SSRS report builder 2.0 store STATIC DATA to use to query results

Question

Does any one know if there is a way to import a spreadsheet into report builder 2.0 and then use my data set to make calculations against.

This might seem like a novice question as my limited experience of report builder does not help.

The reason i want to do this is so that i don't have to have my main data-set run the query on working out averages of hundreds of thousands of records as it take ages to run. by having the benchmark average data static i would want to run my query and do the calculations in report builder which will make it a 100 times faster.

Thank you for your time in advance

Answer 1

Report builder doesn't have anywhere you can 'import' the spreadsheet to, except one of the databases you are querying from. And Excel isn't a supported data source for SSRS, however it might be possible to add a report data source that uses an ODBC DSN to the appropriate Excel file. (I haven't tried it).

But, I can foresee some problems with this approach - it may get upset under multiple users and I expect you may find the file gets locked so you can't update it very easily.

An approach that might work could be to upload the static data into an Access database (as that is supported via the OLE DB Jet provider) and reference that as a data source; but the best approach is always going to be importing the static data into a table in your main database and using that.

Answer 2

You may be able to overcome this by adding Calculated Fields to your dataset (DS). I am assuming that your static data can be related to your dataset by using at least one existing field. Using the Switch function, you can populate your calculated fields. Switch “evaluates a list of expressions and returns an Object value corresponding to the first expression in the list that is True.”

You can use the function like this:

=Switch(Fields!DsField1.Value = 2, “Your Value1”, Fields!DsField1.Value = 5, “Your Value2”, Fields!DsField1.Value = 10, “Your Value3”, ….)

If you have any condition that needs to be checked, you can add it before the Switch statement like this:

=IIF(Fields!DsField20.Value <>1000, Switch(Fields!DsField1.Value = 2, “Your Value1”, Fields!DsField1.Value = 5, “Your Value2”, Fields!DsField1.Value = 10, “Your Value3”, ….), Nothing)

You can have your values in an Excel sheet to make the creation of the formula easier. Simply create your formula in the first row, copy the row down to extend your formula, and cover all your values. Then from Excel simply copy and paste the column of data into your calculated field(s).

Here's an example of My Excel formula. This is the best I could do as I could not paste the sample here. You can copy and paste these and replace them your own values.

In Cell- A2 2
In Cell- B2 YourValue1
In Cell- C2 YourOtherValue1
In Cell- D2 YourOtherOtherValue1
In Cell- E2 YourOtherOtherOtherValue1
In Cell- F2 ="Fields!DsField1.Value ="&A2&","&""""&B2&""""&","
In Cell- G2 ="Fields!DsField1.Value ="&$A2&","&""""&C2&""""&","
In Cell- H2 ="Fields!DsField1.Value ="&$A2&","&""""&D2&""""&","
In Cell- I2 ="Fields!DsField1.Value ="&$A2&","&""""&E2&""""&","**

Sorry if there is anything I have missed; I did this in a rush.