any way to cause report model generation to use extended properties?

  • Folks, in SQL Server 2005's new Report Builder feature we must create "report models" from a givne datasource and datasource view. Part of the effort of "cleaning up" the tables for use by end users is renaming tables and columns. One bummer, we've found, is that although we have previously done that very effort in creating an extended property "description", there seems no mechanism in the report designer (Business Intelligence Studio) to facilitate using that data. That means a lot of manual effort.

    Does anyone know if this can be resolved?

  • Possibly you could reference the extended property in a specially created view? Or do something else on the database side using stored procedures or functions so that the report model can 'see' the property?

    {I am shooting from the lip, here - so feel free to ridicule me and move on, if appropriate...}

  • Did you find a solution to this?

    I have just come upon the same requirement. I would like to pull a columns extended property into the Report Model column "Description" property. Is this possible? If so, please point me to a link or howto!

    Thanks!

    Jon

  • Never did find out, no. Indeed, with other struggles we ended up abandoning use of RB entirely. But I will say that in SQL Server 2008 it appears to have been substantially improved. Haven't worked with it and have no more info, but I would say that anyone struggling with it in 2k5 may want to see if they can implement a 2k8 server on which to implement it (note that the server running the RB mechanism does NOT need to be the same or same version even as the server on which the DB's are being queried for reports).

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