SQLSaturday#65 SSRS 2008/2008 R2 from the Ground Up

Thank you to all the troopers who attended my really-early-morning-cold-and-snowy session at SQLSaturday#65 in Vancouver, BC. It was such a great event; thanks to all volunteers, sponsors, speakers and organizers (kudos to Scott Stauffer (blog | twitter) .. Thanks to Todd McDermid (blog | twitter) too for helping me give out swags during my session, and thanks for the great powerpoint slide decks which I’ve used in 2 SQLSaturdays now! :)

sqlsat65-schedule

As promised, here are the SQLSaturday#65 presentation materials for SQL Server 2008/2008 R2 Reporting Services from the Ground Up

Brent Ozar (blog | twitter) has a few pictures of the event :)

Sample Reports (pdfs)

Report with different visualization components (data bar, sparkline, indicator, gauge, chart)
sqlsat65 - sample report - employee sales with visualization

Report with drilldown, barcode, gauge
sqlsat65 - sample report - employee sales with drilldown barcode and gauge

Report using map (from ESRI shapefile for Canada) and Bing Maps layer
sqlsat65 - sample report - canada sales on map
Read the rest of this entry »

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VANPASS Presentation and Demo Files on SQL Server and PowerShell

I did a presentation today for VANPASS on PowerShell and SQL Server – thank you to those who attended! It was a great lively crowd :) Thanks to Idera too – for the freebies – and to Black Ninja Software for the pizza and pop!

Here are the files as promised: VANPASS – SQL Server and PowerShell – Donabel Santos

The zipped file contains the presentation and all of the samples (ones that I demo’d, and ones I didn’t have time to demo). The demos are:

  • Demo 01 – Common PowerShell Tasks – Complete.PS1
  • Demo 02 – PowerShell Basics – Complete.PS1
  • Demo 03a – SQL Server 2008 Mini Shell – Complete.PS1
  • Demo 03b – Server and Database Properties.PS1
  • Demo 03c – SQL Server Services and Jobs.PS1
  • Demo 03d – Scripting SQL Server Objects.PS1
  • Demo 03e – Searching for Objects.PS1
  • Demo 03f – Basic DDL and DML Import.PS1
  • Demo 03f – Basic DML.PS1
  • Demo 03g – Backup and Restore.PS1
  • Demo 04 – SQL Server PSX – Complete.PS1
  • Demo 05 – SQL Server PSSnapin – Complete.PS1
  • Demo – SSIS.PS1
  • Demo – SSRS.PS1
  • Out-Report from Chad Miller

I have used a lot of resources when I was creating all these samples, and I have tried to enumerate them in my presentation. And I also just realized I had a lot of samples and was only able to get through 2/3 of them.

I enjoy presenting at VANPASS, it is always a great crowd. Please feel free to drop me a line, or comment on my blog, or message me on twitter(sqlbelle) – if you have other SQL Server PowerShell questions, or if you had questions at the presentation that I wasn’t able to address.

Thanks to Richard Baumet and Scott Stauffer for inviting me to speak.
And thanks to Idera too – I love using your PowerShell Plus!

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DevTeach day, dinner, twitter, brag bag – my musings for the day

DevTeach day
– done my presentation on PowerShell! thanks for my awesome crowd :) – they stayed with me from PowerShell ground zero to about 20 feet up. You’ve seen the tool now, go make me proud :)
– also attended Shereen’s session. She’s the master of customizing your SharePoint pages!

DevTeach night
– DevTeach speakers dinner at Sala Thai. Fun and lively chat with Scott Stauffer, Peter de Betta, and Ted Neward. Also brief chat with Kevin Kline and his wife while we were at the lounge waiting to go to dinner. Very nice people!

DevTeach tomorrow
– we have the Black Ninja Booth. Come visit us! We always welcome good chats, hi’s and hellos! We also have a few things to give away (shirts, goodies, and Telerik Web Control license!)
– looking forward to tomorrow’s sessions!

Twitter/Tweetie
– wow this could be very addicting eh? I find myself using my iphone/tweetie more.

Brag Bag
– got nominated for BCIT’s Teaching Excellence Award!! :) :) :) Did I put enough smileys here? Thank you to whoever nominated me, it is a pleasure and privilege and very much appreciated.

That’s it, I’m ready to crash for the night!

Updates : day after
– also fun chats with Don Kiely, Etienne Tremblay, Medhat Elmasry, Brian Pidcock at our Black Ninja booth, and quick chat with Richard Baumet while we were both prepping for our presentations :)
– when able to sneak out of the booth, attended Sherman Woo’s session on SharePoint Dev tips and tricks, Peter de Betta’s Choosing the Right Encryption Technologies , Kevin Kline’s End to End SQL Server Troubleshooting, Brad McGehee’s SQLDiag presentation; I wish I could have see more presentations!

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Victoria Code Camp Materials

Sorry I have been sick and out of commission for a week. The past few days, I’ve been drinking the meds the doctor gave me, which just really knocks me right out.

I apologize for the delay, but here are the materials, finally.


SharePoint 101

SharePoint 101 – Slides


SharePoint Web Parts

SharePoint Web Parts 101 – Slides

SharePoint Web Part Sample Projects:

1. Hello World Web Part

2. Simple Web Part with Custom Properties and Verbs

3. Connectable Web Parts

Enjoy! I’ll start blogging more again, as soon as I’m 100% better :)

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Victoria Code Camp, January 26, 2008

I’m doing a couple of sessions at the Victoria Code Camp on January 26, 2008! Thank you to Nolan Zak for giving me this opportunity.

These are my two sessions:

SharePoint 101
This session will provide a high level overview of Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server (MOSS 2007). This session will also cover demos of out-of-the-box Sharepoint components like: sites, lists, document libraries, and web parts.

SharePoint Web Parts
This session will cover Web Part concepts, and will walk you through creating custom ASP.NET Web Parts for SharePoint (MOSS 2007, WSS 3.0). Features will also be introduced towards the end of the session.

Schedule is posted at http://www.victoriacodecamp.com/SessionSchedule.aspx.
The list of speakers can be found at http://www.victoriacodecamp.com/CampSpeakers.aspx

Just posting the schedule here as well for your reference:

Morning Schedule


Afternoon Schedule

As usual, I will be posting the materials I will use at the presentations. Hope to see you there! Beautiful Victoria, here I come!

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DEVTEACH/VANTUG 2007 – Sharepoint Integration Presentation Materials

Yaroslav and I did a presentation at VANTUG on November 22, 2007 (Thanks to Graham Jones, President of VANTUG, for inviting us to speak!). As promised, here are the presentation materials. These are the same materials we are going to use for DEVTEACH on November 28, 2007.

As we mentioned in the presentation, we used a real business case as a basis for the demo. The solution in our project involved:
– Sharepoint as portal/framework (specifically MOSS)
– WCF for communication between Sharepoint and backend databases
– Custom Web Part for entry forms and client-side validation
– BDC for search and data display
– SSNS for notification and audit trails

We tried to create a simpler version that uses most of the features above, and highlights the flexibility of Sharepoint as a framework.

Presentation

PRESENTATION FILE – Download the Powerpoint Presentations from here:
VANTUG November 2007 – Sharepoint Integration

Resources

Looking for additional references? You can check out the resource list for this presentation from my previous blog:
DevTeach/VANTUG Sharepoint 2007 Integration Presentation (Nov 2007): Resources

Screenshots: At A Glance


BDC

SSRS

SSNS

Custom Web Part with SSNS
Resources

Looking for additional references? You can check out the resource list for this presentation from my previous blog:
DevTeach/VANTUG Sharepoint 2007 Integration Presentation (Nov 2007): Resources

Database

PRESENTATION FILE – ProductDetail
Database File (setup_productdetail.zip)
This contains the ProductDetail table, and related views and stored procedures. This .sql file is enough for you to get the BDC and SSRS part of the demo working.

We used the AdventureWorksLT database as our base database, and added a few tables/view/stored procedures.

This is the ProductDetail ERD:

1. Download the AdventureWorksLT database. You can download the AdventureWorksLT database from CodePlex (http://www.codeplex.com/MSFTDBProdSamples/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=4004).
2. Download the SQL file for the presentation here.
3. Open up the setup_productdetail.sql file in SQL Server Management Studio.
4. Execute

Business Data Catalog (BDC)

PRESENTATION FILE – BDC:
BDC File (AdventureWorksProductDetailADF.zip)
This file contains the ProductDetail BDC Application Definition File

The BDC is a MOSS (Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server) only feature. This will not run on WSS.

Sample Screenshot:


1. If you don’t have access to MOSS, you can download the MOSS trial version from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2E6E5A9C-EBF6-4F7F-8467-F4DE6BD6B831&displaylang=en
2. Open Central Administration
3. Go to Shared Services
4. Under the Business Data Catalog section, click on Import Application Definition.
5. Browse to AdventureWorksProductDetailADF.xml, accept defaults and click on OK.

Some people asked during the presentation what I use to create the BDCs. Since I started working on the BDC since MOSS’s B2TR, I’ve grown accustomed to writing the ADF by hand. I did try the BDC Metaman at that time – which was then still a beta (and free!) version developed by Todd Baginski.

To debug BDC’s to date, however, you have 2 indispensible friends:
1. Event Viewer
2. 12 Hive LOGS folder (C:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft Sharedweb server extensions12LOGS). If you can’t see any relevant logs, check Central Admin and get MOSS to log “Business Data”.
3. When updating the BDC:
– you will need to manually update the Version in the ADF
– you may need to disable caching (from Web Part properties)
– at times, you may need to delete the BDC Application Instance and recreate
(Not sure exactly when these things happen, but this will be one my next discovery quests!)
4. Last but not least, make sure you check the permissions. Whoever’s using the BDC needs to be added to the BDC permissions list with EXECUTE permissions.

SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services – Integrated Mode with Sharepoint

PRESENTATION FILE – Sample SSRS Project:
Sample Report Project on ProductDetail table

The bulk of the work in this section is not about creating the reports, it is configuring the environment.
I’ve used three main resources, which I reference in a previous blog (DevTeach/VANTUG Sharepoint 2007 Integration Presentation (Nov 2007): Resources)

Raju Sakthivel. Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services – Installation and Configuration Guide for SharePoint Integration Mode (very good resource, and a must read if you are planning to deploy SSRS Integrated Mode)
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/attachment/4194088.ashx

How to: Configure SharePoint Integration on Multiple Servers
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb677365.aspx

How to: Configure SharePoint Integration on a Standalone Server
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb677368.aspx

Sample Screenshot:


SSRS Integrated Mode introduces 3 new content types to Sharepoint: Report Builder Model, Report Builder Report and Report Data Source.


Points to note before you pull your hair out:
– You must get Kerberos working. Make sure your SPNs are in place.
– You must install SQL Server 2005 SP2.
– Don’t look for Report Manager. It’s not there. Sharepoint Integrated mode does away with the Report Manager. Other unsupported features are documented here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb326290.aspx
– When deploying, you need to provide the URL to the document libraries and URL to the site you are deploying to. This could be easy to miss especially if you are used to the Report Manager. To check this:
– Open your Project in Visual Studio
– Right click on your project from the Object Explorer > Properties
– Make sure your


Custom Web Part – Hello World

PRESENTATION FILE – Basic Custom Web Part:
Yaro-Softlanding.SampleWebpart.zip
These are the files provided by Yaroslav for creating your basic hello world custom web part:

SQL Server 2005 Notification Services

PRESENTATION FILE – SSNS:
SSNS File (SSNS – NSProduct2.zip)
This file contains the ADF, ICF, XSL, schemas, sample events you need to get started on Notification Services.



Microsoft has provided a number of good step-by-step tutorials. You can start with:
MSDN. SQL Server 2005 Notification Services Tutorial
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms170337.aspx

Here’s a quick start guide:
1. If you don’t have Notification Services installed, install notification service:
a. Run the SQL Server 2005 Setup Disk
b. Choose to add components.
1. Create your ADF file.
2. Create your ICF file.
3. Create a new SQL Server Notification Services instance and enable
4. Register the Notification Service you created as a Windows Service
5. Assign permissions to an Event folder if you are using a FileWatcher
6. Start the service
7. Add subscribers
8. Test, test, test

If you are debugging:
1. Check the NotificationDistribution table in the generated [InstanceName][ApplicationName] database. This should tell you if your notifications were successfully delivered or not.
2. Check the Event Viewer
3. Check the SQL Logs

Other things worth checking:
1. throttle
2. illegal XML characters

Oh, and if you want to update your CSS/HTML/XSL file, you need to update your notification instance. It’s not just going to pick up the style or content changes.

UNFORTUNATELY, to my dismay, the July CTP of Katmai’s readme file announces very silently that Notification Services days are over (or at least that’s what it sounds like). I liked working with Notification Services :(

“SQL Server Notification Services will not be included as a component of SQL Server 2008, but will continue to be supported as part of the SQL Server 2005 product support life-cycle. Moving forward, support for key notification scenarios will be incorporated into SQL Server Reporting Services. Existing Reporting Services functionality, such as data driven subscriptions, addresses some of the notification requirements. Features to support additional notification scenarios may be expected in future releases.”

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VANTUG (Nov 2007) Sharepoint 2007 Integration Presentation

Here is the invite posted at the VANTUG site!

VANTUG Presentation

I will be posting all the materials soon :)

If you are looking for the DEVTEACH/VANTUG files, you can find them in this blog entry: DEVTEACH/VANTUG 2007 – Sharepoint Integration Presentation Materials

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