Report Builder 2.0 - Report Designer Pane

Report Designer pane

The various parts of this pane are shown in the following screenshot. This has been described earlier. The choices you make in the View pane will show or hide the Groupings at the bottom as well as in the Ruler. When you want to create a report from scratch and do not want to use the wizards, you can delete everything on the report and start from scratch.

For displaying groups of data, the underlying data must support this structure and it is necessary that there exists hierarchical relationships within the data. An example is shown in the following screenshot from the TestNorthwind database used in the exercises.

In Report Builder 2.0, groupings show both row groupings as well as column groupings. If you are starting from the wizard, you will be setting up the row groups as well as column groups as seen in the Arrange Fields page of the wizard. The available fields were moved into column groups and row groups. One of the shortcomings of this wizard is that once you move a field from the available to any of the other three, you cannot move it back. However you can only move between the three. If you go back and return, you have the same arrangement. If you Cancel, you need to start the wizard again. Another problem with this wizard step is that you must add a field to the Value field. What if one wants to show only a few columns of data in a table? However, it is well suited for matrix design. The above shortcomings in the earlier SQL Server 2008 RC0 version have been rectified in the latest version of Report Builder 2.0 bundled with the Feature Pack (Link).

The above arrangement would lead to a report's grouping as shown here:

Each of the groups shown above has its own properties which can be accessed by right-clicking the group. For example, the row group [ProductName] in the above. You can then review its Group Properties window as shown in the two following screenshots:

When you click on the drop-down item, Group Properties...;, the Group Properties window shows up.

Clicking on the Next button in the New Table or Matrix wizard's Arrange Fields page takes you to the window where you can arrange to show the group aggregates. You can show them in several ways depending on the choice you make as shown in the following screenshot:

You will be working with the groups and grouping in the next chapter.

Properties

This window appears, by default, at the right of the report designer pane. It shows all configurable properties of the objects on the report body. You only need to click on the object. Most of the properties become effective as soon as you complete the property and leave that property or move to the next property in the Properties window. If you add custom assemblies, these are also shown in this window.