Report Builder Questions

I have some questions about RBuilder that I need to address before my
company can even think about switching from Cognos Impromptu to SS
2005 Reporting Services/Report Builder.
How do I add page numbering? (i.e. Page & Page n of N)
Does RB support persistent page, group, and report headers and
footers?
Does RB support page breaks before and/or after groups?
Does RB support repeating group headers if the group is more than 1
page?
Does RB support the keeping a group together (like Access's
KeepTogether property)?
Does RB support conditional formatting in detail and summary sections?
Can RB sort based on calculated fields?
Can RB sort based on group summary totals (e.g. first group printed is
one with highest total group sales then on group with lowest total
group sales)?
Our company really likes the features of Reporting Services, but also
need a rich end-user reporting tool, and there is no way we will
deploy Visual Studio outside of our IT dept.
Thanks, I appreciate in advance any info/links/etc.if you currently use Impromptu, keep it.
wait for the next version of Report Builder.
The layout capabilities of the tool is too low (compared to impromptu or
reportnet) in this version.
For example, you want to create a group by year, and in the group display a
table with some content, you can't!
the group will be the first column of the table, you can't move it on top of
the table.
so if you want 2 indented groups, you can't
also, its hard to create a simple prompt to filter multiple tables, like a
prompt in the year and you want to filter multiple entities based on this
selection.
its really a simple reporting tool, with good features on it, but simple for
simple usage.
but... using the models in VS instead of reportbuilder is good, you have the
full power of reporting services and the easy to use access to the data
through a model.
The automatic drillthrough feature is excellent, but I think the overall
work required by the dev team is greater than impromptu.
but download the evaluation version of SQL Server to test by yourself.
You can start using it to create a first model.
"Mangy Varmit" <mangyvarmit@.gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1171323832.800508.60870@.a34g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
>I have some questions about RBuilder that I need to address before my
> company can even think about switching from Cognos Impromptu to SS
> 2005 Reporting Services/Report Builder.
> How do I add page numbering? (i.e. Page & Page n of N)
> Does RB support persistent page, group, and report headers and
> footers?
> Does RB support page breaks before and/or after groups?
> Does RB support repeating group headers if the group is more than 1
> page?
> Does RB support the keeping a group together (like Access's
> KeepTogether property)?
> Does RB support conditional formatting in detail and summary sections?
> Can RB sort based on calculated fields?
> Can RB sort based on group summary totals (e.g. first group printed is
> one with highest total group sales then on group with lowest total
> group sales)?
> Our company really likes the features of Reporting Services, but also
> need a rich end-user reporting tool, and there is no way we will
> deploy Visual Studio outside of our IT dept.
> Thanks, I appreciate in advance any info/links/etc.
>|||All most all the questions you have; can be done using SSRS RB. with some
workarounds. But believe me its going to be too good in the coming versions,
not to mention that even these version does a fairly very good job.
I would suggest that, go to microsoft web site and in downloads just
download what is called as "Report Packs" which gives you a real time
scenario of the industry. e.g if you are from finance it give you some
financial reports etc... So go through all the reports using SQL SERVER 2005
Evaluation Version and see how it fits and then decide on changing. One good
plus point is that with enterprise version of sql server 2005, you get SSRS
free.
Amarnath
"Mangy Varmit" wrote:
> I have some questions about RBuilder that I need to address before my
> company can even think about switching from Cognos Impromptu to SS
> 2005 Reporting Services/Report Builder.
> How do I add page numbering? (i.e. Page & Page n of N)
> Does RB support persistent page, group, and report headers and
> footers?
> Does RB support page breaks before and/or after groups?
> Does RB support repeating group headers if the group is more than 1
> page?
> Does RB support the keeping a group together (like Access's
> KeepTogether property)?
> Does RB support conditional formatting in detail and summary sections?
> Can RB sort based on calculated fields?
> Can RB sort based on group summary totals (e.g. first group printed is
> one with highest total group sales then on group with lowest total
> group sales)?
> Our company really likes the features of Reporting Services, but also
> need a rich end-user reporting tool, and there is no way we will
> deploy Visual Studio outside of our IT dept.
> Thanks, I appreciate in advance any info/links/etc.
>|||Thanks for the replies. It is apparent to me that the current version
of RB just will not cut it for our needs. I will hope that MS really
ups the ante with the next version.
On a related note, are there any 3rd party companies building robust
(but not VS) report design tools that sit on top of Reporting
Services? I've heard of OfficeWriter, but now it appears they were
purchased by MS.