Custom Chart Palettes in SSRS

Custom Chart Palettes in SSRS

This article is a follow up to the Cognos article on creating a custom color palette.  Custom palettes are pretty common when companies start to standardize their corporate image across all company communications. Make a copy of your report template. Name it 'MyCorp Chart Report' In the report area, add a chart Right-Click the chart object and choose Properties For Palette, choose 'Custom' In the properties window, not find the custom palette settings. A dialog box appears that allows you to select each color to include in the custom palette.   Below I have set the first color in the palette…
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Bulk Update SSRS Subscription Information

I have a current client who needed to update information in every SSRS Subscription on their production server. The main reason was they were moving domains.  This meant updating user names and pointing the subscriptions to a new file share server where it saves reports. This is a standalone instance of SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services, not in SharePoint integrated mode. It finally dawned on me that there is no bulk management tool for SSRS reports or subscriptions. So until I get time to learn VB.net and build a tool we needed a quick way to view and edit…
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SSRS Adding “Image Not Available” as Alternate Image

SSRS Adding “Image Not Available” as Alternate Image

I just had a requirement to build a report which had images stored in the database. SSRS handles that fine by just setting the image object to 'database' and then selecting the field. The challenge was adding an alternate image or text when there was no image stored in the database. SSRS makes it difficult because there is no method to dynamically change the image type on the image container itself, such as changing from 'database' to 'external' image on a web server. OPTIONS: Store the 'Not Available' image in the table and write a query which pulled only that…
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Using SQL to Build MDX parameters

I had a client report which needed a parameter list to default to the previous closed financial period date. The SSAS cube includes reporting periods into the future which have data entries even if the month has not been 'closed' by accounting department. Without a 'Month Closed' flag in the cube, the only way to build the parameter list was by querying the date dimension database table. When adding a date parameter to the report dataset, SSRS will automatically build a hidden dataset which pulls the list of available dates from the cube. For this example, I left that data…
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