Creating a Chart with SQL 2000 Reporting Services - Configuring the Layout
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Report related items are added to the toolbox when RS is installed on a system on which VS.NET 2003 is installed. These items are shown in the next picture. When a new report is created, the layout just consists of a body onto which items from the Report menu can be draggged and dropped.
In this case, as we will be looking at a tabular structure, a table item is added to the Body as shown. The table comes with a 3 x 3 structure by default. You may add more columns as shown (right click the last column and pick up the item you like). There will be header, data, and footer rows. The header and footer are for static information, but may be modifed to hold some dynamic content. The data is populated from the data pulled from the source.
To assist in populating the data in the table, a fieldlist item is also produced when the dataset is created. From the field list box, items can be dragged and dropped onto the table [reminiscent of the DataEnvironment in VS6.0]. For example, the item t can be dropped to the first column, second row to reference the data bound item Fields!t.Value, the letter t will be automatically added to the first row, first column and so on.
To add the third item, a extra column has to be appended to the default. At this stage it is possible to preview the report by clicking the preview tab. Depending on the amount of data, it can take some time. There is also a "cache" feature which may be utilized to bring data from the "cache." Please refer to the references cited earlier for more details.
Adding a Chart for Data Display
The previously mentioned chart control can be dragged and dropped below the tabulation in the body as shown here. It is resizable in both directions by dragging the handles. By right clicking the chart, its properties can be customized. There are a lot of features that can be customized, and they are of a nature similar to what one can do in Excel. Here, once again the basics are stressed.
Next: Configuring Chart Axes and Customizing >>
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