Very good book. It is easy to learn how to create Reports when you go through the samples in this book.

Again, this is the best hands on how to book for a software application I have ever read. Though before I explain the reasons why I feel what makes this book so great, please allow me explain those things that often times make a "how to" book not so great. Things that Brian thankfully avoids.

Please note that the only negative reviews you will find amongst all the reviews here on Amazon are a result of those who bought the book expecting it to be a topical reference followed by code samples. Being such "serious developers" perhaps they should have read a bit more about the book before purchasing it. For example if I order a hotdog thinking I am going to get a hamburger I am not going to say the hotdog sucks just because I had a hamburger in mind! However I digress.

It has been my experience that the overwhelming majority of "step by step" software/programming books start off in a manner that is easy enough to follow, at first. The first few chapters are well written (most likely the result of the writer/editor knowing that someone browsing the book in a bookstore is only going to read about that far before making a purchase). Then once you get past the first few chapters the author begins to introduce terms that are critical to understanding what is being taught, without these terms ever having been explained in previous material. Or you will notice typo's, or even worse code samples containing typos (Similar to Lisin and Joseph's book on reporting services which I also have and warn you to stay very very far away from). Often times rendering what the author has written as useless. Another trend in "how to books" is that more often than not they read like a "topical guide", never really explaining how to do anything in the proper sequence to actually put to use what it is you are reading. It is like they back up the "information dump truck", spill it all over you, then expect you to understand how to "put it all together and use it". Except for the few gifted individuals who have the heightened degree of intellect to be able to "put it all together". Most people will just feel confused, because without having the opportunity to put what one has read in "Chapter 2" to practical/hands on use one will have forgotten what they have read by the time they get to "Chapter 3". Thankfully none of the above causes for concern/destroying a book are to be found here. Brian's book is 100% hands on, and everything, yes everything is clearly explained and easy to understand. No terms are introduced that have not been explained previously. And the times where you do use a "function" that has not been explained previously he takes the time to explain its significance at the end of the tutorial. So far I have found zero typos. It is almost as though this book has been edited/reviewed by someone who was absolutely certain that there were no "blanks" created by the author where the reader was left to have to "fill in those blanks".


The first thing you will notice is how very clear and concise a writer Brian is. The book starts with him carefully explaining the fundamentals of database design/theory. Even if you never have touched reporting services, those who have worked with database applications will most likely be fine with skipping the intro sections and jump straight to the tutorials. Though, I read the content for the "beginners" as a refresher and was blown away by how simple and easy to understand Brian's writing style is. I can say with confidence that someone who has never even touched a database before will feel confident to "jump right into" the tutorials after having read Chapters 1 and 3. Naturally the tutorials progress in their degree of complexity, and Brian will not explain every single step in explicit detail in cases where previous chapters have explained that particular step/concept in explicit detail. This illustrates another element of what I like about this book. Brian "holds your hand" at first, though he is confident in what he has taught you previously to where you feel confident to "walk on your own" as tutorials progress. However if there are those steps where you are not sure how to do what is being asked you can ALWAYS go back to a previous chapter/tutorial and familiarize yourself with the steps to carry out a task. I think this offers a great way to learn, if a book was step by step and repeated the same steps to perform certain tasks over and over from tutorial to tutorial how would you ever know which things you need to go back and learn for yourself? Wow what a great way to learn, your weak areas will be exposed in the later chapters, where if need be the earlier chapters will serve to bring you quickly and easily up to speed.

Simply put this book teaches you how to learn "by doing" in a way that is easy to grasp and easy to follow. And in those moments where you are not sure how to do something you can always go back and re-familiarize yourself with the material. Again, he does not take any liberties with using terms or explanations where he "assumes" you should understand what he is talking about. The text is not overly verbose like much of what is out there. Everything is explained simply, thoroughly, and to the point. If you have little to no experience with databases I believe if you take your time with the early material you will feel confident in moving forward with the tutorials. And again if you get stuck it is easy to go back and quickly find what you are looking for. And if like me you used Access or some other database application previous to Reporting Services you will be creating reports that make you say "WOW" the very first day.

I hope you found this review helpful. Thank you for reading!

As an experienced report writer (Business Objects and Cognos), I was looking for a good introduction to Reporting Services. This book does a very good job of that. How to write and format reports is covered well and the explanation of report distribution and security is well done. I was disappointed to see that Report Model and Report Builder, ad hoc reporting tools were only covered by an appendix. As I have worked more with these tools, I have found them very shallow, so the appendix coverage is adequate. Overall, this is a worthwhile book to have on your desk.

I was very excited when I received this book, I had read the reviews and it sounded like just the ticket for me at my new job. The first couple of chapters were great..then he abandoned all pretense of giving a detailed idea of all the options and possibilities and created a fictitious company and started solving their fictitious problems with reporting services...didn't take me long to realize their issues weren't my issues and he wasn't going to cover what I needed to know because he was sticking with explaining only the features needed to solve his companies problems.

Now I'm sorry I spent so much time researching this book and money buying it...now I have to continue my search for a book that just lays out the features and options available in Reporting Services.

I just worked my way cover-to-cover and did every exercise. Sure, there are some errors in the book and sometimes it is not as clear as I would like and it does help to be a DBA but I think the book is rather above average in its accuracy. The book is not useful as a reference. But I highly recommend it as a great start. If you are not going to download the problems and do the exercises, then do not buy this book. The value is in doing the exercises.

This book served as a decent read as well as decent reference material for using SSRS.

I could have done without the author's attempts at humor with lines such as "Be prepared. You're about to enter... the Matrix!". I would have preferred a "dryer" more serious approach however I can live with the writer's style because the book delivered on content.

I have been more than happy with this book and have recommended others to purchase it also. I feel this book is easy to follow and great for the experienced and also for the beginner.

Got this book last week but I just started to read and do the chapters a few days back, and I'm not into chapter 6 already and finding it really helpful and easy read. The book is well laid out, and for a beginner like I find the steps so easy to follow.

Also, the author was so helpful when I emailed him regarding the Galactic DB setup and he responded immediately within 30 minutes! Now, that's a plud factor! Highly recommended for beginners and intermediates but not so much for experts (as my officemate was looking for a peculiar way of doing the report in a matrix data region required by the business but can't find any that advanced format...)

It's sometimes hard to review a technical book without reviewing the technology the book discusses so I'll start by stating that Microsoft Reporting Services impressed me greatly but Microsoft's documentation is as bad as always. There's room for improvement but it's already better than Crystal Reports. Now on to the book review.

I am familiar with SQL Server and Crystal Reports so I was looking for a book that didn't spend too much time on stuff I already knew. This book spent the first three chapters discussing database basics so I skipped them.

I started reading the book in earnest at chapter four which discusses the report wizards. This is a quick way to throw reports together in Visual Studio and Brian Larson presents the information logically and clearly. It became quickly clear that I was reading an exceptional book. I'm guessing Brian had an experienced editor because the book is largely free of the gramatical errors that have been plaguing technical books recently. What impresses me even more is that all the examples worked flawlessly and were meaningful exercises that I will refer back to as I start to implement Reporting Services.

The book references a database you need to download from the Osborne website. The instructions to do so are very clear and I had no problems whatsoever downloading and installing it. The only problem I had was that the user id in the examples (GalacticReporting) does not have access to the stored procedures. You need to give GalRep the 'Reporting' role. Minor problem.

Brian, correctly, doesn't spend much time on the wizards and quickly gets into the meat of the application guiding the reader through successively more complex reporting scenarios. At first tasks are performed using point-and-click methods, then using quicker but more advanced methods. Finally Brian started taking shortcuts such as providing stored procedures. I saw Brian using this technique all through the book and I liked it.

The first real problem I encountered with the book in is chapter 10 in the section on deploying custom assemblies. This is an area that Reporting Services is very weak and I hope to see Microsoft improve in future releases. You have two options - alter the config file or deploy via the GAC. Brian only mentions the first option and very poorly. He doesn't mention the GAC at all whereas I think the GAC is the better option. But in the next section on security Brian is back to his old form and does a splendid job of explaining a subject I normally have a very hard time with.

The explanation of report caching, snapshots, and subscriptions is exceptionally good and does a great job of explaining these potentially confusing subjects. Again, his examples are well thought out and very simple to follow. As they occur after the section on security he points out what security tasks/roles are required to perform these function which was a great idea.

I wish Brian had spent a little more time explaining the logging mechanism in chapter 11. He refers the reader to the Microsoft documentation which is actually wrong. The book could have spent half a page explaining how to create and populate the logging database and implementing the sample reports. It would have saved me a lot of trouble.

The only other issue I have with the book is late in chapter 12 where Brian explains how to implement a custom, forms-based, security model. The example works well especially considering how complex it is, but I could not get the debugger to attach to the authentication dll even though I followed Brian's instructions to the letter. However, having Googled the problem it seems many, many people have problems attaching the Visual Studio debugger to already running threads so I suspect Bill should take some of the blame at least.

Overall Brian Larson should be very pleased with his work. It's well worth the money and he has done us all a great service. He should buy his editor a beer too.

It's sometimes hard to review a technical book without reviewing the technology the book discusses so I'll start by stating that Microsoft Reporting Services impressed me greatly but Microsoft's documentation is as bad as always. There's room for improvement but it's already better than Crystal Reports. Now on to the book review.

I am familiar with SQL Server and Crystal Reports so I was looking for a book that didn't spend too much time on stuff I already knew. This book spent the first three chapters discussing database basics so I skipped them.

I started reading the book in earnest at chapter four which discusses the report wizards. This is a quick way to throw reports together in Visual Studio and Brian Larson presents the information logically and clearly. It became quickly clear that I was reading an exceptional book. I'm guessing Brian had an experienced editor because the book is largely free of the gramatical errors that have been plaguing technical books recently. What impresses me even more is that all the examples worked flawlessly and were meaningful exercises that I will refer back to as I start to implement Reporting Services.

The book references a database you need to download from the Osborne website. The instructions to do so are very clear and I had no problems whatsoever. The only problem I had was that the user id in the examples (GalacticReporting) does not have access to the stored procedures. You need to give GalRep the 'Reporting' role. Minor problem.

Brian, correctly, doesn't spend much time on the wizards and quickly gets into the meat of the application guiding the reader through successively more complex reporting scenarios. At first tasks are performed using point-and-click methods, then using quicker but more advanced methods. Finally Brian started taking shortcuts such as providing stored procedures. I saw Brian using this technique all through the book and I liked it.

The first real problem I encountered with the book in is chapter 10 in the section on deploying custom assemblies. This is an area that Reporting Services is very weak and I hope to see Microsoft improve in future releases. You have two options - alter the config file or deploy via the GAC. Brian only mentions the first option and very poorly. He doesn't mention the GAC at all whereas I think the GAC is the better option. But in the next section on security Brian is back to his old form and does a splendid job of explaining a subject I normally have a very hard time with.

The explanation of report caching, snapshots, and subscriptions is exceptionally good and does a great job of explaining these potentially confusing subjects. Again, his examples are well thought out and very simple to follow. As they occur after the section on security he points out what security tasks/roles are required to perform these function which was a great idea.

I wish Brian had spent a little more time explaining the logging mechanism in chapter 11. He refers the reader to the Microsoft documentation which is actually wrong. The book could have spent half a page explaining how to create and populate the logging database and implementing the sample reports. It would have saved me a lot of trouble.

I'm at page 506 right now. I'll update this review when I get a little further.

The way this book is formated is great for people who learn through "Give me an example". When looking up a topic you will find a step by step example with screen shots.

This book is full of acknowledgement. Step by step teaching of everything related to Report Server 2005.

While this book provides a good overview from absolute basics (like how to write sql statements and join tables) to more advanced topics, it does so in a story-telling fashion. In other words, you need to interact with the sample files and step through exercises. This is useless to me. A good reference is way more useful. Like most developers, I need the ability to find a topic in the index and jump to an explanation and some sample code. I don't want to do exercises.

I've read many technical instruction books. This has been one of my best experiences. The book is oriented around learning by doing. The examples address real-world situations. The instructions are accurate, move step by step and even identify "gotcha's" along the way. Screen shots make sure you're on track. I've been very pleased and can recommend the book without reservation.

This book got me up and running with SSRS in no time. I even had a problem with getting something to work, emailed Brian, the author, and he replied to my email within the same day and my problem was solved. This is definately a great book.

He steps you through creating a dataset, creating the report and explaining all the intricacies of creating the report and there are a lot of details involved and the report works. The few times my report didn't work, I went back and realized I missed a step and after reworking things, the report worked. Definately a must have if you need to learn SSRS.

I thought this book was an excellent learning tool. It introduces information one chapter at a time, and each subsequent chapter reinforces what was previously learned. The only complaint I have about this book is that you have to read it cover to cover to get the most out of it, so it isn't a very good quick reference, but I would still highly recommend it for anyone wanting to learn SQL Reporting Services.

Very well done. Lots of good hands on exercises that all work, well, except for one that deals with web service I had a problem with. Lots of good tips on both creating and managing reports.

Brian manages to give the reader everything one would need to know to start creating their own reports in a very readable, approachable book.

Brian starts by introducing his case study and walking the reader through the install of the database. What I like about the database is it's sized well (not oppressively large, but large enough to allow you to create realistic reports). He then spends a chapter on SQL basics. Most people first getting into Reporting Services haven't done a lot of SQL, so it's nice to have the chapter there.

He then moves on to the wizard. He shows off both the table as well as the matrix, and how you can modify the reports that the wizard creates.

Several chapters are spent on creating reports from scratch, highlighting all of the major tools in SSRS - charts, tables, etc. Every example is succinct, but realistic enough. Each exercise is step-by-step with an explanation at the end as to what it is you just did.

I do have a couple of small complaints here. I could not find the SQL queries anywhere on the site or in the download. Maybe I missed them, but it would have been nice to have the SQL ready to go. The book, while fantastic for first learning SSRS, doesn't lend itself well to being a reference guide. There are several options that show up that Brian doesn't stop to explain fully.

From there, he moves into managing your report server using the Report Manager. He was mostly step-by-step here, but I did think the section on Security could have been a tad clearer.

He finishes up in the Appendix with the Report Builder, easily one of the biggest features in SSRS 2005.

All-in-all this is a fantastic book if you are looking to get into SSRS for the first time. Don't let the size of the book fool you; since the majority of it is steyp-by-step instructions, it reads much faster than its size would indicate. You will need to be in front of a computer in order to read the book, which works well for me since I need to do it to grok it.

My only small complaint about the book is that it doesn't lend itself well to being a reference guide later. It's not enough of a beef, though, to knock a star off the review.

we have over a dozen SQL SERVER 2005 suite books in our office. The thing that makes this better then all the others, is that while some people like reading these books, and others like books as references only - this book seems to satisfy both groups of developers at my office.
The most used SSRS book at the office by a mile.

The great reviews of this book here are well-deserved. So far I've read only the actual report design chapters, which is the meat of the book, but I have no doubt the other chapters are as good. This is one of those books where you learn by doing. If you don't like books where you have to follow exercises by wrote, don't get this. Even for those who learn well in this way may get a little tired toward the end, but the reward is a good familiarity with many of the features of SSRS. The book is very understandable and I rarely had to read something twice to know what he was talking about. While I have experience as a web application developer and designing basic relational databases, I'd yet to use any reporting tool like this and Larson made it a very easy transition.

This is a really good book , has excellent info , easy to understand , although I would have preferred direct description to topics, not learn by doing approach the author selected as I'm coming from other reporting tools and would have understand more complex description but it still an excellent book as first start to reporting services, Highly recommended!

This book has been very valuable in helping me understand SQL Server Reporting Services 2005.

I thought this book was pretty good for those that are beginning with Reporting Services and was feeling pretty confident that I'd be ready to go with most any report. Unfortunately I found quickly that the book could use some more complex reporting examples and I found myself searching the internet for examples just to meet the needs of the business I work for.

Overall I would recommend this book. Perhaps Brian Larson could write an advanced version of this book. I'd definately buy it.

I feel I went from 0 to advanced in 2 weeks because I had never used reporting services in SQL Server 2000 or 2005 and two weeks later had designed an advanced report. I did need to open a service call with Microsoft because my report was more complex than the examples in this book. The tech was really impressed with how much I had learned during 2 weeks and wanted the name of the book. I had a report with a top, middle and bottom section with a subreport in the middle. The page would break after the subreport. Tried all kinds of things. Put 3 subreports in 1 table on a main report within a list and that worked. I needed one page for each person with their details on that page. The combination of this book and that tip and I wrapped up my advanced report. I'm very pleased with results coming from someone with no experience with this reporting tool needing to get up to speed fast. My only negative is I was initially confused in that he doesn't mention you should go to the site and download the zip file in any of the earlier chapters. I had to wonder when he jumped right into using data without a download it step. Usually books have instructions about the files at the front or back and he mentions it a few hundred pages in when you would have already been using them for quite a while. A little wierd but not a big deal since you can get everything you need from the site.

Recently I decided to upgrade my shop to SQL Server 2005 from 2000. Being an MCDBA, MCAD and MCSA I was pretty comfortable around SQL Server, Visual Studio and Windows Server but...I had NEVER used either the Analysis or Reporting services - never had the need...I thought.

After reading both of Brian's books I realize just how bad I missed the boat. Brian's book does a fantastic job of both selling the service as a valuable asset and getting you well on your way to actively rolling it out. I found the book easy to read and being a big "hands on learner" really appreciated the exercises. My only grip about the book is the lack of a materials CD, I was a little irritated that I had to go and download stuff to complete the exercises.

For anyone new to Reporting Service, this book is well worth the money.

I purchased this book with no prior knowledge of Reporting Services. This book has been a tremendous help in trying to figure things out that you would not discover on your own. I highly recommend this book for the developer who needs to learn Reporting Services quickly.

Also, I would like to add that I must have missed in the book where you can get the sample database - I emailed the author and he emailed me right back with the link for the download. WOW!

Great, easy to follow. Mr. Larson is the best SQL 2005 RS/BI author in my opinion. Also, I attended some of his sessions at DevCon 2006 in Orlando. He is very knowledgable and approachable. He takes the time during and after sessions to answer all questions.

SQL Server Reporting Services is a comprehensive, server-based reporting solution which provides support to develop, manage, and deliver reports on different mediums and platforms. Brian Larson in his latest book, "SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services" has done an excellent job in making the case for SQL Server Reporting Services (SRSS) by providing comprehensive knowledge to jump start with SQL server reporting services.

As Brian Welcker, Microsoft's group program manager of SSRS observes, the author has been working with Reporting services for a long time. Since he has been a part of development effort involved with reporting services, Brian Larson has a deep understanding of reporting services infrastructure which reflects in his writing. Being an MCDBA, author of "Delivering Business Intelligence with Microsoft SQL Server 2005" and "Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services", Brian Larson has in-depth understanding of business intelligence solutions and real-world reporting scenarios.

"SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services" is hands on, no-nonsense, well organized step by step guide to SRSS. This 800 page book is divided into four parts and twelve chapters, in which author has provided wealth of information on all the pertaining topics. This book is illustrated and provides diagram and figures of every step defined during the process. The four main sections are "Putting the pieces in place", the beginning, "Report Authoring", about writing reports, "Report saving", about report publishing and management of reports and final part i.e. Appendices which has language references and some further guidelines. What I liked most about this book is its personal coordination and in-depth approach for instance not many reporting books discuss localization in detail and in a real-world scenario style in reports as you'll see it being done in Brian's book. Since it's written by one author, I found the reading to be much more consistent and harmonic across the book.

Following is the chapter summary for the reader to see that Brian has covered most of the required ground for issues one may encounter during report development.

Chapter 1: Let's Start at the Very Beginning
Chapter 2: Putting the Pieces in Place: Installing Reporting Services
Chapter 3: DB 101: Database Basics
Chapter 4: A Visit to Emerald City: The Report Wizard
Chapter 5: Removing the Train Wheels: Building Basic Reports
Chapter 6: Graphic Expression: Using Charts and Images in Reports
Chapter 7: Kicking It Up a Notch: Intermediate Reporting
Chapter 8: Beyond Wow: Advanced Reporting
Chapter 9: A Leading Exporter: Exporting Reports to Other Rendering Formats
Chapter 10: How Did We Ever Manage Without You? The Report Manager
Chapter 11: Delivering the Goods: Report Delivery
Chapter 12: Extending Outside the Box: Customizing Reporting Services
Appendix a: report item reference
Appendix b: web service interface reference
Appendix c: report definition language reference
Appendix d: ad hoc reporting

This book is an upgrade from previous reporting services book and is equally valuable for both the beginners and intermediate reporting services users.

this looks like a good book, have the read the first 4 chapters and I have some decent knowledge about reporting services already. will add more to my review once I finish reading it.

How many times have you read a book that explains a technology, only to find out that you can't really be productive with it until you learn the tool that delivers it? Without a doubt, knowing how a technology works is important. But, these days, so is being productive right out of the box. This book gives the reader the best of both worlds.

Part I of the book provides an overview of the report authoring and report serving architectures. It explains the report structure and the differences between the two reporting tools, Report Builder (for ad-hoc reporting and covered as an appendix) and Report Designer (the report development tool and the main focus of this book). This is followed with how to install and configure reporting services. In general, Part I provides a high level overview of Reporting Services.

For me though, the main value of the book is in Parts II & III, Report Authoring and Report Serving. This is where you really learn how to use Reporting Services. It's hands-on and teaches how to create reports for a fictitious company called Galactic Delivery Services (GDS). Despite the interplanetary coverage of GDS, the reports are based on real world scenarios that highlight the features of RS. Each report is prefaced with a "Features Highlighted" section that clearly identifies what the reader will learn. This is followed by the detailed steps necessary to create the report, usually broken down into a series of tasks. At the end of each task, there are associated "Task Notes" that explain the steps in detail. The beauty of this format is that it provides the context right where you need it.

Part III, Report Serving shows how to use the Report Manager to deploy and manage reports. It covers, using the reports you created from Part II, Report Caching, Execution Snapshots, and Report History.

For me, in order to learn something well, the hands-on approach works best. I've found that after working through all the examples, the best reference is now the reports that I've created. And if there is something that I need that wasn't covered in one of the reports, then I usually have learned enough to get at the solution myself.

Many reviewers of this book have given it high marks because it is a terrific tutorial and that introduces most of the crucial techniques for writing great reports. I would agree as I have reporting experience with MS-Access and Crystal and this book helped me get up to speed quickly. If you like learning in a step-by-step fashion right out of a book - this is the book!

The bad reviews came from people that were looking for more of a reference type book. While this book is not a bad reference it does fall short as a reference book. For example, one reviewer brought up that the ability to shade alternating detail rows of a report does not appear to be easy to find in this book. I would agree with that. I was unable to go into the index and find a quick solution in this book.

If you want a better reference book try the WROX book, Professional SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services. That book is not as good as this book from a step-by-step standpoint but it is a better reference when you need a quick solutions. For example, page 272 has code on how to shade alternating rows - they call it Greenbar Reports. It was not easy to find in this book either. How many people would look up "Greenbar Reports" in the reference? I was looking into "shading alternative rows". I just happened to stumble upon it.

I bought both books together. Of course there is lots of overlap but between the two that is all you will need to become a pro at Reporting Services.

Reporting Services could use a COOKBOOK-style text like they have for Access and other programming languages. Those types of books have served me well over the years. Until then this book and the WROX book should do the trick!

Some reviewers are complaining that this is not a reference and that the style of this book is almost entirely to step you through one report project after another, building various kinds of reports step by step. Well this is indeed no reference, but a learning book instead! This book is perfectly learning you how to use Reporting Services. I worked through the whole book and I only had to deal with an error in chapter 8 (report TransportMonitor) and a small print error in the examples (wrong year value) which intuitively could be solved easily (often may errors in other learning guides!).

Great work and very clear explanations.

The major disadvantage: nothing about Report Data Models and the Report Builder (only something about it in Appendix D)

Some reviewers are complaining that this is not a reference and that the style of this book is almost entirely to step you through one report project after another, building various kinds of reports step by step. Well this is indeed no reference, but a learning book instead! This book is perfectly learning you how to use Reporting Services. I worked through the whole book and I only had to deal with a small print error in the examples (wrong year value) which intuitively could be solved easily (often may errors in other learning guides!).

Great work and very clear explanations.

Some reviewers are complaining that this is not a reference and that the style of this book is almost entirely to step you through one report project after another, building various kinds of reports step by step. Well this is indeed no reference, but a learning book instead! This book is perfectly learning you how to use Reporting Services. I worked through the whole book and I even did not had to deal with any errors in the examples (as often occurs in other learning guides). Great work and very clear explanations.

Good info. Authors writing style is very good. Packed with lots of goodies. Recommend for both newbies and advanced readers.

I have nearly 15 years of report writing experience using Crystal, Oracle, Access and other less common report writing tools. I need to be able to hit the index, grab a topic and run with it. For example, shading alternate rows is a fundamental report tool. However, trying to find out how to do that in 60 seconds or less was impossible with this book. Further, I found that the order in which topics was presented was a bit "interesting", considering that publishing reports was one of the first topics covered. This may be a great book, but it just didn't fit my needs.

With the release of SQL Server 2005, many developers and business managers are clamoring to use the new features of SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services, but are unsure how to get started. This book takes the reader step-by-step through installing Reporting Services, to configuration, to generating a report, to finally customizing Reporting Services to meet a business need. This book is a good introduction to understanding what Reporting Services is all about.

This book is well organized and divided into three sections: getting Reporting Services set up, generating a report with Reporting Services, and serving up the reports you create.

The first section takes the reader through a step-by-step process of configuring Reporting Services. Additionally, the author identifies some common errors that might occur during set up and how those issues can be resolved.

The second section is (in my opinion) the most interesting of the three sections. In this section, the author illustrates how to create reports. Examples are provided which show how to generate all kinds of reports, in addition to jazzing up the end result with graphics and colors.

The final section details many of the administrative options that you should be aware of when deploying Reporting Services. In addition to some of the administrative details, the author shows how to customize reports with a style sheet and how to get the new report to integrate with a SharePoint site.

This is a very interesting book, and I would recommend it to individuals who work with SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services. There is a lot that you can do with Reporting Services, and this book goes a long way to identifying and illustrating those things.

Be aware that the style of this book is almost entirely to step you through one report project after another, building various kinds of reports step by step. As such it is not useful as a technical reference whereby you can look up a topic in the index and go straight to a "how to" section relating to that topic.

If you wish to learn by completing multiple projects step by step it is fine.

I prefer a technical reference style publication.

Virtually all the information that a company has is maintained in databases. This includes information from vatious department such as personnel, sales, manufacturing, all of which needs to be pulled together into intelligible reports if they are to be of any use to management.

This book is written as a complete guide to the setting up of a reporting structure. It eases the boredom some when you realize that the company used as an example is Galactic Delivery Services, an interplanetary package delivery service complete with anti-matter transports and robot employees. Computer software is dull enough, a bit of humor makes the medicine go down.

The book is what you would expect. It is a complete guide to using Reporting Services from irs installation to tieing the database to the web, security aspects, and everything else there is to know about the product. The author was involved with the writing of part of the package, and this is his second book on the subject.

This book is an excellent resource for learning Reporting Services from the ground up. It breaks down some very complex aspects of the program into manageable and easy to learn modules. It is filled with examples that make sense and make the learning process more enjoyable. I would highly recommend it to anyone wishing to learn this new technology.

I am an intructor and I used this book for a class. It is great for learning from in a structured environment.

This book delivers a solid understanding of Reporting Services derived from working through genuinely useful, real world examples preceded by clear technical overviews.

I am a BI consultant always learning new software technologies and as part of this work, read many instructional s/w books. From this standpoint I can state that this book shows great attention to detail (all of the examples actually work). It also incorporates a very useful feature "Task Notes" that further explains the implicit assumptions and underlying factors following each example. This shows that a great deal of care was taken to ensure that the reader is always on the same page as the writer.

This book is rare in its clarity, technical editing and delivery of concrete skills in return for the effort spent with it. Just keep off my turf when you acquire your skills! (;^ )

This is the only Reporting book needed. I started working with three reporting books, two sucked, this one was excellent. Very complete and easy to follow.