solutions. This is one of those ‘AJ you can’t do that?!’ kind of demonstrations where I will show you how to do all kinds of quirky things that your business users may ask of you.

SQL Server Replication Demystified

Approval Status: Proposed

Track: Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment

Session Type: Regular session

Replication is often one of those black box features where if you are using the wizard in a standard implementation then you are fine. Yet, what do you do when you have to do something like transactional replication across non-trusted domains. In this session, we will discuss the internals of replication, how it works, and what you can do to manage your implementations more effectively by understanding what going on underneath the covers

* This is one of the all day events. Every time I give a SSRS demo the place is packed and I actually had one guy in Chicago tell me ‘I haven’t been this excited about reporting since RPG!’….what’s worse is that I know what he means! So this would be an all day event where I actually demonstrate how to go from setup to Enterprise platform in a single day. Hopefully this one gets through because it will be wicked!

SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 R2 Unleashed!

Approval Status: Proposed

Track: BI Client Reporting and Delivery Topics

Session Type: Pre/Post-Conference session

SQL Server Reporting Services has been around for a number of years now and the 2008 R2 release provides DBAs and Developers with a truly enterprise class reporting platform. If your company has not embraced Reporting Services fully yet then now is the time! Come and see how to install, configure, and administer the Reporting Services environment as well as how to develop and deploy your own reporting solutions.

* This is an awesome presentation for the database administrator, especially in large scale environments with lots of developers. I show how to reign in those puppies with a little policy based management with a dash of resource governor! 

Take Control with Resource Governor and Policy Based Management

Approval Status: Proposed

Track: Enterprise Database Administration and Deployment

Session Type: Regular session

A large majority of a modern DBA’s workload consists of managing their policies and resources on their system in order to ensure that they are being followed and resources are accessible when needed. SQL Server 2008 provides both Policy Based Management(PBM) and Resource Governor, which allows the DBA to discretely manage system policies and resources in a very structured way. In this session, we will show you how to configure, monitor, and administer these features to help lower your anxiety levels while increasing your system’s availability.