Report writing starts with planning like most of the other activities. Some of the key considerations are:
Audience
Report structure
Look and feel of report
Report visibility related to security
Report delivery format
Canned or AD_HOC
Web or desktop
Internet, Intranet, or hard copy
Although these considerations are separately listed, they are interconnected. Once some of these requirements are defi ned then one begins to come up with a more detailed plan that needs the source of data (local, SQL Server, cloud, or third party), the connectivity issues, the delivery type (desktop, Intranet, download, Internet, cloud application, and so on), the delivery format for hard copies, Web access via Intranet IIS or through SharePoint, and a multitude of others that are too numerous to enumerate.
This chapter is not about planning but about using the Report Builder 3.0 tool to author reports of different kinds that are normally encountered. Of course, there are others that require custom treatment...