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[00:00:00.00] We're going to jump in to creating
reports in just a second, but I have got
[00:00:04.00] one key concept to cover first so that when
we do jump in, things will make a lot more sense.
[00:00:09.60] See, every report you make in Reporting
Services will require that you provide
[00:00:14.01] three elements, three things, three
distinct kinds of information in order, that
[00:00:18.78] I'll describe as the
where, the what, and the how.
[00:00:21.74] Where is the data for this report,
what is the data for this report, and how
[00:00:26.96] should it be presented?
[00:00:28.45] And we need to describe each of
these three pieces individually.
[00:00:32.16] Without all three, you don't have a report.
[00:00:35.10] So first, where is it?
[00:00:37.12] Where is the data that you're
interested in, and how do you connect to it?
[00:00:40.87] Literally what machine
is it on? What's it called?
[00:00:44.16] Because Reporting Services is not
restricted to only creating reports from data
[00:00:49.46] on the same physical SQL Server machine.
Sure, that it is very common, but it can
[00:00:54.79] talk to other SQL Server machines,
whether they are across the room or across
[00:00:59.07] the world. They can talk
to other database systems.
[00:01:01.95] They can talk to SharePoint lists.
[00:01:03.45] They can talk to XML files.
[00:01:05.42] So if we want to create a report and,
say, base it on data in a SQL Server
[00:01:10.87] database, we begin by providing the
name of the server, the actual name of
[00:01:15.43] that machine, then the name of the
database on that server, because there's
[00:01:19.70] typically multiple different databases.
And because just naming a database is
[00:01:24.89] not going to get you inside it--all
databases are typically secured, so we
[00:01:29.73] will also need to provide some kind
of authentication details so that
[00:01:33.85] database will actually let us in.
[00:01:35.67] So this is your report's source of data, your
data source, and that is the term that we use.
[00:01:43.25] We are defining the data source.
[00:01:45.50] So if that's the where, the next
step is what? What is your data?
[00:01:49.72] Now, you might think you just
provided this, but you didn't.
[00:01:53.47] Our data source is just us pointing
to the database we are interested in,
[00:01:57.27] saying where it is and how we connect to it.
[00:01:59.72] But we don't want the entire contents of
that database just dumped out on a report.
[00:02:04.43] So in the what step we
specify the data that we want.
[00:02:07.96] What is that data exactly? What tables,
what rows, what columns, in what order,
[00:02:13.72] with what conditions?
[00:02:15.14] This is the subset of the data that we are
interested in, and this is called the data set.
[00:02:21.41] And finally, once we've defined the where--
the data source--and the what--the data
[00:02:26.07] set--we can define the how.
[00:02:28.45] How should this be presented?
What does it look like? What is the layout?
[00:02:33.51] So from purely presentational choices
like what fonts and what colors we are
[00:02:38.20] using, to more structural choices,
because the same data could be shown
[00:02:42.27] many different ways.
[00:02:43.27] So is it just raw text and numbers, or
will we generate charts and graphs from
[00:02:47.69] this data? Will we allow viewers to
interact with the report and re-sort it and
[00:02:52.87] move through pages of it?
[00:02:54.50] So everything that we are going to do
is going to fall into the where--the data
[00:02:59.07] source--the what--the data set--and the
how--our report layout--and it's different
[00:03:04.17] kinds of thought process
that we need for each step.
[00:03:07.41] So next, let's see an example.
[00:03:10.40]