Are you looking for SSRS 2008 hosting? Find the best, quality, and cheap SSRS 2008 hosting at ASPHostDirectory. Only with $ 3.99/month  to get SSRS 2008 hosting. The article below describes brief information about how to using SSRS 2008 x64 with MYSQL.

Here we go:

1. Download and Execute onto the server that is hosting your Report Manager
mysql-connector-odbc-5.1.6-winx64.msi.

2. Once that is installed then Confirm the driver is being recognized:
A.Go to Start/Administrative Tools/Data Sources (ODBC)
B. Select the Driver tab and validate it is in the list.

3. Setting up the System DSN for the MYSQL Connection will allow you to create a MYSQL data source in Report Manager.
A.Go to Start/Administrative Tools/Data Sources (ODBC)
B. Select System DSN tab
C. Press Add
D. Select the MySQL Driver in the list and press Finish
E. Fill in the goodies and Test

4.Log onto your Report Manager
A.Create a new Data Source
B. Select ODBC for Data Source Type.
C. In the Connection String box type DSN=(Your DSN Name you gave the mysql connection)
D. Select Credentials stored securely in the report server, pass your user name and password for the mysql connection.

You should now be able to you this data source to post reports using the mysql database.

What is so SPECIAL on ASPHostDirectory.com Reporting Service Hosting?

We know that finding a cheap, reliable web host is not a simple task so we’ve put all the information you need in one place to help you make your decision. At ASPHostDirectory, we pride ourselves in our commitment to our customers and want to make sure they have all the details they need before making that big decision.

We will work tirelessly to provide a refreshing and friendly level of customer service. We believe in creativity, innovation, and a competitive spirit in all that we do. We are sound, honest company who feels that business is more than just the bottom line. We consider every business opportunity a chance to engage and interact with our customers and our community. Neither our clients nor our employees are a commodity. They are part of our family.

The followings are the top 10 reasons you should trust your online business and hosting needs to us:

- FREE domain for Life - ASPHostDirectory gives you your own free domain name for life with our Professional Hosting Plan and 3 free domains with any of Reseller Hosting Plan! There’s no need to panic about renewing your domain as ASPHostDirectory will automatically do this for you to ensure you never lose the all important identity of your site
- 99,9% Uptime Guarantee - ASPHostDirectory promises it’s customers 99.9% network uptime! We are so concerned about uptime that we set up our own company to monitor people’s uptime for them called ASPHostDirectory Uptime
- 24/7-based Support - We never fall asleep and we run a service that is opening 24/7 a year. Even everyone is on holiday during Easter or Christmast/New Year, we are always behind our desk serving our customers
- Customer Tailored Support - if you compare our hosting plans to others you will see that we are offering a much better deal in every aspect; performance, disk quotas, bandwidth allocation, databases, security, control panel features, e-mail services, real-time stats, and service
- Money Back Guarantee - ASPHostDirectory offers a ‘no questions asked’ money back guarantee with all our plans for any cancellations made within the first 30 days of ordering. Our cancellation policy is very simple - if you cancel your account within 30 days of first signing up we will provide you with a full refund
- Experts in Reporting Service Hosting - Given the scale of our environment, we have recruited and developed some of the best talent in the hosting technology that you are using. Our team is strong because of the experience and talents of the individuals who make up ASPHostDirectory
- Daily Backup Service - We realise that your website is very important to your business and hence, we never ever forget to create a daily backup. Your database and website are backup every night into a permanent remote tape drive to ensure that they are always safe and secure. The backup is always ready and available anytime you need it
- Easy Site Administration - With our powerful control panel, you can always administer most of your site features easily without even needing to contact for our Support Team. Additionally, you can also install more than 100 FREE applications directly via our Control  Panel in 1 minute!

Happy Hosting!

 

If you have a SharePoint 2010 site and you navigate to site settings and try to click on "Managed Services Schedule" you will get this error:Unsupported Reporting Services Functionality

This is because your SharePoint configuration is not configured with Reporting services server.

To fix that, follow below steps:

1) Login to the Reporting Services server and make sure that the service is up and running, and double check that the reporting server is working:

a) Open SQL Reporting configuration manager
b) Select Report Manager Url.
c) click on the url to make sure it is working.
For example: http://SERVERNAME/Reports/

2) Open SharePoint Central administration:

a) Select General Application Settings.
b) Select Reporting Services Integration.
c) Set the report server url.
d) Select authentication mode, Windows if the reports show personalized data.
OR select the trusted account that will be used for impersonation.
e) Click on Ok, You will get a successful page.
f) You might get the following error:
"Failed to establish connection with report server. Verify the server URL is correct or review ULS logs for more information. Product area: SQL Server Reporting Services, Category: Configuration Pages"

This means that the SSRS is not configured to run with SharePoint Integrated Mode, to change it,read below article "Overview of Configuration Steps on a Report Server":
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb326356.aspx

3) Go to your sharepoint site settings and enable Report Integration feature on site collection features.

4) Go to your site and add reporting services webpart in your page and configure it to your report.

Note: It is recommended to have a library that has all your reports in one place and all SQL Reporting services webparts are connecting to this library.

Conclusion

If you looking for SSRS 2008 hosting, entrust your site to ASPHostDirectory. You’ll get the best service with an affordable price. We guarantee that!!

What is so SPECIAL on ASPHostDirectory.com Reporting Service Hosting?

We know that finding a cheap, reliable web host is not a simple task so we’ve put all the information you need in one place to help you make your decision. At ASPHostDirectory, we pride ourselves in our commitment to our customers and want to make sure they have all the details they need before making that big decision.

We will work tirelessly to provide a refreshing and friendly level of customer service. We believe in creativity, innovation, and a competitive spirit in all that we do. We are sound, honest company who feels that business is more than just the bottom line. We consider every business opportunity a chance to engage and interact with our customers and our community. Neither our clients nor our employees are a commodity. They are part of our family.

The followings are the top 10 reasons you should trust your online business and hosting needs to us:

- FREE domain for Life - ASPHostDirectory gives you your own free domain name for life with our Professional Hosting Plan and 3 free domains with any of Reseller Hosting Plan! There’s no need to panic about renewing your domain as ASPHostDirectory will automatically do this for you to ensure you never lose the all important identity of your site
- 99,9% Uptime Guarantee - ASPHostDirectory promises it’s customers 99.9% network uptime! We are so concerned about uptime that we set up our own company to monitor people’s uptime for them called ASPHostDirectory Uptime
- 24/7-based Support - We never fall asleep and we run a service that is opening 24/7 a year. Even everyone is on holiday during Easter or Christmast/New Year, we are always behind our desk serving our customers
- Customer Tailored Support - if you compare our hosting plans to others you will see that we are offering a much better deal in every aspect; performance, disk quotas, bandwidth allocation, databases, security, control panel features, e-mail services, real-time stats, and service
- Money Back Guarantee - ASPHostDirectory offers a ‘no questions asked’ money back guarantee with all our plans for any cancellations made within the first 30 days of ordering. Our cancellation policy is very simple - if you cancel your account within 30 days of first signing up we will provide you with a full refund
- Experts in Reporting Service Hosting - Given the scale of our environment, we have recruited and developed some of the best talent in the hosting technology that you are using. Our team is strong because of the experience and talents of the individuals who make up ASPHostDirectory
- Daily Backup Service - We realise that your website is very important to your business and hence, we never ever forget to create a daily backup. Your database and website are backup every night into a permanent remote tape drive to ensure that they are always safe and secure. The backup is always ready and available anytime you need it
- Easy Site Administration - With our powerful control panel, you can always administer most of your site features easily without even needing to contact for our Support Team. Additionally, you can also install more than 100 FREE applications directly via our Control  Panel in 1 minute!

Happy Hosting!

 

It hardly seems possible, but SQL Server 2008 R2 is almost ready. Like most R2 releases, SQL Server 2008 R2 builds on the functionality of the base SQL Server 2008 release by improving scalability as well as BI features. Here are five of the most important features you should watch for in SQL Server 2008 R2:

1. Support for 256 logical processors
Organizations pushing the high end of scalability will want to take advantage of SQL Server 2008 R2 support for up to 256 logical processors (which requires Windows Server 2008 R2). This is a big improvement over the previous maximum of 64 processors.

2. Improvements in multi-server management
SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) has always been great for managing SQL Server. However, SSMS was really for single server management and wasn’t strong in the area of multi-server management. New wizards, dashboards, and enhancements to Policy Based Management will boost SQL Server 2008 R2’s multi-server management capabilities.

3. Master Data Services
Almost all large organizations face the problem of multiple data definitions where the same data is defined and used differently in various locations. SQL Server 2008 R2’s new Master Data Services (MDS) feature provides a central portal from which administrators can create and update master data members and hierarchies, with the goal of ensuring data consistency across the enterprise.

4. Geospatial visualizations in Reporting Services
Building on the geospatial data types in the base SQL Server 2008 release, SQL Server 2008 R2’s Reporting Services will support reports with visual geographic mapping. New geospatial features include visualizations for mapping routine and custom shapes and support for Microsoft Virtual Earth tiles.

5. Self-service BI with Project Gemini
Project Gemini is the core feature of the SQL Server 2008 R2 release. Its goal is to enable organizations to more easily adopt and take advantage of SQL Server’s BI capabilities. It provides self-service BI through a powerful Excel add-in and integrates with SharePoint for centralized management. Project Gemini will require Excel 2010 and SharePoint 2010. For more about Gemini, check out Sheila Molnar’s interview of Microsoft’s Donald Farmer, InstantDoc ID 102613, in this issue of SQL Server Magazine.

What is so SPECIAL on ASPHostDirectory.com Reporting Service Hosting?

We know that finding a cheap, reliable web host is not a simple task so we’ve put all the information you need in one place to help you make your decision. At ASPHostDirectory, we pride ourselves in our commitment to our customers and want to make sure they have all the details they need before making that big decision.

We will work tirelessly to provide a refreshing and friendly level of customer service. We believe in creativity, innovation, and a competitive spirit in all that we do. We are sound, honest company who feels that business is more than just the bottom line. We consider every business opportunity a chance to engage and interact with our customers and our community. Neither our clients nor our employees are a commodity. They are part of our family.

The followings are the top 10 reasons you should trust your online business and hosting needs to us:

- FREE domain for Life - ASPHostDirectory gives you your own free domain name for life with our Professional Hosting Plan and 3 free domains with any of Reseller Hosting Plan! There’s no need to panic about renewing your domain as ASPHostDirectory will automatically do this for you to ensure you never lose the all important identity of your site
- 99,9% Uptime Guarantee - ASPHostDirectory promises it’s customers 99.9% network uptime! We are so concerned about uptime that we set up our own company to monitor people’s uptime for them called ASPHostDirectory Uptime
- 24/7-based Support - We never fall asleep and we run a service that is opening 24/7 a year. Even everyone is on holiday during Easter or Christmast/New Year, we are always behind our desk serving our customers
- Customer Tailored Support - if you compare our hosting plans to others you will see that we are offering a much better deal in every aspect; performance, disk quotas, bandwidth allocation, databases, security, control panel features, e-mail services, real-time stats, and service
- Money Back Guarantee - ASPHostDirectory offers a ‘no questions asked’ money back guarantee with all our plans for any cancellations made within the first 30 days of ordering. Our cancellation policy is very simple - if you cancel your account within 30 days of first signing up we will provide you with a full refund
- Experts in Reporting Service Hosting - Given the scale of our environment, we have recruited and developed some of the best talent in the hosting technology that you are using. Our team is strong because of the experience and talents of the individuals who make up ASPHostDirectory
- Daily Backup Service - We realise that your website is very important to your business and hence, we never ever forget to create a daily backup. Your database and website are backup every night into a permanent remote tape drive to ensure that they are always safe and secure. The backup is always ready and available anytime you need it
- Easy Site Administration - With our powerful control panel, you can always administer most of your site features easily without even needing to contact for our Support Team. Additionally, you can also install more than 100 FREE applications directly via our Control  Panel in 1 minute!

Happy Hosting!

 

For this example, we will configure a dashboard configuring containing one page with one scorecard view (OLAP data source) and one SSRS Relational report and a second page containing the same OLAP scorecard and a second SSRS OLAP report. Note, the SSRS reports are both configures in SSRS to have an SSRS parameter based on Geography - the parameters must be set up in SSRS prior to connecting the parameter to a Filter in the PerformancePoint dashboard.

Create report views for your SSRS reports

1. Right click the Reports folder in the dashboard designer and select New Report.

2. Select SQL Server Report and click OK.

3. Enter a name for your report and click Finish.

4. Enter the Server URL to the SSRS report server.

5. Click the Browse button and select the SSRS report you wish to include. Click OK.

6. Ensure that the parameters came through and are listed in the Report Parameters section.

7. Select each parameter, click Edit and set a default value.

8. Publish the report to your PerformancePoint Server by selecting the Home tab and clicking Publish All.

9. Repeat steps 1 through 8 for all your report views you wish to include. Note that the process does not differ for Relational vs OLAP SSRS Reports.

 

Configure your dashboard

1. Right click on Dashboards in the Dashboard Designer and select New Dashboard.

2. Select your template (in this example, we will choose 3 Rows) and click OK.

3. Assign a name to your dashboard and click Finish.

4. Drag your scorecard, in this example I choose an OLAP scorecard, and pull it into the Center Row.

5. Drag your SSRS report, in this example I pull an SSRS Relational Report, into the Bottom Row.

6. Create a Filter in the Dashboard. In this example, I build a filter off of my OLAP data source that sources my scorecard and is the same cube as my SSRS OLAP report is built from.

7. Drag your Filter into the Top Row.

8. Click on the Filter in the top row you will see a list of options listed under your parameter name.

9. Select Display and drag it to your SSRS Relational Report input area in the Bottom Row. Note, in order for this to work, your names in your SSRS Relational Report parameter, must match the captions of your members in the cube. Display specifies that we will provide the cube member name caption as the input to the report.

10. In the Edit Filter Link dialog, select the SSRS Report parameter from the Dashboard item endpoint drop down to create the link between the PerformancePoint filter and SSRS report parameter.

11. Click on the parameter again and select MemberUniqueName and drag it into the input area for the scorecard. We do this because our scorecard is built off of a cube data source and needs the MDX member unique names passed as inputs.

12. In the Edit Filter Link dialog, select Filters form the Dashboard item endpoint to pass the parameter as a filter to the scorecard.

13. Create a second page in your dashboard, also configured with 3 rows.

14. Place your same OLAP scorecard in the Center Row, your SSRS OLAP report in the Bottom Row and the same filter in the Top Row.

15. Click on the filter and drag the MemberUniqueName property to the input of the SSRS OLAP Report. In this case, we need the member unique name because the SSRS report is an MDX query which requires the MDX unique name as the parameter value.

16. In the Edit Filter Link dialog, select the SSRS Report parameter from the Dashboard item endpoint drop down to create the link between the PerformancePoint filter and SSRS report parameter.

17. Click on the parameter again and select MemberUniqueName and drag it into the input area for the scorecard.

18. In the Edit Filter Link dialog, select Filters form the Dashboard item endpoint to pass the parameter as a filter to the scorecard.

19. Publish your dashboard by selecting the Home tab and then selecting Publish All.

Export and view the dashboard

1. Click the Export tab and then select Sharepoint Site from the ribbon bar.

2. Choose the dashboard we just created and click Next.

3. Enter the Sharepoint URL and select the Document Library you wish to publish to, click Next.

4. Select the master page you wish to publish with and click Finish.

What is so SPECIAL on ASPHostDirectory.com Reporting Service Hosting?

We know that finding a cheap, reliable web host is not a simple task so we’ve put all the information you need in one place to help you make your decision. At ASPHostDirectory, we pride ourselves in our commitment to our customers and want to make sure they have all the details they need before making that big decision.

We will work tirelessly to provide a refreshing and friendly level of customer service. We believe in creativity, innovation, and a competitive spirit in all that we do. We are sound, honest company who feels that business is more than just the bottom line. We consider every business opportunity a chance to engage and interact with our customers and our community. Neither our clients nor our employees are a commodity. They are part of our family.

The followings are the top 10 reasons you should trust your online business and hosting needs to us:

- FREE domain for Life - ASPHostDirectory gives you your own free domain name for life with our Professional Hosting Plan and 3 free domains with any of Reseller Hosting Plan! There’s no need to panic about renewing your domain as ASPHostDirectory will automatically do this for you to ensure you never lose the all important identity of your site
- 99,9% Uptime Guarantee - ASPHostDirectory promises it’s customers 99.9% network uptime! We are so concerned about uptime that we set up our own company to monitor people’s uptime for them called ASPHostDirectory Uptime
- 24/7-based Support - We never fall asleep and we run a service that is opening 24/7 a year. Even everyone is on holiday during Easter or Christmast/New Year, we are always behind our desk serving our customers
- Customer Tailored Support - if you compare our hosting plans to others you will see that we are offering a much better deal in every aspect; performance, disk quotas, bandwidth allocation, databases, security, control panel features, e-mail services, real-time stats, and service
- Money Back Guarantee - ASPHostDirectory offers a ‘no questions asked’ money back guarantee with all our plans for any cancellations made within the first 30 days of ordering. Our cancellation policy is very simple - if you cancel your account within 30 days of first signing up we will provide you with a full refund
- Experts in Reporting Service Hosting - Given the scale of our environment, we have recruited and developed some of the best talent in the hosting technology that you are using. Our team is strong because of the experience and talents of the individuals who make up ASPHostDirectory
- Daily Backup Service - We realise that your website is very important to your business and hence, we never ever forget to create a daily backup. Your database and website are backup every night into a permanent remote tape drive to ensure that they are always safe and secure. The backup is always ready and available anytime you need it
- Easy Site Administration - With our powerful control panel, you can always administer most of your site features easily without even needing to contact for our Support Team. Additionally, you can also install more than 100 FREE applications directly via our Control  Panel in 1 minute!

Happy Hosting!

 

This topic  descibes brief information about how to upgrade to SQL Server 2008 R2. So, if you seek more information about SQL Server 2008, you can choose ASPHostDirectory as alternatives. You’ll get the best service at an affordable price. Only with @ 3.99/month, you can directly get the services you want. So, what are you waiting for? Try it!!

To upgrade to SQL Server 2008 R2

1. Insert the SQL Server installation media, and from the root folder, double-click Setup.exe. To install from a network share, move to the root folder on the share, and then double-click Setup.exe. If the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Setup dialog box appears, click OK to install the prerequisites, then click Cancel to exit SQL Server 2008 R2 installation.

2. If the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 installation dialog box appears, select the check box to accept the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 License Agreement. Click Next. To exit the SQL Server 2008 R2 installation, click Cancel. When installation of .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 is complete, click Finish.

3. Windows Installer 4.5 is also required, and may be installed by the Installation Wizard. If you are prompted to restart your computer, restart, and then run SQL Server 2008 R2 Setup.exe again.

4. When prerequisites are installed, the Installation Wizard starts the SQL Server Installation Center. To upgrade an existing instance of SQL Server, click Upgrade from SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005, or SQL Server 2008.

5. If Setup support files are required, SQL Server Setup installs them. If you are instructed to restart your computer, restart before you continue.

6. The System Configuration Checker runs a discovery operation on your computer. To continue, click OK. If Setup detects SQL Server 2008 on the machine, you will see a warning about the automatic upgrade of shared components to SQL Server 2008 R2.

7. On the Language Selection page, you can specify the language for your instance of SQL Server if you are installing on a localized operating system and the installation media includes language packs for both English and the language corresponding to the operating system.
To continue, click Next.

8. On the Product key page, click an option button to indicate whether you are upgrading to a free edition of SQL Server, or whether you have a PID key for a production version of the product.

9. On the License Terms page, read the license agreement, and then select the check box to accept the license terms and conditions. To help improve SQL Server, you can also enable the feature usage option and send reports to Microsoft. Click Next to continue. To end Setup, click Cancel.

10. On the Select Instance page, specify the instance of SQL Server to upgrade.

11. On the Feature Selection page, the features to upgrade will be preselected. A description for each component group appears in the right pane after you select the feature name. Be aware that you cannot change the features to be upgraded, and you cannot add features during the upgrade operation.

12. On the Instance Configuration page, specify whether to install a default or a named instance.

Instance ID — By default, the instance name is used as the Instance ID. This is used to identify installation directories and registry keys for your instance of SQL Server. This is the case for default instances and named instances. For a default instance, the instance name and instance ID would be MSSQLSERVER. To use a nondefault instance ID, select the Instance ID check box and provide a value.

Instance root directory — By default, the instance root directory is C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\. To specify a nondefault root directory, use the field provided, or click Browse to locate an installation folder.

All SQL Server service packs and upgrades will apply to every component of an instance of SQL Server.

Detected instances and features — The grid will show instances of SQL Server that are on the computer where Setup is running. If a default instance is already installed on the computer, you must install a named instance of SQL Server 2008 R2. Click Next to continue.

13. The Disk Space Requirements page calculates the required disk space for the features that you specify, and compares requirements to the available disk space on the computer where Setup is running.

14. Work flow for the rest of this topic depends on the features that you have specified for your installation. You might not see all the pages, depending on your selections.

15. On the Server Configuration -— Service Accounts page, specify login accounts for SQL Server services. The actual services that are configured on this page depend on the features that you are upgrading.

Authentication and login information will be carried forward from the previous instance of SQL Server. You can assign the same login account to all SQL Server services, or you can configure each service account individually. You can also specify whether services start automatically, are started manually, or are disabled. Microsoft recommends that you configure service accounts individually so that SQL Server services are granted the minimum permissions they have to have to complete their tasks.

To specify the same login account for all service accounts in this instance of SQL Server, provide credentials in the fields at the bottom of the page.

Security Note   Do not use a blank password. Use a strong password.

When you are finished specifying login information for SQL Server services, click Next.

16. Use the Server Configuration — Collation tab to specify nondefault collations for the Database Engine and Analysis Services.

17. On the Full-Text Search Upgrade Options page, specify the upgrade options for the databases being upgraded.

18. On the Error Reporting page, specify the information that you want to send to Microsoft to help improve SQL Server. By default, option for error reporting is enabled.

19. The System Configuration Checker will run one more set of rules to validate your computer configuration with the SQL Server features that you have specified before the upgrade operation begins.

20. The Ready to Upgrade page displays a tree view of installation options that were specified during Setup. To continue, click Install.

21. During installation, the progress page provides status so that you can monitor installation progress as Setup continues.

22. After installation, the Complete page provides a link to the summary log file for the installation and other important notes. To complete the SQL Server installation process, click Close.

23. If you are instructed to restart the computer, do so now. It is important to read the message from the Installation Wizard when you have finished with Setup.

Next Steps

After you upgrade to SQL Server, complete the following tasks:

- Register your servers — Upgrade removes registry settings for the previous instance of SQL Server. After you upgrade, you must reregister your servers.

- Update statistics — To help optimize query performance, we recommend that you update statistics on all databases following upgrade. Use the sp_updatestats stored procedure to update statistics in user-defined tables in SQL Server databases.

- Configure your new SQL Server installation — To reduce the attackable surface area of a system, SQL Server selectively installs and enables key services and features. For more information about surface area configuration, see the readme file for this release.

What is so SPECIAL on ASPHostDirectory.com Reporting Service Hosting?

We know that finding a cheap, reliable web host is not a simple task so we’ve put all the information you need in one place to help you make your decision. At ASPHostDirectory, we pride ourselves in our commitment to our customers and want to make sure they have all the details they need before making that big decision.

We will work tirelessly to provide a refreshing and friendly level of customer service. We believe in creativity, innovation, and a competitive spirit in all that we do. We are sound, honest company who feels that business is more than just the bottom line. We consider every business opportunity a chance to engage and interact with our customers and our community. Neither our clients nor our employees are a commodity. They are part of our family.

The followings are the top 10 reasons you should trust your online business and hosting needs to us:

- FREE domain for Life - ASPHostDirectory gives you your own free domain name for life with our Professional Hosting Plan and 3 free domains with any of Reseller Hosting Plan! There’s no need to panic about renewing your domain as ASPHostDirectory will automatically do this for you to ensure you never lose the all important identity of your site
- 99,9% Uptime Guarantee - ASPHostDirectory promises it’s customers 99.9% network uptime! We are so concerned about uptime that we set up our own company to monitor people’s uptime for them called ASPHostDirectory Uptime
- 24/7-based Support - We never fall asleep and we run a service that is opening 24/7 a year. Even everyone is on holiday during Easter or Christmast/New Year, we are always behind our desk serving our customers
- Customer Tailored Support - if you compare our hosting plans to others you will see that we are offering a much better deal in every aspect; performance, disk quotas, bandwidth allocation, databases, security, control panel features, e-mail services, real-time stats, and service
- Money Back Guarantee - ASPHostDirectory offers a ‘no questions asked’ money back guarantee with all our plans for any cancellations made within the first 30 days of ordering. Our cancellation policy is very simple - if you cancel your account within 30 days of first signing up we will provide you with a full refund
- Experts in Reporting Service Hosting - Given the scale of our environment, we have recruited and developed some of the best talent in the hosting technology that you are using. Our team is strong because of the experience and talents of the individuals who make up ASPHostDirectory
- Daily Backup Service - We realise that your website is very important to your business and hence, we never ever forget to create a daily backup. Your database and website are backup every night into a permanent remote tape drive to ensure that they are always safe and secure. The backup is always ready and available anytime you need it
- Easy Site Administration - With our powerful control panel, you can always administer most of your site features easily without even needing to contact for our Support Team. Additionally, you can also install more than 100 FREE applications directly via our Control  Panel in 1 minute!

Happy Hosting!

 

Reporting Services includes two tools for creating reports:

- Report Designer can create reports of any complexity that Reporting Services supports, but requires you to understand the structure of your data and to be able to navigate the Visual Studio user interface.
- Report Builder provides a simpler user interface for creating ad hoc reports, directed primarily at business users rather than developers. Report Builder requires a developer or administrator to set up a data model before end users can create reports.

We'll start our tour of Reporting Services with Report Designer. Report Designer runs inside the Business Intelligence Development Studio shell, and offers several ways to create reports. You can either use the Report Wizard to quickly create a report, or you can use a set of design tools to build a report from scratch. You can also use the design tools to modify a report created with the wizard.

Using the Report Wizard

The easiest way to create a report in Report Designer is to use the Report Wizard. Like all wizards, the Report Wizard walks you through the process in step-by-step fashion. You can make the following choices in the wizard:

- The data source to use
- The query to use to retrieve data
- Whether to use a tabular or matrix layout for the report
- How to group the retrieved data
- What visual style to use
- Where to deploy the finished report

Try It!

To create a simple report using the Report Wizard, follow these steps:

1. Launch Business Intelligence Development Studio.

2. Select File > New >Project.

3. Select the Business Intelligence Projects project type.

4. Select the Report Server Project Wizard template.

5. Name the new report ProductReport1 and pick a convenient location to save it in.

6. Click OK.

7. Read the first page of the Report Wizard and click Next.

8. Name the new data source AdventureWorksDS.

9. Click the Edit button.

10. Log on to your test server.

11. Select the AdventureWorks2008 database.

12. Click OK.

13. Click the Credentials button.

14. Select Use Windows Authentication.

15. Click OK.

16. Check the Make This a Shared Data Source checkbox. This will make this particular data source available to other Reporting Services applications in the future.

17. Click Next.

18. Click the Query Builder button.

19. If the full query designer interface does not display by default, click the query designer toolbar button at the far left end of the toolbar.
20. Click the Add Table toolbar button.

21. Select the Product table and click Add.

22. Click Close.

23. Check the Name, ProductNumber, Color, and ListPrice columns.

24. Click OK.

25. Click Next.

26. Select the Tabular layout and click Next.

27. Move the Color column to the Group area, and the other three columns to the Detail area.
28. Click Next.

29. Select the Stepped layout and click Next.

30. Select the Ocean style and click Next.

31. Accept the default deployment location and click Next.

32. Name the report ProductReport1.

33. Check the Preview Report checkbox.

34. Click Finish.

Modifying a Report

Now that you've created a report with the Report Wizard, you can modify it with the Report Designer. If you've used any sort of visual report design tool in the past, you should have no problem making changes here. Among the possibilities here:

- You can change the available data or the sort order for the report by modifying the query on the Data tab.
- You can resize or rearrange controls on the Layout tab.
- You can use the Properties window to change properties of individual controls including their font, alignment, colors, and so on.

Try It!

To modify the report that you just created, follow these steps:

1. Click the Design tab to make the report editable.

2. In the Report Data window, right-click on DataSet1 and select Dataset Properties.

3. In the Dataset Properties window, click the Query Designer button.

4. Select a Descending sort type for the ListPrice column and click OK.

5. Click OK.

6. Click in the textbox at the top of the report, where the report name is displayed.

7. Click a second time in the textbox to put it in edit mode and change the value of this control to Products By Color.

8. Click on the header for the Product column.

9. Place the cursor between the column selectors above the Name and Product Number columns to display a double-headed arrow. Hold down the mouse button and drag the cursor to the right to widen the Name column.

10. Place the cursor between the column selectors above the Product Number and ListPrice columns to display a double-headed arrow. Hold down the mouse button and drag the cursor to the right to widen the Product Number column.

11. Click on the Preview tab to view the modified report.

Designing a Report from Scratch

You can also use Report Designer to build your own reports starting from scratch. In general, you'll follow these steps to create a report:

1. Create a Report project in Business Intelligence Design Studio or open an existing Report project.
2. Add a report to the project.
3. Create one or more datasets for the report.
4. Build the report layout.

Try It!

To create a fresh report in Report Designer, follow these steps:

1. Select File > New > Project.

2. Select the Business Intelligence Projects project type.

3. Select the Report Server Project template.

4. Name the new report ProductReport2 and pick a convenient location to save it in.

5. Right-click on the Reports node in Solution Explorer and select Add > New Item.

6. Select the Report template.

7. Name the new report ProductReport2.rdl and click Add.

8. In the Report Data window, select New > Data Source.

9. Name the new Data Source AdventureWorksDS.

10. Select the Embedded Connection option and click on the Edit button.

11. Connect to your test server and choose the AdventureWorks2008 database.

12. Click OK.

13. Click OK again to create the data source.

14. In the Report Data window, select New > Dataset.

15. Name the dataset dsLocation.

16. Click the Query Designer button.

17. If the full Query Designer does not appear, click on the Edit As Text button.

18. Click the Add Table button.

19. Select the Location table.

20. Click Add.

21. Click Close.

22. Check the boxes for the Name and CostRate columns.

23. Sort the dataset in ascending order by Name and click OK.

24. Click OK again to create the dataset.

25. Open the toolbox window (View > Toolbox).

26. Double-click the Table control.

27. Switch back to the Report Data window.

28. Expand the dataset to show the column names.

29. Drag the Name field and drop it in the first column of the table control on the design tab.

30. Drag the CostRate field from the Report Data window and drop it in the second column of the table control.

31. Place the cursor between the column selectors above the Name and CostRate columns to display a double-headed arrow. Hold down the mouse button and drag the cursor to the right to widen the Name column.

What is so SPECIAL on ASPHostDirectory.com Reporting Service Hosting?

We know that finding a cheap, reliable web host is not a simple task so we’ve put all the information you need in one place to help you make your decision. At ASPHostDirectory, we pride ourselves in our commitment to our customers and want to make sure they have all the details they need before making that big decision.

We will work tirelessly to provide a refreshing and friendly level of customer service. We believe in creativity, innovation, and a competitive spirit in all that we do. We are sound, honest company who feels that business is more than just the bottom line. We consider every business opportunity a chance to engage and interact with our customers and our community. Neither our clients nor our employees are a commodity. They are part of our family.

The followings are the top 10 reasons you should trust your online business and hosting needs to us:

- FREE domain for Life - ASPHostDirectory gives you your own free domain name for life with our Professional Hosting Plan and 3 free domains with any of Reseller Hosting Plan! There’s no need to panic about renewing your domain as ASPHostDirectory will automatically do this for you to ensure you never lose the all important identity of your site
- 99,9% Uptime Guarantee - ASPHostDirectory promises it’s customers 99.9% network uptime! We are so concerned about uptime that we set up our own company to monitor people’s uptime for them called ASPHostDirectory Uptime
- 24/7-based Support - We never fall asleep and we run a service that is opening 24/7 a year. Even everyone is on holiday during Easter or Christmast/New Year, we are always behind our desk serving our customers
- Customer Tailored Support - if you compare our hosting plans to others you will see that we are offering a much better deal in every aspect; performance, disk quotas, bandwidth allocation, databases, security, control panel features, e-mail services, real-time stats, and service
- Money Back Guarantee - ASPHostDirectory offers a ‘no questions asked’ money back guarantee with all our plans for any cancellations made within the first 30 days of ordering. Our cancellation policy is very simple - if you cancel your account within 30 days of first signing up we will provide you with a full refund
- Experts in Reporting Service Hosting - Given the scale of our environment, we have recruited and developed some of the best talent in the hosting technology that you are using. Our team is strong because of the experience and talents of the individuals who make up ASPHostDirectory
- Daily Backup Service - We realise that your website is very important to your business and hence, we never ever forget to create a daily backup. Your database and website are backup every night into a permanent remote tape drive to ensure that they are always safe and secure. The backup is always ready and available anytime you need it
- Easy Site Administration - With our powerful control panel, you can always administer most of your site features easily without even needing to contact for our Support Team. Additionally, you can also install more than 100 FREE applications directly via our Control  Panel in 1 minute!

Happy Hosting!

 

Overview

In the spatial data series we looked at free-form text based address data and worked towards developing a Geospatial Dashboard . In this artilce we will look at using one of the new enhancements introduced in SQL Sever 2008 R2 - Shared Datasets. Before we discussing the advanatages and applications of Shared Datasets, it is helpful to understand a practial scenario where it would really come in useful.

Why Use Shared Datasets ?

Our BI-Satellite application performed the below tasks:

1) Used data from a SQL Server table, read this data in SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) and geocoded it using Bing Maps web services.
2) Stored the data in SQL Server Spatial datatypes.
3) We used the dataset in SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) and developed a report using the Map control.
4) Finally, made the data in our SQL Server table more detailed and developed a scaled down version of a Geospatial Dashboard.

To keep the focus on the technical study of the geospatial data, we kept the data relatively simple. Consider this data as the regional sales data from a company. When someone would like to view the report of sales of a salesperson , or if the senior management of the company would like to check the details of the performance of all the salesmen of the company it would be mandatory that either the geocode details of the salespeople's locations are stored in the database whenever a new record is entered or they are updated each time a location value changes.

Adding to this complexity, consider a scenario that departmental stores in some regions have shifted from one place to another. So effectively their geocode values would also change. In these cases, one would be required to maintain a batch process where each change in address would continuously require updating.

But step 2 and step 3 can be eliminated by a solution integrating SSIS and SSRS. We can use a SSIS data processing extension from SSRS, and geocode values on a "on demand" basis. SSIS packages as explained in Part I would geocode values, and this package can be used as a data source in SSRS using SSIS data processing extension. Explanation of implementation details of the same is out of scope of this article, so we would take it as granted that we have implemented this solution.

Now when we use such data source and create a dataset, it would be easier to implement for theIT staff but the same cannot be expected from business users who would need the same data for use in their reports using Reports Builder. As a solution we can opt to make the data source Shared. But when there is a complex process involved in extracting a dataset, one would also want to share the same to make it reusable and easy to use for business users. In our case the dataset cannot be created using a SQL Query as our data source type is the SSIS Data Processing Extension. So we need to create the dataset in a way that can be shared by multiple reports and business users without requiring them to get into the details of how to extract this data.

How to use Shared Datasets ?

The question of "Why" we would want to use shared datasets is now hopefully clear, but the question of "How" we would used shared datasets is yet to be answered and "What" are the advantages of the same is yet to be seen. And we would look at the same by implementing it with our BI App. As discussion of SSIS Data Processing Extension is out of the scope, we would use the same "Address" table in the normal way. Follow the steps below to implement the solution:

1) The first point that should be made is that shared datasets can only use a shared data source.

2) Right-click on the shared data sources folder in the solution explorer pane, and select "Add New Data Source". Create a connection to the database which has your "Address" table and name it something relevant. After you have created your shared data source, you would find a .rds file listed in this folder.

3) Now add a new shared data set by right-clicking the Shared Datasets directory and selecting "Add New Dataset". You should be able to see the dialog as shown in the below screenshot. Select data from Address table and name it "FamousBuildingsSharedDS". After that a .rsd file would get created, which would be listed in this folder.

4) Deploy this data source and dataset.

5) Open Reports Builder and create a new blank report. On the reports data pane, right-click Datasets directory and select "Add Dataset". Select "Use a shared dataset" option and click on the browse button. Navigate to the directory where your shared dataset would have got deployed (normally with default deployment settings in native installation mode, you would find it in datasets directory).

6) Now just to check that this data is accessible, add a table to the report. Select a few fields from this dataset and your report should look like the below screenshot.

Advantages of using Shared Datasets

1) The first and biggest advantage in my view is reusability. Shared datasets can be used by multiple reports, and embedded datasets are limited to the scope of report in which it is defined. Also as we discussed in this article, if you have a specific complex or a generalized dataset, and the same dataset or it's subset is used by multiple reports, it would be more efficient to implement a generic version of the dataset by using shared dataset feature.

2) As multiple reports are using the same dataset definition, this makes the definition more centralized and easier to maintain. Changing the definition of the dataset at a single location would cascade changes to all the reports using this dataset. This is an advantage, but it should be used with caution.

3) By separating the dataset element from the definition of the report, it becomes easy to individually configure datasets on a broad level. When datasets are consumed in reports, they can be tuned as per the needs of report like selection of fields can be modified, more filter parameters can be added, datasets can be cached separately from the report etc.. But the reverse is not possible, which means that individual reports consuming a shared dataset cannot override the definition of the shared dataset. In a way, this can be seen as a contract implementation by reports using this dataset. Once you have a report using this shared dataset, the scope defined by the shared dataset is guranteed to be available to consumers of this dataset. This is more desireable from an architectural standpoint.

Summary

Shared Datasets is one of the new features that is available in SQL Server 2008 R2 version. Use this feature to increase reusability of your data logic and practice a more robust architecture design.

What is so SPECIAL on ASPHostDirectory.com Reporting Service Hosting?

We know that finding a cheap, reliable web host is not a simple task so we’ve put all the information you need in one place to help you make your decision. At ASPHostDirectory, we pride ourselves in our commitment to our customers and want to make sure they have all the details they need before making that big decision.

We will work tirelessly to provide a refreshing and friendly level of customer service. We believe in creativity, innovation, and a competitive spirit in all that we do. We are sound, honest company who feels that business is more than just the bottom line. We consider every business opportunity a chance to engage and interact with our customers and our community. Neither our clients nor our employees are a commodity. They are part of our family.

The followings are the top 10 reasons you should trust your online business and hosting needs to us:

- FREE domain for Life - ASPHostDirectory gives you your own free domain name for life with our Professional Hosting Plan and 3 free domains with any of Reseller Hosting Plan! There’s no need to panic about renewing your domain as ASPHostDirectory will automatically do this for you to ensure you never lose the all important identity of your site
- 99,9% Uptime Guarantee - ASPHostDirectory promises it’s customers 99.9% network uptime! We are so concerned about uptime that we set up our own company to monitor people’s uptime for them called ASPHostDirectory Uptime
- 24/7-based Support - We never fall asleep and we run a service that is opening 24/7 a year. Even everyone is on holiday during Easter or Christmast/New Year, we are always behind our desk serving our customers
- Customer Tailored Support - if you compare our hosting plans to others you will see that we are offering a much better deal in every aspect; performance, disk quotas, bandwidth allocation, databases, security, control panel features, e-mail services, real-time stats, and service
- Money Back Guarantee - ASPHostDirectory offers a ‘no questions asked’ money back guarantee with all our plans for any cancellations made within the first 30 days of ordering. Our cancellation policy is very simple - if you cancel your account within 30 days of first signing up we will provide you with a full refund
- Experts in Reporting Service Hosting - Given the scale of our environment, we have recruited and developed some of the best talent in the hosting technology that you are using. Our team is strong because of the experience and talents of the individuals who make up ASPHostDirectory
- Daily Backup Service - We realise that your website is very important to your business and hence, we never ever forget to create a daily backup. Your database and website are backup every night into a permanent remote tape drive to ensure that they are always safe and secure. The backup is always ready and available anytime you need it
- Easy Site Administration - With our powerful control panel, you can always administer most of your site features easily without even needing to contact for our Support Team. Additionally, you can also install more than 100 FREE applications directly via our Control  Panel in 1 minute!

Happy Hosting!

 

The following document contains a proposed  Microsoft CRM 4.0 SSRS 2008 Integration architecture I worked with Microsoft to create along with a number of roadblock solutions for various errors encountered while attempting to integrate SSRS with Microsoft CRM 4.0.  To simplify the integration concepts I have limited the server configuration to 2 servers. If you looking for SSRS Hosting, you can always consider ASPHostDirectory as the alternatives.

Setup CRM Data Connector for SSRS 2008 Scaled Out Deployment

The CRM Data Connector acts as a IFD authentication service for SSRS.  The setup wizard is straight forward but there are two potential snags

The first snag is that the Data Connector setup can’t automatically handle a Scaled Out deployment which you almost certainly will be using.  To work around this you must run the Data Connector from the command prompt and specify the install-config.xml file and path.  The Data Connector install-config.xml file tells the setup program where the instances of SSRS are located.  Were you to run the setup program without specifying the install-config.xml file you would get the following error:

Error message in the Environmental Diagnostic wizard when you try to install the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Connector for SQL Server Reporting Services: “Unable to validate SQL Server Reporting Services Report Server installation”

Here are the instruction for modifying the install-config.xml and running setup from the command line.

1. Copy all the files in the SrsDataConnector folder on the installation CD to a folder on drive C. For example, copy the files to the following folder:

C:\SrsDataConnector

Note The SrsDataConnector folder is located in the following folder on the installation CD:

drive:\Server\i386

The drive placeholder represents the CD drive.

2. Locate the folder in which you copied the installation files. Right-click the Install-config.xml file, and then open the file in Notepad.

3. Add the following information to the Install-config.xml file:

The reportserverurl tags

The URL for the server that is running SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services

For example, if the server that is running Reporting Services has a named instance of Titan, the reportserverurl tags resemble the following example.

<reportserverurl>http://servername/Reportserver$Titan</reportserverurl>

If the server that is running SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services has a named instance, modify the instancename tags.

For example, if the server that is running Reporting Services has a named instance of Titan, the instancename tags resemble the following example.

<instancename>Titan</instancename>

After you complete steps 3 and 4, click Save on the File menu, and then close the Install-config.xml file.

Open a Command Prompt window, and then locate the folder in which you copied the installation files in step 1.

At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:

C:\SrsDataConnector> SetupSrsDataConnector /CONFIG path of the folder that contains the Install-config.xml file\install-config.xml

The second item to note is that it’s important to choose the “Update installation files”, when the setup wizard first runs.  In my experience the process will fail if you don’t choose this option.

Map SSRS 2008 Web Service URL to work with a named instance

When you install Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 together with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services all on the same server, you may receive the following error message:

“The specified path is not a metabase path.” Platform Error: System.Exception: Action Microsoft.Crm.Setup.Server.RSConfigAction failed. —> System.ArgumentException: The specified path is not a metabase path.

This issue occurs when the path of Reporting Services does not exist on the server.

To work around this issue, create a Web site that runs on the same port and the same URL that the Reporting Services server is using. In SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services, IIS is not used for accessing reports. However, if Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is installed on the same server, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 must find a Web site that has the same URL to bypass the error. To verify the URL of Reporting Services, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click All Programs, click Microsoft SQL Server 2008, click Configuration Tools, and then click Reporting Services Configuration Manager.

2. Click connect to connect to your report server instance.

3. Click the Web service URL, and see what the report server Web service URL is. For example, the URL may be http://SQLServername:8181/ReportServer.

In Windows Server 2008, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, and then type inetmgr.

2. Expand the server name, right-click Sites, and then click Add Website.

3. Enter a name for the site, and then select a physical path.

4. Enter the port number of the report server Web service. For example, enter 8181.

5. Click OK.

In Windows Server 2003, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, and then type inetmgr.

2. Expand the server name, right-click Web Sites, click New, and then click Web Site.

3. Enter a description for the site, and then click Next.

4. Enter the port number of the report server Web service. For example, enter 8181, and then click Next.

5. Enter a path for the Web site, and then click Next.

6. On the Permissions page, click Next

7. Click Finish.

Configure Microsoft Dynamics CRM with Deployment Manager

1. Configure the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Application to point to the new SQL Server and SQL Server Reporting Services.

2. On the computer that is running Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server, click Start, point to All Programs, point to Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and then click Deployment Manager.

3. Click Organizations.

4. Right-click the organization that you moved to the new computer that is running SQL Server, and then click Disable.

5. Right-click the organization that you disabled, and then click Edit Organization.

6. Type the new name of the SQL Server and the new URL for the SQL Server Reporting Services server.
Note This step publishes the reports that are in Microsoft Dynamics CRM to the new computer that is running SQL Server Reporting Services server that you specify.

7. Click Next two times, and then click Apply.

Right-click the organization that you disabled in step 4c, click Enable, and then click Yes.

Use embedded data-sources

Microsoft CRM 4.0 does not support shared data-sources which is basically the default for SSRS2008.  Be sure to change any shared data-sources to embedded data-sources as follows:

1. Open the report in Report Designer.

2. On the Data tab, click the lookup button to the right of the Dataset list.

3. Click the lookup button to the right of the Data Source list.

4. Click to clear the Use shared data source reference check box.

5. Click Edit to the right of the Connection box.

6. In the Server name box, type the server name. Then, select the authentication method and the correct database name.

7. Click OK two times.

8. On the File menu, click Save as.

9. Save the report on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM server, and then add the report.

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We know that finding a cheap, reliable web host is not a simple task so we’ve put all the information you need in one place to help you make your decision. At ASPHostDirectory, we pride ourselves in our commitment to our customers and want to make sure they have all the details they need before making that big decision.

We will work tirelessly to provide a refreshing and friendly level of customer service. We believe in creativity, innovation, and a competitive spirit in all that we do. We are sound, honest company who feels that business is more than just the bottom line. We consider every business opportunity a chance to engage and interact with our customers and our community. Neither our clients nor our employees are a commodity. They are part of our family.

The followings are the top 10 reasons you should trust your online business and hosting needs to us:

- FREE domain for Life - ASPHostDirectory gives you your own free domain name for life with our Professional Hosting Plan and 3 free domains with any of Reseller Hosting Plan! There’s no need to panic about renewing your domain as ASPHostDirectory will automatically do this for you to ensure you never lose the all important identity of your site
- 99,9% Uptime Guarantee - ASPHostDirectory promises it’s customers 99.9% network uptime! We are so concerned about uptime that we set up our own company to monitor people’s uptime for them called ASPHostDirectory Uptime
- 24/7-based Support - We never fall asleep and we run a service that is opening 24/7 a year. Even everyone is on holiday during Easter or Christmast/New Year, we are always behind our desk serving our customers
- Customer Tailored Support - if you compare our hosting plans to others you will see that we are offering a much better deal in every aspect; performance, disk quotas, bandwidth allocation, databases, security, control panel features, e-mail services, real-time stats, and service
- Money Back Guarantee - ASPHostDirectory offers a ‘no questions asked’ money back guarantee with all our plans for any cancellations made within the first 30 days of ordering. Our cancellation policy is very simple - if you cancel your account within 30 days of first signing up we will provide you with a full refund
- Experts in Reporting Service Hosting - Given the scale of our environment, we have recruited and developed some of the best talent in the hosting technology that you are using. Our team is strong because of the experience and talents of the individuals who make up ASPHostDirectory
- Daily Backup Service - We realise that your website is very important to your business and hence, we never ever forget to create a daily backup. Your database and website are backup every night into a permanent remote tape drive to ensure that they are always safe and secure. The backup is always ready and available anytime you need it
- Easy Site Administration - With our powerful control panel, you can always administer most of your site features easily without even needing to contact for our Support Team. Additionally, you can also install more than 100 FREE applications directly via our Control  Panel in 1 minute!

Happy Hosting!

 

This article explains in brief about the Features that are supported and about Designing a report. If you seek more information about SSRS, you can choose ASPHostDirectory as alternatives. You’ll get the best service at an affordable price. Only with @ 3.99/month, you can directly get the services you want. So, what are you waiting for? Try it!!

Features

1. Graphical Report Authoring
Reporting Services has a powerful graphical report designer that lets users create report definitions by dragging and dropping design and data elements.

2. Flexible Report Delivery
With support for both push- and pull-style report delivery, Reporting Services provides a flexible mechanism for generating reports. In pull-style report delivery, users can run previously created reports on demand. Users can also automate push-style report delivery so that the reporting server generates reports based on predetermined events.

3. Multiple Data-Source Options
Reporting Services isn't limited to using data from Analysis Services and SQL Server databases. The new product is compatible with other databases, including Oracle. Data-source options include ODBC, OLE DB, XML for Analysis, and Web services. Reporting Services can use multiple data sources for a single report and can even use reports as sources for other reports.

4. Multiple Reporting Options
Reporting Services supports a variety of reporting formats, including Web-based, XML, email, and standard printed reports. In addition to these basic options, Reporting Services supports several more sophisticated formats including Excel, PDF, and custom formats.

5. Support for SQL Server and Analysis Services
Reporting Services can create reports for relational databases such as SQL Server and for Analysis Services. This flexibility lets users generate reports from SQL Server databases or Analysis Services cubes without using Office or other external applications.

6. Support for ActiveX controls
Reporting Services provides support for embedded ActiveX controls helps to add many custom capabilities i.e. such as a calendar or multimedia elements to the reports.

Designing a Report

Two templates are provided in Visual Studio.Net 2003. Report Project Wizard which helps to build the report from scratch and Report Project which invokes Report Designer.

First step is to define a Data source. Data Source can either be defined for each report or in a report project so that multiple reports share the same Data source.
In addition, a report can contain multiple data sources if it needs to retrieve information from more than one location.

The Report Life Cycle consists of the following phases:

Authoring

The Authoring phase consists of :

1. Defining the Data area where the Query is constructed to retrieve the data. Reporting Services executes the query defined for the data set against the data source. The rows and columns that result from this query
become the data set. It is possible to define the Input Parameters for the Query.

2. The Layout Area where the report is constructed by dragging controls from the Toolbox and fields from the Fields window and dropping them in the Report design. Only four Report controls can be bound to a Data set which are :the Table, Matrix, List, and Chart controls.

- The Table control produces a column-and-row report with optional gGrouping and subtotaling.
- The Matrix control outputs a Crosstab report.
- The List control produces repeating blocks of free-form data.
- The Chart control also interacts directly with a data set.

The definition of the report is stored in a Report Definition Language(RDL) which is an XML.

Visual Studio deploys the RDL to a Report Server, which stores it in a SQL Server database. When Reporting Services delivers a report to a user, it processes the RDL report definition and renders it into a more familiar format such as an HTML page or an Adobe PDF document.

Management

After a report definition is complete, the report designer publishes it to a report server and it becomes a managed report. Report Manager is used to manage the reports and the reporting environment.

Report definitions, folders, and resources are published and managed as a Web service.

The Security, Properties and Scheduled operations applicable are defined for the items like reports,folders,Data source connections etc. It mainly consists of organizing folders to store various reports, Securing access rights to folders and reports and setting up shared schedules and shared data sources that are available for general use.

Deployment

The report can be deployed by uploading its RDL file directly from the Report Manager. To use this method, you must locate the RDL file for the report you want to deploy. This will also help to deploy a singe report from a Project which might contain several reports.

Delivery

The reports can be distributed in the Report Catalog through the Report Manager, Microsoft's SharePoint Portal Server, or a custom application. The Report Manager lets you organize reports into folders and lets users access the reports on demand or subscribe to them by email. Reports can be live reports in which the data is requeried each time they run, or they can be snapshots of standard reports that are updated regularly.

CONCLUSION

Reporting Services will let users of varying skill levels create their own dynamic reports. Programming Experience will only be needed in case of designing Complex reports. You can make reports available over the Internet or an intranet in several formats, including PDF and TIFF, that look good both in a browser and in print. And Reporting Services provides the infrastructure that makes accessing these reports convenient and secure.

What is so SPECIAL on ASPHostDirectory.com Reporting Service Hosting?

We know that finding a cheap, reliable web host is not a simple task so we’ve put all the information you need in one place to help you make your decision. At ASPHostDirectory, we pride ourselves in our commitment to our customers and want to make sure they have all the details they need before making that big decision.

We will work tirelessly to provide a refreshing and friendly level of customer service. We believe in creativity, innovation, and a competitive spirit in all that we do. We are sound, honest company who feels that business is more than just the bottom line. We consider every business opportunity a chance to engage and interact with our customers and our community. Neither our clients nor our employees are a commodity. They are part of our family.

The followings are the top 10 reasons you should trust your online business and hosting needs to us:

- FREE domain for Life - ASPHostDirectory gives you your own free domain name for life with our Professional Hosting Plan and 3 free domains with any of Reseller Hosting Plan! There’s no need to panic about renewing your domain as ASPHostDirectory will automatically do this for you to ensure you never lose the all important identity of your site
- 99,9% Uptime Guarantee - ASPHostDirectory promises it’s customers 99.9% network uptime! We are so concerned about uptime that we set up our own company to monitor people’s uptime for them called ASPHostDirectory Uptime
- 24/7-based Support - We never fall asleep and we run a service that is opening 24/7 a year. Even everyone is on holiday during Easter or Christmast/New Year, we are always behind our desk serving our customers
- Customer Tailored Support - if you compare our hosting plans to others you will see that we are offering a much better deal in every aspect; performance, disk quotas, bandwidth allocation, databases, security, control panel features, e-mail services, real-time stats, and service
- Money Back Guarantee - ASPHostDirectory offers a ‘no questions asked’ money back guarantee with all our plans for any cancellations made within the first 30 days of ordering. Our cancellation policy is very simple - if you cancel your account within 30 days of first signing up we will provide you with a full refund
- Experts in Reporting Service Hosting - Given the scale of our environment, we have recruited and developed some of the best talent in the hosting technology that you are using. Our team is strong because of the experience and talents of the individuals who make up ASPHostDirectory
- Daily Backup Service - We realise that your website is very important to your business and hence, we never ever forget to create a daily backup. Your database and website are backup every night into a permanent remote tape drive to ensure that they are always safe and secure. The backup is always ready and available anytime you need it
- Easy Site Administration - With our powerful control panel, you can always administer most of your site features easily without even needing to contact for our Support Team. Additionally, you can also install more than 100 FREE applications directly via our Control  Panel in 1 minute!

Happy Hosting!