Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Recipies For Designing Expert Reports, by Paul Turley and Robert M. Bruckner

This is the fourth book I have read on SQL relating to my job duties [1], and this is the most practical, but most difficult, among them. In saying that this book seeks to provide recipes for designing expert reports, the authors assume that readers are expert in a wide variety of programming, not only with Microsoft SSRS, but also familiarity with MDX, Visual Basic, SQL Server, T-SQL, and more. As someone whose expertise in many of these areas is limited, this made the book particularly difficult to read, even though the screenshots, supporting texts and graphics, and query recipes were immensely worthwhile even for a reader on such a basic level as mine. Suffice it to say that while the ideal reader of this book is someone far more skilled with SQL in its various forms, this book has a lot to offer anyone who works in building reports who has an eye for creating worthwhile report designs.

In some ways, this book shares a certain kinship with books about data representation written from the perspective of others, like Tufte. In fact, many of the recipes this book has for data representation, including its commentaries on best practices and its demonstration on how to handle drill down, linear regressions, histograms, bullet graphs, and so on, mirror the concerns of Tufte concerning the information value of data representations, giving Tufte’s theoretical discussion practical heft. And this book is all about heft, coming in at around 600 pages of very technical material, all of it focused on building better reports, and providing the steps and workarounds and code in order to do it effectively, so long as one understands what one is doing and can apply it to different circumstances where appropriate. At times the book gives multiple solutions for the same problem, allowing the reader to determine which solution would be best in which circumstances. To be sure, this approach requires a lot of trust in the competence of the reader in order to apply the solutions correctly, but for those who are able to understand what the book is saying and have a practical interest in various report elements, this book has a lot to offer.

In terms of its contents, the book begins with three chapters focusing on fundamental aspects of report design, discussing the paradigms of business reporting, basic report design concepts, and essentials on different types of report visualizations. After this the book then is divided into nine parts, each dealing with a particular type of report recipe, including: grouped reports and those organized by columns, business intelligence dashboards (including the highly worthwhile Australian Sparklines, something worth imitating), chart and gauge reports, interactive reporting (showing drill through and dynamic pivoting), reporting applications that are integrated with the internet and with raw data, enhanced report content beyond the usual limitations of SSRS, recipes helping with filtering and parameterization, custom and dynamic data sources, and even a couple of intriguing games. To be sure, this book was technical for me, and will likely be too technical for many people. That said, if someone is a report designer of some technical expertise who has an interest in doing design better, there is much that can be gained from this book even where one would not want to read it cover to cover. A book like this is designed to be gleaned for how it can benefit others where they are, and merits study and reflection, and encourages technical improvement as well.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/04/21/book-review-sql-in-easy-steps/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/04/23/book-review-transact-sql-cookbook/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/05/28/book-review-professional-microsoft-sql-server-2008-reporting-services/