BPC: Paul Culmsee & Peter Serzo Channel Zoolander to Present SharePoint and SQL Reporting Services for the Really, Really, Really Good Looking
Published 08/25 courtesy of Bamboo Solutions Community
With this offering of the Best Practices Conference, the show has expanded beyond its purely SharePoint focus of past instances and now includes SQL Server content as well. This morning's session by Paul Culmsee and Peter Serzo titled, "SharePoint and SQL Reporting Services for the Really, Really, Really Good Looking," in addition to being a highly entertaining Zoolander homage, served as a perfect marriage of SharePoint and SQL content.
I'd heard Paul talking a little bit yesterday about some of the Zoolander-themed aspects they had planned for the session, and I knew right away that it was going to be a must-see. On a mission to evangelize the advantages of SQL Server Reporting Services combined with SharePoint, Paul and Peter framed their argument in the form of a presentation they'd prepared for their "client," the Derek Zoolander School for the Really Really Good Looking. The client requested Computerized Records for Attractive People (the CRAP system, to monitor male model hotness, of course), and Paul and Peter were happy to oblige, marrying SQL Reporting Services to SharePoint to accomplish the task.
Paul began with a "reporting overview in 5 minutes," demonstrating how to use the out-of-the-box SQL Report Builder 2.0 to quickly create a dataset including model name, DOB, and skin tone, which can then be retrieved from the database. Next, using the Wizard, Paul showed how to drag and drop data elements into a table, choose a style, preview the report live, and save the report as a list to your SharePoint document library.
Next, Peter introduced the topic of the Architectural Components, explaining that he and Paul had realized they needed to come up with a format that would be appropriate to get the information across to their clients, Derek and Hansel. Asking for volunteers from the audience, who left the room with Peter while Paul rearranged a section of the audience as if they were seated alongside a runway, the volunteer models then began sashaying onto the runway singly (or, in the case of the those modeling Report Catalog and SSRS 2K8, as a matched pair representing SQL Reporting Services), wearing colored smocks displaying their component. In addition to the Report Catalog and SSRS 2K8, there were also representative models for Windows, SQL Server, SharePoint, and HTTPSYS (with Paul noting that HTTPSYS is "very hot" and au courant, applying only to SQL 2008, and that this function was IIS in the passé 2005 model). Paul explained the relevance of each component to the overarching architecture, and shared as a best practice that the Report Catalog and SSRS 2K8 should be separated.
Report Creation Tools was next up, with a nod to Visual Studio, but with a focus on the "very hot" Report Builder 2.0, which features the Ribbon ("Ribbons are very hot") and a "sexy" graphical design interface. Not only that, but since "it's local to your machine, end users can use it." Peter noted that, though they were using version 2.0 for their demos, Report Builder 3.0 is now available for download, includes a geospatial mapping feature, and is "scorching hot."
Paul's final demo was on Parameterized Queries and Drilldown, using Report Builder 2.0 to show how to generate dynamic drilldown data, with hyperlinks within reports themselves querying the database and generating an additional report. Paul demonstrated how to create a dynamic report using parameter IDs, in this case, assigning "model IDs" to the models Derek, Hansel, and Bruno ("new on the scene, and very hot"). Peter jumped in to show off Dundas charts which, with their gauge-style displays (think speedometer) are "so hot right now," then Paul proceeded to Central Admin to show how to add a new property to User Profiles and Properties: the CRAP ID, which maps to the aforementioned model IDs. The crap ID can be assigned manually by the Administrator but, much more powerfully, it can be retrieved automatically as LOB data, and written back into the CRAP ID property in Central Admin.
With the CRAP ID in place, Paul showed how to create a personalized mash-up, adding a Report Viewer Web Part and a Filter Web Part (the Current User Filter). Having done so, Paul had created a "truly personalized, truly dynamic" user experience which would then show each individual user (Derek, Hansel, or Bruno, in this case) a visual representation of their own hotness gauge when they log into SharePoint. The best part? All of this was done without writing code, and with out-of-the-box components of SQL Server and SharePoint.
There was a surprise in store, however, as Brett Lonsdale of Lightning Tools (of BDC Meta Man fame) entered the room, mock belligerent and proclaiming, "the BDC is better than this!" Peter reacted immediately to Brett's charge, saying, "I feel a walk off coming on!," and sure enough, Paul and Brett faced each other in a walk off, stating the case for their respective arguments (Paul standing up for SQL Reporting Services, and Brett for the BDC) by parading cards with handwritten facts supporting their arguments on them. Brett was a very good sport, with the deck stacked against him in this SQL-centric session, and not surpisingly, the key differentiators which were surfaced were: Reporting Services requires no developer or coding, and works with WSS and MOSS, whereas the BDC requires a developer to code XML, and is only available in MOSS Enterprise.
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