0

I am currently working on a project which uses SQL Server Reporting Services 2012 to create a (large) set of reports.

We would like to enable some business users to create reports from a live Oracle database, however these are staff who have no skills around SQL or data models, nor an expectation to learn - this is repeatedly stated to be outside their remit (they are analysts recruited to be critical thinkers, not technical staff).

They require the capability of creating ad-hoc queries and reports from the database to answer questions as and when they arise but need to be able to create queries with and/or type clauses to reach record level data and generally create record sets for reading/review.

Currently the only option looks like using the legacy Report Model to pre-define the most commonly used business models on top of the live database as I can not prove that the Tabular Model provides querying capability required. We do not have data that forms into a dimensional model very easily, and even then often have questions that asks for multiple null values to be returned due to significant accepted data gaps.

Is anyone able to shed any light on how the current Microsoft BI stack would let non technical users ask the following type of query and return a single data set in SSRS Report Builder:

Select all records 
where 
created between two dates and match two keywords in text field 1
or 
Updated between two dates and match three keywords in text field 2 and have a status of X

I know that tools such as Business Objects provide this sort of interface but I feel that I must be missing something within the MS solution as they had this so well covered with the Report Model.

user3644997
  • 89
  • 1
  • 9
  • Have you looked at Power BI? You can do all the technical side of things and supply a model to yuor users. They can simply drag and drop stuff and quickly get tablix style reports or charts and so on with very little training. I taught a non techie to get some reports created in an hour. Admittedly they can't do too much creatively at that point but just giving the head start was enough to enthuse the users into doing more. – Alan Schofield Jun 27 '17 at 18:39
  • Alan, Thanks - one current issue is on-site hosting - which is only just dealt with in SQL 2017. The other issue is that the users want to create the query and dump the data out - but I can not seem to get PowerBI to create the layered up And/Or type queries we tend to use regularly. – user3644997 Jun 27 '17 at 19:05
  • Since you are talking about models, you could use SSAS tabular or multidimensional analytics and use excel pivot table for reports with simple criteria(pivot tables cannot handle OR conditions) or reporting services matrices with custom filters like these of your example. As an alternative you could use views as shared datasets and matrices with custom filters. – niktrs Jun 28 '17 at 07:15

0 Answers0