November 24, 2009 at 1:49 pm
First off let me say that I am very inexpereinced with SSRS. I have read quite a bit about it and even tinkered with it some including the Report Designer 2.0 that is part of SQL 2008. However we are using version 2005 in our production environment and so unless you can run a 2008 SSRS Box with a DB server that is SQL 2005, I have to stick with the 2005 version of Reporting Services.
BACKGROUND:
I have many years of experience with report wirting in Crystal Reports (versions 8 thru 10) and even a bit of experience with Access's Reporting capabailities (Access Versions 97 thru 2003) but I have only tinkered some with Reporting Services. We (my company) are at a cross roads where Crystal Reports (at least in the versions supported by the product we use for our accounting software) can't meet our reporting needs and so I'm turning to SSRS to see if this is possible.
THE PROBLEM:
Let me start by saying this is very hard to articulate so please bear with me.
In short we have a report with 3 levels of Grouping that we currently push thru Crystal Reports version 9. Th problem is that if we enable the 'KEEP TOGETHER' option on all 3 groups we do prevent some issues but cause more to arrise.
Imagine in the following example that this is the top of a page : ------------------ TOP ------------------, and that this is the bottom of a page: ------------------ BOT ------------------ and the Group Headers are GH1 thru GH3 and the Footers are F1 thru F3.
With the 'KEEP TOGETHER' option enabled for all 3 groups we end up wioth this output
------------------ TOP ------------------
GH1
--GH2
----GH3
----GF3
----GH3
----GF3
------------------ BOT ------------------
------------------ TOP ------------------
--GF2
<<empty white space here>>
<<empty white space here>>
<<empty white space here>>
<<empty white space here>>
------------------ BOT ------------------
------------------ TOP ------------------
--GH2
----GH3
----GF3
--GF2
------------------ BOT ------------------
In this rudementary example we end up with the footer for Group 2 appearing on a page byitsefl followed by a lot of white space because the next section of Group3 data is laregr then will fit on the rest of the same page as the Group2 footer.
In this scenario the owner wouls say that the second set of Group 3 data shjoudl have been pushed to the next page so there would be less white space on it making the report (visually speaking) look more balanced. If we turn off the right set of 'KEEP TOGETHER' options to dop that then we end up with other issues.
I hope this accurately details the problem we are having.
Does anyone know if there is a way in Reporting Servirces to get past this kind of problem so that you can dynamically enable/disable a 'KEEP TOGETHER' like option that will change based on how much empty white space is on sucessive pages?
I realize this may be something that is unaddressable and that's why It doesn work iin Crystal but I nee dto ask to be certain.
Thank you
Kindest Regards,
Just say No to Facebook!December 14, 2009 at 11:14 am
Is the lack of any response due to this being a dumb question or have i hit on a tough problem that simply has no solution or work-a-round?
Kindest Regards,
Just say No to Facebook!Viewing 2 posts - 1 through 1 (of 1 total)
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