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How to update a report object on multiple reports

  • May 5, 2016 at 7:57 am

    #307355

    Hi,

    I just had an interview, in which I was asked to update say the heading on say 30 reports at once; with put going into each of them. And naturally, each would be different from what they are now. I thought that I could make a table in SQL server with object name and a procedure that would look at what they are not and change them, but I would not know how to apply thing at once. and maybe I am thinking of this all wrong.

    So any ideas would be really appreciated, because so far I cannot find this on line.

    Thank you

  • May 5, 2016 at 8:23 am

    #1876860

    There are two ways to look at that question and, since I was not there I can't say for sure what they were asking.

    If they wanted to know how to change the text in a heading of several reports at once then that could be done by setting the headings to reference a dataset instead of containing literal text. The dataset would reference a stored proc that accepted a parameter. That parameter could be the built-in report name parameter. The stored proc would query a table (which contained the report name as a key) to find what the heading should display for that specific report. That value would be passed back to the report and dusplayed in the heading. If all 30 report headings needed to be changed (e.g. a new logo, company name, etc), this could be handled via an update query.

    The same concept would work for any property of a report heading text box (font, color, size, etc) all of these can be handled via an expression that references a dataset.

    The other thing they could be asking, but is less likely they were, would be how to change the logic in 30 reports at the same time. For example, they wanted to change a static setting such as (using the example above) a dataset that's being referenced by the heading. If that were the case, that is something that could be done with an XML query against the RDL of all 30 reports.

    "I cant stress enough the importance of switching from a sequential files mindset to set-based thinking. After you make the switch, you can spend your time tuning and optimizing your queries instead of maintaining lengthy, poor-performing code."

    -- Itzik Ben-Gan 2001

  • May 5, 2016 at 8:30 am

    #1876865

    Thanks that really helped. not how to get them to reference the reference dataset you mention but this makes sense.

    Thank you

  • May 5, 2016 at 8:33 am

    #1876868

    "update say the heading on say 30 reports at once; without going into each of them"

    Unless the reports are already drawing the heading from something you can change, e.g. a dataset or parameter, the only easy way I can think of is to Find and Replace in Files. But that's always a bit dicey.

    Doesn't sound like a very good question.

  • May 5, 2016 at 8:37 am

    #1876872

    Thanks for the reply

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