Microsoft - Joel Lipman .Com

Excel PivotTable Filter List Ordering

: Joel Lipman; Excel; 05 September 2011; Hits: 17613

So I googled this for a while and there are a lot of solutions out there, none of which applied to what we meant and lots of people in the same boat.

The Situation
We have an Excel report which summarizes for our guys at the top, all the activities and time spent by staff. There are several filters available on the report (only a few to keep it simple silly). When you click on the filter, a dropdown appears with all available values listed.

The Problem
The values are listed in alphabetical order at first. If any new values come along then they get added to the bottom of the list... This is the problem. For example, if the year dropdown has a list of 2010, 2011, 2013; then if you add an entry which has year 2012, then the dropdown list will be in the following order: 2010, 2011, 2013, 2012.

The Solution

: Joel Lipman; SQL Server Reporting Services; 02 September 2011; Hits: 16682

I'm storing a note here because it took a while to figure out and googling other solutions did not answer our questions but did lead us to a workaround.

So this is regarding an error when trying to add parameters to a Stored Procedure of an Oracle database from within Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services.

The Error

copy raw

ORA-00911: invalid character 
ORA-06512: at "SYS.DBMS_UTILITY", line 114 
ORA-06512: at line 1 (System.Data.OracleClient)

ORA-00911: invalid character
ORA-06512: at "SYS.DBMS_UTILITY", line 114
ORA-06512: at line 1 (System.Data.OracleClient)

The Situation
I'm using Business Intelligence Development Studio 2008 to develop a Reporting solution on a Windows XP workstation. We are connecting to a SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Service (SSRS) with Team Foundation Server 2010. The database with our stored procedure is Oracle 10g.

The Stored Procedure
Rather than a returned dataset, our Stored Procedure updates a field in one of our Oracle tables and returns nothing. It accepts 3 parameters: The StudentID (reference) varchar2, Username (who's running the report) varchar2 and a JobID (request reference) number.

Category: SQL Server Reporting Services :: Article: 380

: Joel Lipman; SQL Server Reporting Services; 12 August 2011; Hits: 10888

What?
This article serves to describe several workarounds or proofs of concept.

Why?
We have a first report which acts like a search page. You enter the student you are looking for by reference or name and if there is only 1 result in the results page, then we want it to redirect to the details report for that student automatically.

How?
So there are various solutions out there, here's an overview of some:

Method #1

Create one report with all selectable reports as subreports - toggle visibilty based on parameter.

Method #2

Add a button below "View Report" linked to some script code (requires change to ASP pages on the ReportingServer, ie. affects all reports on that server).

Method #3

Use ASP instead of SSRS.

Method #4

Use a TimeInterval refreshing the page after a certain time.

Conclusion
In the end, this came down to a design decision. Time spent on trying to find a solution was not considered to be warranted. My reports use a parameter for the connection string to specify which server and database to connect to and the follow on link was enough as a solution. My seniors advised that if we had time in the future we could expand on this further.

Google Searches that got me nowhere:

ssrs process parameter after report execution
auto-redirect after are a report is run
ssrs vbscript post report processing
ssrs auto redirect based on a dataset value

Before and After, Highs and Lows

: Joel Lipman; SQL Server Reporting Services; 03 August 2011; Hits: 8004

So I'm looking for a SQL query that could do this all in one go and return all the results in one table.

With PHP & MySQL it's pretty simple: use individual SQL queries to get the count of yesterday, yesterweek, yestermonth, yesteryear and do the layout in PHP.

Now let's say I have one RDL or SSRS Solution. I could do a dataset per SQL query but it doesn't seem that ideal.

In Theory:

: Joel Lipman; SQL Server Reporting Services; 03 August 2011; Hits: 8600

So I find myself using date ranges endlessly as I've been working in SSRS. The below is derived from a collection of various sources across the web as well as some of my own. These are what worked in my environment: WinXP, BIDS (vs2008), TFS (vs2010), SSRS 2008 R2. The following examples assume today's date is Wednesday 03 August 2011 @ 11:46:

This Week:

copy raw

-- Start Date (US format - mm/dd/yyyy)
=DateAdd("d", -(WeekDay(Today(),2))+1, Today()) // yields: 8/1/2011

-- End Date (US format - mm/dd/yyyy)
=DateAdd("d", -1, DateAdd("d", 7-(WeekDay(Today(),2))+1, Today())) // yields: 8/7/2011

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Start Date (european format - dd/mm/yyyy)
=Format(DateAdd("d", -(WeekDay(Today(),2))+1, Today()), "dd/MM/yyyy") //yields 01/08/2011

-- End Date (european format - dd/mm/yyyy)
=Format(DateAdd("d", -1, DateAdd("d", 7-(WeekDay(Today(),2))+1, Today())), "dd/MM/yyyy") // yields: 07/08/2011

-- Start Date (US format - mm/dd/yyyy)
=DateAdd("d", -(WeekDay(Today(),2))+1, Today()) // yields: 8/1/2011
-- End Date (US format - mm/dd/yyyy)
=DateAdd("d", -1, DateAdd("d", 7-(WeekDay(Today(),2))+1, Today())) // yields: 8/7/2011
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Start Date (european format - dd/mm/yyyy)
=Format(DateAdd("d", -(WeekDay(Today(),2))+1, Today()), "dd/MM/yyyy") //yields 01/08/2011
-- End Date (european format - dd/mm/yyyy)
=Format(DateAdd("d", -1, DateAdd("d", 7-(WeekDay(Today(),2))+1, Today())), "dd/MM/yyyy") // yields: 07/08/2011

This Month:

Category: SQL Server Reporting Services :: Article: 373

: Joel Lipman; Windows OS; 28 July 2011; Hits: 1795

Just a quick note here. This is an article based on the REG file from Kelly's Korner (@www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm). I'm not fond of downloading REG files and running them even if I have checked what it's doing. I'm putting a note here just for me:

Start > Run > Regedit > OK
Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
Create New DWORD Value
Name it "MaxRecentDocs"
Double-click on the new DWORD
Set value data to "19" ( equals 25 )
Leave Base as "Hexadecimal"
OK
Restart your computer

Sort order a dropdown list in MS InfoPath without programming

: Joel Lipman; Infopath; 21 July 2011; Hits: 32511

So this is for Microsoft Office Infopath 2007 (SharePoint 2007).

The situation is that I started creating a SharePoint List (datasheet) and when I made my form dropdown read from the list, it just put elements in the order that I entered them in the datasheet.

Googling this led me to browse MSDN for an hour before I realised all those experts were using programming solutions that seemed a bit over the top for something that should be so simple.

Hey presto, I found a cheat/workaround:

Click on the list to see your datasheet (has a MS Access icon in the top left to remind you what you're getting yourself into)
Go to Settings
Select Create View
Select Datasheet View (you could probably use a "Standard View", I just used the Datasheet one)
Give the view a name, select what columns you want the form to have (I included the IDs for functional purposes)
Further down the "Create View" page, there should be a Sort section, specify the column to sort by.
Save the view by clicking the OK button.

You'll be returned to your datasheet and it's possible it isn't in any different order. I re-checked out my InfoPath form, looked at the dropdown that was already configured to read off the sharepoint list, and it had re-ordered to what I set in the view!!! I don't really understand how it works only that it does. I think this could get complicated if you had two dropdowns reading off the same list but needed to list elements in different orders.

: Joel Lipman; SQL Server Reporting Services; 19 July 2011; Hits: 15633

The situation is that we are replacing a website-application with a single SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS 2008 R2) report. We're using Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS VS2008) with Team Foundation Server (TFS VS2010) and connecting to an Oracle database (ie. "seamless integration because our setup is perfect and well thought through" not - note the DBMS is not hugely relevant for the purposes of this article).

The end-user must be able to search on EITHER the student's username or the student's ID (2 report parameters: @StudentADAccount [varchar] and @StudentReference [int] respectively). Most of the remaining datasets use the resulting @StudentReference number in their "where" clause. A student always has a "Student Reference" but not necessarily a student AD account (enquired/applied only).

: Joel Lipman; Windows OS; 05 July 2011; Hits: 6244

What?
This is an article intended for IT Support. It is a list of the system tools available in the Microsoft Windows OS that can be run from the "Start > Run" option.

How?

: Joel Lipman; SQL Server Reporting Services; 05 April 2011; Hits: 17345

Situation
The requirement in a lot of my reports in SSRS has always been a date range rather than just the one date. The user must be allowed to select all results between two dates instead of just specifying the one day. If the second parameter (ToDate) is the same as the first (FromDate), then the range is for that particular date.

Solution

: Joel Lipman; SQL Server Reporting Services; 04 April 2011; Hits: 11749

This must have been so obvious to everyone else that nobody bothered to write an article on it... till now.

Situation
I have a report that returns room bookings based on a user and given a date range. The problem is that there are a few thousand users and Microsoft's SQL Server Reporting Services interface isn't the most fun to scroll endlessly down. Advanced users can type the name really fast for it to auto-scroll down to the desired name. Our advanced users are exceptions to the rule.

Problem

: Joel Lipman; SQL Server Reporting Services; 01 April 2011; Hits: 8195

Open a Windows Explorer and make a duplicate of the report that you want to use as a template.
Rename the copy (suffix with template?)
Remove objects unique to the report and leave elements for all reports.
File > Save selected item as...
For SSRS 2008: Save in the folder: "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies\ProjectItems\ReportProject"
Done!

Excel PivotTable Filter List Ordering

SSRS Parameters in Oracle Stored Procedure

SSRS Redirect after a report is run

Before and After, Highs and Lows

SSRS / MDX Date Queries

Increase Recent Documents Number in Windows XP

Sort order a dropdown list in MS InfoPath without programming

SSRS Querying on either of 2 Parameters

Run commands for Windows

Set default parameter dates to start and end of month

SSRS Use T-SQL Like with a Parameter

SSRS Templates in BIDS 2008

Excel

Infopath

SharePoint

SQL Server

SQL Server Integration Services

SQL Server Reporting Services

Team Foundation Server

Windows OS

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