Microsoft Reporting Services in Action (In Action series)

Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended
Review: Bought this book recently. The 5 stars given by all reviewers speaks enough about this book. I think it is THE best book on RS. At first I thought the praise for it was overblown, but now I stand corrected.


Rating:
Summary: Covers Every Aspect of Reporting
Review: For many years Microsoft Access has had an excellent report generating system. Unfortunately this was tied to the rather week Jet database engine or lately to the somewhat stripped down MSDE. The industrial grade database was SQL Server. One solution was to use an Access front end to the SQL Server database engine. While this enabled the user to write reports easily, the overall system was somewhat of a kluge. Other alternatives were, of course to take the data out of the database and then write a reporting program in some other language. All in all, getting a suitable report was somewhat of a chore.

This is really a 'how-to' book on the use of SQL Server's new Reporting Services. It is written from a standpoint of not just repeating the product documentation that comes from Microsoft, but from the view of the developer who has to implement a solution.

It used to be that a report was basically a printed document. But now, this view has changed, and Reporting Services incorporates not only printed reports, but also reports that are to be web distributed, or as the information content for an OLAP application, enterprise level reports, or subscribed reports thatt are to be distributed automatically. This should be the only reporting services book you'll need - until of course the new versions of RS become available.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Technical References
Review: I have had the priviledge of working with Teo on client projects and am very impressed with his ability to articulate technical information succintly using practical examples and applications of its features. This book gives you the hidden auspices of MS Reporting Services that you will not find in the Product documentation. I have used the information to leverage my ability to turn around successful compeletion of key tasks very quickly. Great addition to anyone's library of useful technical resources. Thanks Teo for writing it!


Rating:
Summary: Outstanding 'Hands-On' Guidebook & Reference
Review: I purchased this book in mid-September, and my team and I refer to it constantly (now early November). The accompanying .Net project files and numerous sample reports are invaluable.

Teo's writing is easy to understand, and very thorough. We've purchased several Reporting Services books, and we use this one far and away more than all the others combined.

What's more Teo is pretty darn helpful in real-time too. I've emailed him on an issue and received an answer the same day.

Rating:
Summary: Book Review: Microsoft Reporting Services in Action
Review: Microsoft RS provide a platform for customers to deliver report bundle with SQL Server 2000 license. The entry of RS to business intelligent reporting plus the standardization and cooperation with other reporting vendors like Cognos, the reporting market and direction are bright, and this book is definitely a good opening in the reporting services story. However, this book has a serious problem - cross reference. The author and editorial teams used a lot of cross reference, such as "we cover XX in chapter YY", "We'll see an example of this in XX", "We'll postpone discussing XX until...". These kind of sentences appeared many times in few chapters, and this might confuse the readers, or in reality this is a fault of the design and structure of this book itself. At any rate, this book is very rich in content and definitely a good read for all reporting developers and administrators.

(...)

Rating:
Summary: Perfect companion to a new product!
Review: The best feature of this book is the example apps, and the realistic business problems being discussed. Chapter 2 goes straight into a discussion of RDL and uses an ad-hoc reporting tool for the example! Excellent! This was just what I needed! The chapters on custom code, security, and extending RS are also very well written and informative. So many early books on a topic are loaded down with fluff and/or a rehash of the online help, this book is so much better than that! The author obviously has spent a lot of time solving real problems with RS.

Rating:
Summary: The only Reporting Services book you will need!
Review: This book was great for giving me a better understanding of the workings of Reporting Services. I do have one other book on RS but it did little to get me beyond the hands-on labs I'd already been through. This book takes you to the next level (and beyond) to really tap into the flexibility of RS and how to get it to do what you want. It does have a developer slant to it, but I am not a developer and was able to stay with it. It reviews the anatomy of a report and takes you through sample reports, building from simple reports to more complex ones that resemble more of what you'd find in the real world. It even talks about creating external assemblies and invoking that code from RS. It also addresses report management, security, OLAP, and performance considerations.

This book also tells you what cannot be done with RS (in this version, anyway) potentially saving me alot of time and effort in trying! I highly recommend this book I don't think I'll need another RS book until the next version comes out. Hopefully, this author will produce an updated version at that time.

Rating:
Summary: Reporting Services
Review: This is absolutely the best book, currently available about Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services. Not only does this book teach you how to develop the reports, but it shows you in depth, how to integrate Report Services with your own applications using the internet, as well as your company's intranet. In addition, all the code in the book is available from their website and it is easy to modify and use in your own development.

The book is outstanding, much better than any of the others (and I have 5 different books).

Rating:
Summary: Excellet Book
Review: Tremendous book with very comprehensive discussions around the application itself and examples of extending it. Many other reviewers have covered its benefits, but let me add two.

First, its very well written and easy to understand. No matter your level, you will gain from this book.

Second, the author has a discussion web site and has been great at answering questions about RS. You usually get an answer within 24 hrs.

Definitely worth the money and time to read.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic
Review: We had already discounted using Reporting Services for an Enterprise Reporting product we were planning. But, after reading this book we changed focus back to Reporting Services, as almost all the shortcomings of RS we identified were addressed by the author of this book. Plus, lots of *quality* and comprehensive code samples. A must-have book if you're integrating with Reporting Services in any way.