Creating a Chart with SQL 2000 Reporting Services - Choosing Data for the Chart
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Almost any kind of data can be used for creating charts of various kinds, and there is hardly any human activity where charts are not used. For the purposes of this article, a simple data source is chosen so that the screen shots can be meaningfully appreciated. The data source is from an Excel spread sheet consisting of the plotting of time against some relative values. Because of this choice, this article is also about how to connect to Excel and use Excel data with Visual Studio .NET 2003 IDE. This data is shown in the next picture, from an Excel file.
Creating a Data Source
In order to use this data to create a report/graph/chart in the IDE, it is necessary to create an ODBC data source so that the IDE can connect to the data stored in the Excel file. This can be accomplished by calling up the ODBC Data Source Administrator->ODBC Sources in the control panel shown in the next picture.
While parked in the System DSN tab, clicking Add... will bring up the next dialogue, wherein you choose an appropriate driver -- in this case, the Microsoft Excel Driver.
When you click FINISH for the above screen, you are prompted to provide information as to where the data is coming from and add some description.
Now you click on Select Workbook, which brings up the next screen, where you navigate to the location where your file is stored. In this case, the workbook chosen is called 'TestBook.xls' on the C:\ drive.
The user given System DSN name is NetChart and there is some description for documentation. This uses the version of Excel shown in this picture. The workbook location on the drive is also shown in this picture. The access to the Excel file is now available by using the DSN created in this step.
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