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Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services SQL Server Series

SQL Server Reporting enables the creation, management, and delivery of both traditional, paper-oriented reports and interactive, Web-based reports. An integrated part of the Microsoft business intelligence framework, Reporting Services combines the data management capabilities of SQL Server and Microsoft Windows Server with familiar and powerful Microsoft Office System applications to deliver real-time information to support daily operations and drive decisions. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services will help you understand Reporting Services from various perspectives:

• How it fits business scenarios
• How to install and configure Reporting Services
• Reporting Services components
• Developing reports

As you progress to advanced user status, you will enjoy the chapter about accessing Reporting Services programmatically and extending Reporting Services, and you will be able to use this book as a convenient reference.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Kudos!
I usually don’t write reviews. In fact, the very action of me writing this review should note how impressed I am with this book. It’s a clear and consise text which addresses both the fundamentals and the hidden “expert knowledge” of reporting services.

I am a contractor, and I don’t think I could have finished my latest project without this book on my desk everyday - seriously.

3 Stars Generally OK
Generally this book is ok. The content of the book covers all the features of Reporting Services, which is good.

There aren’t a lot of examples, but there are still some useful ones.

The only thing really frustrating is some of the custom code examples flat out DO NOT WORK!

Overall decent, good information, but not very deep.

1 Star Poor content. Not useful at all
I have read all the SRS2005 books, and by far, this is the worst. There is hardly any useful information in this. Not a book that you can use as a real-world reference. There is no meat in there. I would recommend either Wrox or Brian Larson’s book instead.

4 Stars Good book - but codes samples nowhere to be found
I’ve written many reports using SQL Reporting Services 2000, but it’s been a number of months. This book was a good review to get back to speed on it, and covered a number of topics new to SQL 2005 as well as topics I did not know. This is a good book, but the code samples referred to often are not on the SAMS website. Because of this, a person who is using SRSS for the first time may want to choose a different book. I liked “Pro SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services” when I first learned the topic, and now they have a 2005 version.

5 Stars Great info in a small form factor
I liked this book because authors did a very good job packing a lot of good information about various aspects of Reporting Services in the book. The book was effective to learn about Reporting Services and handy as a reference afterwards. For example when I needed to alternate colors in a table I immediately found the reference to the topic. This book also covered reporting from Analysis Services (OLAP/MDX and Data Mining/DMX), Larson’s book lacked in this area. Section on integration of the Reporting Services in an application was easy to follow and use in my work. The book has a compact design which makes it easy to carry around, especially when you are traveling.

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Building Microsoft ASP NET Applications for Mobile Devices Second Edition Pro Developer

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ASP NET AJAX Programming Tricks

Whether you’re new to ASP.NET AJAX or an experienced developer, this book has what you’re looking for! With its tutorial-like design, the text covers many basic and advanced topics for building dynamic database driven ASP.NET web applications. Assuring that you have a solid foundation, the text begins by exploring the basics of n-tier applications, databound custom controls, Http modules, and the ASP.NET AJAX extensions. Section II of the text takes all that was previously examined plus much more and puts it into practical use via the construction of ready to use controls for either standalone products or integration into your current project(s). ASP.NET Membership and Profile services are examined along with the AJAX application services enabling for seamless membership and profile integration into our highly rich AJAX-enabled web applications. Watch as the text seamlessly merges AJAX extenders and custom controls to build highly rich user experiences in a reusable object-oriented fashion. The design and construction of all objects and controls are discussed in full detail in a tutorial like format to achieve the desired goal - an in-depth understanding of the underlying technology so that you can not only use our projects but modify and design your own! All projects and controls built within the text make heavy use of AJAX technologies enabling a lucid understanding of real-world implementations. With its practical approach to constructing reusable object-oriented ASP.NET AJAX controls, ASP.NET AJAX Programming Tricks is a must for anyone with the desire to build or hone their ASP.NET AJAX programming skills.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Great book! Highly recommended!
This book examines in detail AJAX, not just how-to use it like many others, but how AJAX integrates with the client and server. These types of details are really great because it helps to understand not just the usage of the UpdatePanel, ScriptManager, etc but how they integrate into the current ASP.NET environment. I am making use of AJAX at my work and find the details and examples incredibly useful. The discussion of client-state was great and will no doubt be very beneficial to my future AJAX controls.

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Pro SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services Pro

Purchase this book and you’ll get the free, fully searchable eBooka $20 value! (Details are printed inside the book.)

SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) 2005 is the latest version of the reporting technology from Microsoft. This book examines all of the technology that SSRS provides to design, author, render and deploy professional business reports to the Web or to the company intranet (in a variety of formats, from HTML to XML, PDF, or TIFF), with detailed examples at every step.

It covers all of the new functionality present in the 2005 version, including the new management and BI development studios as well as the new report viewer controls and end-user reporting tools. It also contains significantly expanded chapters on Business Intelligence along with a wealth of tips and workarounds for effective development with SSRS.

The authors are both highly experienced with SQL Server and with business reporting in the medical industry, which is subject to rigorous HIPAA regulations and strict security. It is not their intention to evangelize the product or present “idealized” examples based on the simple built-in schemas. Instead, they take a hard, critical look at the technology and provide exactly what the reader needs to know to deliver effective reports. Their code examples are based on real, complex schemas and the need to deliver versatile, dynamic reports, as well as on strict security and performance requirements.

In summary, this book will provide you with step-by-step guides, best practices, and real code examples covering all of the common Reporting Services tasks, including:

• A detailed overview of the reporting architecture and tools
• The new Report Definition Language Standard, which is XML-based and allows you to define reports in VS.NET
• Building effective queries for high-performance reporting
• Building custom .NET applications with SSRS
• Rendering reports to HTML, XML, PDF and Excel
• Deploying secure reports, using Windows authentication through Active directory
• Business Intelligence reporting using SQL Server Analysis Services

User Ratings and Reviews

2 Stars No Substance in this Book
Well not a good book at all. If you don’t have anything else in the office to read or do…and just want to know what Reporting services is all about, you can go throught the book in few hours.

5 Stars Good information
This book has been well written. Concise, but to-the-point. Coverage on Share point portal and Microsoft CRM is the most comprehensive comparing all the other SRS books in the market. I would recommend you buy this book as well as Wrox to be complete.

5 Stars Great Learning/Reference Book
This books serves as a great learning tool and reference for people learning RS or for those of us that use it on a daily basis.

5 Stars got me up and running with SSRS QUICK!

Loved the writing style. I really appreciated that instead of boring us with an introductory chapter to RDL (Report Definition Language), they sneak it in here and there, keeping the info flowing at a good pace. Plus they wrote the book based on a real-world project they worked on, which makes it easier to grasp the concepts. I give this an A+ and will look for Apress books first from now on

4 Stars Easy to follow
I began this book with limited Reporting Services experience, not really knowing what to expect. What I found in every chapter was that the authors really took the time to explain the nuances of this technology that can only be understood from working with it in the real-world and not on a sample database with simple reports. I also learned much more about basic and advanced queries that really helped me out with parameters and stored procedures. I would definitely recommend this book for everyone new to reporting services and those who would like to get answers to detailed reporting scenarios.

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Foundation ASP NET for Flash Foundation

If you’re a reasonably experienced Flash user who has mastered the basics but wants to empower your SWFs, taking them further toward rich Internet applications, then youve come to the right place! Foundation ASP.NET for Flash will teach you everything you need to know to integrate two of the most exciting technologies used on the Web today. Using Flash and ASP.NET, it’s possible to utilize the amazing user interface capabilities of Flash along with the extensive power of ASP.NET to create dynamic, data-driven web applications. In this book, advanced topics are made easy by providing intuitive step-by-step examples. Author Ryan Moore starts by briefly introducing you to the topic, and then provides a detailed primer on ASP.NET and C#. After that, essential areas are given the full treatment, including FlashVars, LoadVars, ASP.NET objects, XML, Access and SQL Server databases, web services, Flash Remoting, sessions, and security. By the end of the book, youll have built some amazing applications, such as a Google web service interface, an e-commerce site, and a video weblog. This book covers Flash MX 2004 and Flash 8, ASP.NET 2.0, Visual Studio 2005, and Access and SQL Server 2005. It is an essential part of any Flash or ASP.NET web developer’s arsenal.

In this book, you’ll learn how to:

• Learn the basics of the C# programming language and ASP.NET 2.0.
• Use Visual Studio .NET to create powerful ASP.NET applications that integrate with Flash.
• Create web services in ASP.NET and utilize these services with Flash.
• Use ASP.NET to access and manipulate data from Access and SQL Server databases.
• Set up and use Flash Remoting to communicate between Flash and ASP.NET.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars This book has changed my way of thinking
I would like to make this short and sweet. Mr. Moore is at the forefront of the .net community. Without this book, I would have spent the next couple of years trying to learn all of what this book gives me, all for the price of taking my girlfriend to a movie! My offerings to my customers has expanded exponentially, and that, is what this is all about!

5 Stars!!!!

2 Stars ASP.NET for Flash
I thought this book will discuss all issues and will have a rich

ASP.NET solution for flash but it goes less than what I need

sure its cool as it names on but it doesn’t cover what am looking

for from this title.

4 Stars Great Introduction to ASP.Net for Flashers
I’ve been a Flash developer for awhile now, have used it with PHP/ASP and other server technologies - but have avoided the learning curve of .Net. FOE books are great at giving you the basics so that you can get up and running quickly, and the tutorials in the book are usually spot-on for applying those basics. Read the book and did the exercises in one week, and now am writing basic Web Services, .dll files, and using remoting with Flash on a basic level - just as I thought I would after finishing the book. There are some typos and ommissions, which seems par for the course these days for technical books (does anybody proof read or edit these things?) - but if you have a genuine knowledge of Flash, you can overcome them pretty easily. Recommended.

2 Stars Trying to sell us more products…?
My attitude toward this book has NOTHING to do with ASP.net 2.0, nor even Flash. It has to do with this book. While the opening C# Primer is good (a very clean, simplistic quick run down on the basics with strings and arrays), as well I can tell the examples are solid enough you lost me right when we’re told to down load Eclipse’s little web server control. “Free for development, but ten bucks for unlimited usage…bla bla” Didn’t we just spend our money buying your book so we could LEARN not buy more stuff? Ok, it’s only ten bucks, but it’s the principle of the matter.

Secondly, I think it’s rather silly to have to use the code with some fancy web server control in the first place. That’s rather cheap, if you ask me. For those who aren’t too familiar with ASP.net yet: ASP.net isn’t a language, it’s the rendering mechanics for web applications in the .net framework. It’s a bunch of fancy server controls (which are basically HTML like elements on steroids) that can either be hard coded, like HTML (but that sort of defeats the purpose), or programmatic activated through a .net programming language. This language is then a separate entity (which can be VB.net, or in the case of this book, C#…A very fine, fine language) from the ASP.net server controls, but it works together.

In a nut shell, you don’t actually need much of ASP.net’s presentation layer (AKA, the page where you put the server controls). If any one is familiar with classic ASP, Response.Write(”hello”) (which is the equivalent of echo “hello”; in PHP) is all that you’d really need in a .net environment using Flash interfaces.

On a more sophisticated level, you could learn some ADO.net, learn how to mess around with some SQL/XML out putting, and go that route to your Flash movie as well.

So, the final verdict: I’ll do the example, just for practice. But I can easily just make a User Control for my flash movies, put to practice what I said there, and VIOLA…no need to pay you ten bucks.

However, for those that are in a bind, and need to Implement a Flash interface into a .net project (for what ever reason), here’s a work around:

I’d recommend getting Foundation PHP 5 for Flash by David Powers. Most web hosting solutions that are on Windows will have both .net and PHP installed. Learn how to work with Flash Movies via PHP, then you can embed your Flash movie in your ASP.net files (via a User Control…), and have your PHP files sitting with your ASP.net files in the same app (Trust me, nothing will go wrong nor explode)…This may sound gratuitous, but it really isn’t.

However, I’m going to translate David’s code into C#, come up with my own projects and then embark on developing my own book on the subject.

5 Stars A true foundation for learning ASP.NET / Flash integration
A great primer on C# and installation of a local development environment using the free tools that Microsoft offered. All instructions and descriptions are step-by-step. Also includes important information on third-party Visual Studio components that allow you to send data between flash and .NET for pages that not completely inside the Flash interface. This book solidly provides multiple methods to interface with your flash applications using ASP.NET 2.0 with Flash remoting, Web services, and FlashVars… Highly Recommended.. Everything here as advertised!

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