Building a Multi-table Report with SQL 2005 Reporting Services - Designing the table: choosing page and grouping
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Choose Tabular and click on the Next button. The Report Wizard--Design the Table window shows up as in the next picture. From among the Available fields in the list on the left, you can use the Page>, Group>, and Details> buttons to transfer the desired fields to the right hand Displayed fields' lists. As shown here the page heading will show the ShipCity and the records for each will be grouped by City.
Choose Table Layout
Click on the Next button in the previous screen. This opens the Report Wizard--Choose the Table Layout window. There are two choices for the layout; if you want drill-down capability you place a check mark on the checkbox as shown.
Choose Table Style
Click on the Next button to open the Report Wizard--Choose the Table Style window as shown. There are a couple of canned styles from which you may choose. The Ocean style is chosen; a preview of what it would look like can be seen in the window.
After choosing the style, click on the Next button. This opens the Report Wizard--Completing the Wizard window. This shows the summary for the report.
When you finally click on the Finish button, the report, Report1.rdl, will open in the Layout view as shown in the next picture. You can see that the ShipCity is now in the Page section of the report. The City is shown as the first level of grouping and the rest are in the Details section.
This is not the traditional banded structure present in earlier reporting software. In this view you can choose any object, right click the object to find its properties and change them if you need to. In addition to Layout, you can also access the Data and Preview tabs.
Simultaneously with the above window, the window shown next, Document Outline, also shows up. This document shows all the controls that you can access on the report.
You may click a control in the Document Outline window to access the corresponding control in the Layout as shown in the next picture for the chosen textbox2.
Now you can access the properties of textbox2 by right clicking on textbox2 in the Layout tab to reveal its properties as shown in the next window. This way you may access any control in the Layout and change its properties.
Also, by hovering over objects with your mouse you can get details from the tool-tip that pops up as shown. This is pretty detailed and gives no room for confusion. Also note the title Report1 has been changed to Multi Table Report.
You can look up the data your report is hooked up with by clicking on the Data tab. This will open up the Query Builder with all its bells and whistles. The toolbar at the top gives you complete access to your data. If you wish to make any changes to the data you can make them here and have them reflected in your report.
When you click on the Preview tab, the program shows a progress bar (rather a circular animation) and after some time the report will be displayed. You can navigate the records and do a number of things by choosing the appropriate menu in the Preview tab.
Next: Deploying the report on the Report Server >>
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