Hello World SSRS Report using BIDS 2008

Below is a simple step by step illustration for creating a Simple SSRS report using Buisness Intelligence Development Studio 2008

• Create a new SSRS project on BIDS (you can find it under Business Intelligence tab under installed templates)
• You will get something like this in a new project, I have added a couple of Shared data sources and sample report (you won't get them obviously ;)

• Now right click on "Shared Data Source" folder icon and select add new data source
• This will prompt you with a dialog box to enter server, userid, password, etc. Get these things filled and you will get a new shared data source ready to be used. Something similar to SampleDBDataSource.rds as in above image
• You can skip this step if you dont wanna create a new shared data source. you can later embed this in report directly.
• Next click on "Reports" folder and add new report, this will launch Report Wizard. At first step you need to select an existing datasource or create a new one. 

• Next step you need to enter your query. For my sample it’s something like below:

• Enter your desired query or stored procedure name (using query builder) and follow the wizard to reach “Design The Table” screen, as below

• At this step you have to divide your available fields in  Group and Details section (just drag and drop), for my sample report I did like below:

• Now follow the wizard and you will have a report ready. In my case it was something like below:

• Press preview tab to preview how your report looks like.

• Now if you can make any design changes needed. Lets say we want to add string "Employee Name: " before Employee Name displyed(as in preview above)
• For this we need to add expression in place of Employee Name.
• Right Click textbox you want expression to be added(Emp Name textbox in this case)
• Select "Expression" from the context menu, you will get a screen as below. Enter desired expression and press OK(See below).

• This will give you below result.

Hey we are done with this post. Enjoy!! :)


Edit 15th Jan, 2013

I wrote this post to answer one of the question on codeproject and that question wants to show employee date once per group, so here are the steps to do so:

1. Add a new row below employee name row, as shown in below image. 



2. Add expression for Employee date, you may just select DOB field as shown below or can add some expression as shown a couple of images above. I used below expression in my sample
• ="DOB: " + Fields!Employee_DOB.Value



3. and there you are!

I hope you guys won't mind some of my employee being minor DOB(1/8/2013) ;)

Thanks,

Ravi