Get a FREE fully-working copy of Steganos Security Suite 7 (worth £49.99) when you sign up to the Practical PC Newsletter. Review: Hitchhiker’s Guide to SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services
Iain Laskey gets down and dirty with this guide to Microsoft's SQL Server Reporting Services.
| Product | Hitchhiker's Guide to SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services |
|---|---|
| Company | Addison Wesley |
| Web | www.awprofessional.com/msserverseries |
| Price | £37.99 |
| We like | Full in depth coverage including information not found elsewhere |
| We don't like | Hard going in places unless you're familiar with the basics of using the product |
| Rating | |
| Requirements |
With a title so long it covers three lines on the cover, you can bet this is going to be quite a book. Reporting Services was supposed to be part of SQL Server 2005 but has subsequently been decoupled from the as yet unreleased 2005 build and incorporated in to the existing SQL Server 2000 line. Reporting Services is designed to be used in conjunction with Visual Studio .NET 2003 which includes a report designer for authoring the reports. It also needs ASP.NET and the associated XML Web Service to provide rest of the functionality.
If you're familiar with Crystal Reports or the report developer in Microsoft Access, you'll have a rough idea of what Reporting Services is about.
The book can best be described as achingly comprehensive. As it notes in the preface, the people that wrote Reporting Services found stuff in here they weren't fully aware of. Readers of William R. Vaughn's previous Hitchhiker's Guide to VB and SQL Server will know what to expect i.e. lots of detail, unrelated side comments and the odd dig at Microsoft. The text is pretty intense though and you may struggle if you just want to read this book cover to cover without getting your hands dirty. You really need to try out everything as you go along to get a feel for what is happening.
Usefully, the book includes a DVD full of narrated video clips of some of the trickier aspects of using Reporting Services. It also provides an evaluation version of Reporting Services, documentation and code samples.
Another nice feature is a number of tips and notes containing useful nuggets which you might otherwise miss in the main body of text.
As noted, coverage is exhaustive. Everything from installation of Report Services and SSL and configuring them plus SMTP through to writing custom Data Processing Extensions is covered. It also includes full discussions of datasets, security, charting, general report layout and use of the wizards. The vast amount of detail at each stage is slightly overwhelming and I did find some sections quite hard going purely because of that.
Conclusion
The Hitchhiker's Guide to SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services is for now the definitive guide to the Reporting Services tools. Anyone who is working with or going to work with Reporting Services should check this book out as it will help you maximise your usage of this powerful system.
