Report Parameters in SSRS 2008

What is Report Parameters in SSRS?
In SSRS, parameters are used to specify the data to use in a report, narrow down your report data for better analysis, connect related reports together, and vary report presentation. Report parameters can be Single-Valued and Multivalued.

Using Parameters in Reporting Services:
The most common use of parameters is to vary report data retrieved by dataset queries. In this scenario, users are prompted for a value or values when they run the report, and the dataset query retrieves only the data that is requested. You can change the report parameter properties in the report design tools to include a valid values list that displays at run time.

You can also create cascading parameters, which retrieve hierarchical data from a data source. I'll explain cascading parameters in my nect post. First I want to explain creating a report parameter in SSRS 2008.

Below are the uses of report parameters:

• To Control Report Data - by selecting required parameters values to filter the report data.
• To Control Report Appearance - use parameters to change report appearance using expression-based properties, including conditionally hiding report items and conditionally changing text color.
• To Connect to Other Reports - use parameters to link to drillthrough reports, subreports, and linked reports.
• To Select Specific Data Columns - parameters can be used to select specific columns of a table/matrix at run time.

How to create Report Parameters:
Query parameters are added to a dataset query by way of the query designers or the Dataset Properties dialog box. After you create a query with parameters, Reporting Services automatically links query parameters to report parameters with the same name. Below are the steps to create parameters:

STEP 1:
To begin, start a new Report Server Project project in Visual Studio 2008 by clicking on Start --> All Programs --> SQL Server 2008 --> SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio. Then, from the menu, select File --> New --> Project to open New Project wizard. Now select Report Server Project from Visual studio installed templates and specify Name, Location and Solution Name.

I'll use the solution ctreated in my previous article. I'll use FirstReport.rdl for this example and I'll create a parameter Designation to filter report data for selected designations.

STEP 2:
Create a new Data Set for the report parameter. I will add a dataset dsDesignation for Employee's Designation using query
SELECT DISTINCT Desg AS Designation FROM Employee
as shown below:

STEP 3:
Now I will add a parameter Designation. In Report Data section, right click on Parameters node and click Add Parameter... as shown below:

STEP 4:
In Report Parameter Properties window, enter Name and Prompt of the parameter and select the Data type from dropdown box. For our example, enter Designation in Name and Prompt text boxes and select Text as data type.

STEP 4:
Now click on Avaliable Values to set available values for the parameter. Select Get values from a query. Select dsDesignation as Dataset, Designation as Value field and Label field.

STEP 5: Click on Default Values, Select Get values from a query. Select dsDesignation as Dataset, Designation as Value field. Click OK to save changes.

STEP 6:
Double click on your main dataset (dsMain) to open Dataset Properties. Now Select  Parameters and click on Add button to map Designation parameter.

STEP 7:
Now final step, just add parameter in your query as shown in below snapshot:
WHERE [Desg] = @Designation

Now preview the report to check the action of parameter used:

Note: This article describes onlu about single valued parameter. I'll explain multi-valued parameter in my next article.

First Report in SSRS 2008

In this article, I will explain how to create a simple report (that could be first report for a newbie) using SSRS 2008. Here I am assuming that you have successfully installed SQL Server 2008 along with SSRS.

There are two ways to create Reports in SSRS. You can develop the report manually, or you can use the Report Wizard to give yourself a head start. For this first report, I am going to take advantage of the wizard.

STEP 1:
To begin, start a new Business Intelligence project in Visual Studio 2008 by clicking on Start --> All Programs --> SQL Server 2008 --> SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio. Then, from the menu, select File --> New --> Project to open New Project wizard. Now select Report Server Project from Visual studio installed templates and specify Name, Location and Solution Name. I am specifying these ReportProjectSSRS, D:\Hari, and ReportProjectSSRS respectively as shown below:

STEP 2:

In Solution Explorer, right click on Reports folder and select Add New Report. This will open Report Wizard. Click Next on the Welcome screen and this will bring you to the Select the Data Source screen.

STEP 3:

Enter the name of Data Source as dsLocal and select type as Microsoft SQL Server. Now click on Edit button to set the connecting string for data source, this will open Connection Properties window. Enter Server name and database name and click on Test Connection buttion to make sure the connection is established. Click OK button twice to close Test Results and Conection Properties windows.

You can check the Make this a shared data source checkbox to make this data source as shared so that it can be used for other reports as well. Now click on Next to proceed.

STEP 4:

This will open Design the Query wizard. Here you can define your Query string. Alternatively you can use Query Builder... to build your query. I will use below query to pull data from Employee table:

SELECT
   [Emp_code],[Emp_Name],[Desg],

   [Head],[DOB],[Basic],[Dept_Code]
FROM Employee (NOLOCK)
 
Click Next to proceed. It will display Select the Report Type wizard. Select Tabular option and click Next to proceed.
 
STEP 5:

Now you can see Design the Table wizard. Select required fields from Available fields and clicked on details button to make these fields available in details part of a report. You can do data grouping as well using Group button. Click Next to proceed.

STEP 6:

Now you can see Choose the Table Style wizard. Select default style Slate and click Next. Finally you can see Completing the Wizard. Enter report name FirstReport and click Finish to complete the wizard.

Thats all. We are done with our First report in SSRS 2008. Report at design time will look like one shown below:

Click on Preview to generate the report:

Dynamic Database Connection using SSIS ForEach Loop Container

Did you ever come across a requirement where you have to run the same SQL statement(s) in multiple database server/instances using SSIS?

Many of my friends have asked about how to connect through multiple Databases from different Server using single Dynamic Connection. I want to explain this feature in this article. Basically, I want to execute one query (to calculate Record Counts for a given table) on a set of servers (which can be Dev, Test,UAT, PreProduction and Production servers). In my example, I am using ForEach Loop to connect to the servers one by one--> Execute the Query --> Fetch and store the data.

So here is the approach:

• Create a Table in your local database (whatever DB you want) and load all the connection strings. Within SSIS package, use Execute SQL Task to query all the connection strings and store the result-set in a variable of object type.
• Use ForEach Loop container to shred the content of the object variable and iterate through each of the connection strings.
• Place an Execute SQL task inside ForEach Loop container with the SQL statements you have to run in all the DB instances. You can use Script Task to modify your query as per your need.

Below is the details with an example:

STEP1:
To begin, Create two tables as shown below in on of the environment:

-- Table to store list of Sources
CREATE TABLE SourceList (
   ID [smallint],
   ServerName [varchar](128),
   DatabaseName [varchar](128),
   TableName [varchar](128),
   ConnString [nvarchar](255)
)

GO

-- Local Table to store Results
CREATE TABLE Results(
   TableName  [varchar](128),
   ConnString [nvarchar](255),
   RecordCount[int],
   ActionTime [datetime]
)
GO

STEP 2:
Insert all connection strings in SourceList table using below script:
INSERT INTO SourceList

SELECT 1 ID,
'(local)' ServerName, --Define required Server
'TestHN' DatabaseName,--Define DB Name
'TestTable' TableName,
'Data Source=(local);Initial Catalog=TestHN;Provider=SQLNCLI10.1;Integrated Security=SSPI;Auto Translate=False;' ConnString
 
Insert as many connections as you want.
 
STEP 3:
Add new package in your project and rename it with ForEachLoopMultipleServers.dtsx. Add following variable:
 

Variable	Type	Value	Purpose
ConnString	String	Data Source=(local); Initial Catalog=TestHN; Provider=SQLNCLI10.1; Integrated Security=SSPI; Auto Translate=False;	To store default connection string
Query	String	SELECT '' TableName, N'' ConnString, 0 RecordCount, GETDATE() ActionTime	Default SQL Query string. This can be modified at runtime based on other variables
SourceList	Object	System.Object	To store the list of connection strings
SourceTable	String	Any Table Name. It can be blank.	To store the table name of current connection string. This table will be queried at run time

STEP 4:
Create two connection managers as shown below:


Local.TestHN: For local database which has table SourceList. Also this will be used to store the result in Results table.
DynamicConnection: This connection will be used for setting up dynamic connection with multiple servers.
Now click on DynamicConnection in connection manager and click on ellipse to set up dynamic connection string. Map connection String with variable User::ConnString.

STEP 5:
Drag and drop Execute SQL Task and rename with "Execute SQL Task - Get List of Connection Strings". Now click on properties and set following values as shown in snapshot:
Result Set: Full Result Set
Connection: Local.TestHN
ConnectionType: Direct Input
SQL Statement: SELECT ConnString,TableName FROM SourceList

Now click on Result Set to store the result of SQL Task in variable User::SourceList.

STEP 6:
Drag and drop ForEach Loop container from toolbox and rename with "Foreach Loop Container - DB Tables". Double click on ForEach Loop container to open Foreach Loop Editor. Click on Collection  and select Foreach ADO Enumerator as Enumerator. In Enumerator configuration, select User::SourceList as ADO object source variable as shown below:

STEP 7: Drag and drop Script Task inside ForEach Loop container and double click on it to open Script Task Editor. Select User::ConnString,User::SourceTable as ReadOnlyVariables and User::Query as ReadWriteVariables. Now click on Edit Script button and write following code in Main function:

public void Main()

{
   try
   {
      String Table = Dts.Variables["User::SourceTable"].Value.ToString();
      String ConnString = Dts.Variables["User::ConnString"].Value.ToString();
      MessageBox.Show("SourceTable = " + Table + "\nCurrentConnString = " + ConnString);
      //SELECT '' TableName,N'' ConnString,0 RecordCount,GETDATE() ActionTime
      string SQL = "SELECT '" + Table + "' AS TableName, N'" + ConnString + "' AS ConnString, COUNT (*) AS RecordCount, GETDATE() AS ActionTime FROM " + Dts.Variables["User::SourceTable"].Value.ToString() + " (NOLOCK)";

      Dts.Variables["User::Query"].Value = SQL;
      Dts.TaskResult = (int)ScriptResults.Success;
   }
   catch (Exception e)
   {
      Dts.Log(e.Message, 0, null);
   }
}
 
STEP 8:
Drag and drop Data Flow Task and double click on it to open Data Flow tab. Add OLE DB Source and Destination. Double click on OLE DB Source to configure the properties. Select DynamicConnection as OLE DB connection manager and SQL command from variable as Data access mode. Select variable name as User::Query. Now click on columns to genertae meta data.

Double click on OLE DB Destination to configure the properties. Select Local.TestHN as OLE DB connection manager and Table or view - fast load as Data access mode. Select [dbo].[Results] as Name of the table or the view. now click on Mappings to map the columns from source. Click OK and save changes.
Finally DFT will look like below snapshot:

STEP 9: We are done with package development and its time to test the package.
Right click on the package in Solution Explorer and select execute. The message box will display you the current connection string.

 Once you click OK, it will execute Data Flow Task and load the record count in Results table. This will be iterative process untill all the connection are done. Finally package will execute successfully.

You can check the data in results table:
Here is the result:

SELECT * FROM SourceList

SELECT * FROM Results