We don't have SSRS installed yet (it's on the upcoming projects list) and I have a capabilities question.
We currently have a report we are using for show settlement that is an Excel 2007 Pivot Table with the data coming from a custom report (the report exists just to extract the data for this report). We take advantage of some of the pivot table filtering capabilities because different partners have slightly different requirements (some want to see fees, some don't, etc.) How much of this report can be implemented in SSRS? Does the SSRS crosstab format work similar to Excel or.....?
If SSRS won't work, what other options do I have? I need to reduce the number of steps needed to produce this report.
Thanks in advance.
-steve
I can say that the Matrix (crosstab in SSRS) capabilities in SSRS 2005 are quite good, and are pretty flexible. It does take some playing around with to get used to configuring the table properly, but it’s much less rigid than previous report writers (cough).
You can add filters at any group level, including detail, and even add drill down if you like. A quick google search on matrix and SSRS should yield some good articles, FAQs, and blog posts on the tool.
I think you’ll find that you can recreate quite a bit of the pivottable in SSRS. The only thing that you wont find in SSRS is the ability for the user to dynamically manipulate the matrix without some parameters to manipulate the matrix or dataset properties.
Best of luck!
-Ryan
From: Tessitura Technical Forum [mailto:forums-technical@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Steve Carlock Sent: Friday, April 03, 2009 11:47 AM To: Ryan Creps Subject: [Tessitura Technical Forum] Crosstab Reports in SSRS
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Steve,
We are doing something very similar with Excel that I think would streamline your report.
I have created custom views in the database and a specific SQL login that has only read-only access. Then I create the pivot table in Excel using an external data source to connect to that view (I save the data source in a common location so it can be reused).
When folks want to look at the pivot tables I've created, all they do is open the Excel spreadsheet go to Data>Refresh Data, enter the password for the read only id and poof! Updated information. This skips the need to generate a report from Tessitura but it also ensures that the users can't accidentaly change data on the SQL server.
I love using Excel for reports like this because the users are already familiar with it. It is much easier to email them a spreadsheet and give them a few instructions than it is to walk them through running a particular report.