report builder 3.0

Question

I am in the process of evaluiting Ad-Hoc reporting tool on top SQL Server 2008 R2. I would like to know what are the limitations around the Report Builder 3.0 which comes with SQL server.

What reports we can do in VS 2008 with BIDS and which we can not do in Report Builder 3.0 We are trying to answer what can be done what can be done with Report Builder.

Please share your real time experiance

Answer 1

We went through this same evaluation not that long ago. Basically BIDS and Report Builder 2/3 allow you to do the same thing. Report Builder is for those users who want to create or modify their own reports without needing to install BIDS. Report Builder has a Microsoft Office look and feel. It has the ribbon controls similar to Excel and Word. The same .RDL or .RDLC is generated by both. However, Report Builder 3 only targets SSRS 2008 R2. The .RDL format has changed for SSRS 2008 R2.

Either way the report can be deployed to an SSRS server, Sharepoint or the Microsoft Report Viewer (for .RDLC files).

As you may or may not know, there is no BIDS for Visual Studio 2010 (yet). If you want to use BIDS, you'll need to use VS 2008, which targets SQL Server 2008.

Answer 2

I think for a Power User who already has gone through tools like Cognos and Business Objects, the reprot builder 3.0 seems to lack lot of features while reporting against the cube. Here are the main.

1. I cannot create a variable which I can use in multiple tables in the report. I thought I could use "calculated member" but it does not let me use any kind of aggregate function on any of the objects against the cube as it treats everything as aggregate objects.

2. I cannot use a simple "OR" statement in the query filter.

3. Power user while building the report need to always pay attention to "row group", which I think is frustrating. In other tools the measure or fact groups it only groups by the dimension u have in the table.

4. Row limitations while exporting to excel.