Professional SQL Server™ Analysis Services 2005 with MDX

17.1. Report Designer

As the name suggests, the Report Designer is used to create the infrastructure of and layout for a report. The infrastructure first requires specification of one or more data sources. Data sources supported include anything accessible through the list of Providers shown in the Data Link Properties dialog (what you're used to seeing when creating data sources for other purposes). For the extraction of specific data, you have query builders that facilitate the query building process. This is built into Business Intelligence Development Studio and hosts a similar look and feel to Analysis Services and Integration Services projects. These tools enable the creation of tabular and matrix-based reports. In addition, charts are also supported. You can customize your report to span multiple pages based on conditionals and grouping; this capability supports readability as does the judicious use of fonts and colors. Note that less is often more when it comes to things like fonts and colors; the fewer variations displayed in a report, the more meaningful are those that are used. So, for best results, use the power of customization sparingly! If you are not already dizzy from wielding all this power, note that you can specify parametric reports and sub-reports. And the user can seamlessly navigate all these reports because you can provide clickable cells in the reports. Once you have defined your report, it can be previewed within the designer; only after you are pleased ...