Book Image

SQL Server 2016 Reporting Services Cookbook

By : Dinesh Priyankara, Robert Cain
Book Image

SQL Server 2016 Reporting Services Cookbook

By: Dinesh Priyankara, Robert Cain

Overview of this book

Microsoft SQL Server 2016 Reporting Services comes with many new features. It offers different types of reporting such as Production, Ad-hoc, Dashboard, Mash-up, and Analytical. SQL Server 2016 also has a surfeit of new features including Mobile Reporting, and Power BI integration. This book contains recipes that explore the new and advanced features added to SQL Server 2016. The first few chapters cover recipes on configuring components and how to explore these new features. You’ll learn to build your own reporting solution with data tools and report builder, along with learning techniques to create visually appealing reports. This book also has recipes for enhanced mobile reporting solutions, accessing these solutions effectively, and delivering interactive business intelligence solutions. Towards the end of the book, you’ll get to grips with running reporting services in SharePoint integrated mode and be able to administer, monitor, and secure your reporting solution. This book covers about the new offerings of Microsoft SQL Server 2016 Reporting Services in comprehensive detail and uses examples of real-world problem-solving business scenarios.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
SQL Server 2016 Reporting Services Cookbook
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.Packtpub.com
Preface

Creating snapshots of reports


You might have already noticed that caching does not hold multiple cached copies for the same report (for same parameter values if must be parameterized). This means that it does not save the history, or it does not create snapshots and keep them for viewing later. What if you need to view previous copies generated later?

This requirement often comes when business users need to do the comparison on a dataset before and after some data processing. Generally, the need is, make a report with existing data, process data applying business logics and then regenerate the report using new processed data.

For the comparison, either the old report has to be exported and kept or the old report must be printed and kept. Reporting Services provides a solution for this. Yes, it allows you to generate snapshots of the report and keep them as a separate report for later visit.

Getting ready

Before checking the functionalities of this, let's see how we need to maintain snapshots...