General SQL Server Advice/Clarification

[sschrupp]

Hopefully this is the correct forum for this question.

I've recently been designated to be the developer for a large project that will eventually involve some data analysis and reporting. We started out using Access as that is the only tool currently available to us and we quickly learned that there's no way Access is up to the task.

One month of data required 6 separate databases due to the 2 GB limit. And our intention is to have two years worth of data. Yeah, not going to happen with Access.

So after lots of politics we finally convinced some higher ups in the corporation that we need a new tool and have been allowed to use SQL Server. So now I'm just playing around with SQL Server 2008 Express until the gods that be finally give me a real version and then I can really jump into it.

So there's our backbone. We also need to be able to make reports on all this data, and we need to be able to make an easy-ish GUI so the users have a couple "that was easy" buttons.

After looking around a little bit I THINK we'll be going with SSRS rather than Crystal Reports. From what I can gather that will provide us with all the reporting needs we might have.

That just leaves creating some sort of interface. This is where I'm very fuzzy at the moment. I'm obviously used to Access forms and using a bunch of VBA to get the job done.

Does that mean that I should be looking at Visual Studio Visual Basic? Will that be the product that will allow me to tie SQL Server and SSRS reports into some sort of interface?

Thanks in advance!

 

[SgtJarrow]

This really depends on your requirements.

Once you dive in a bit deeper you will discover that SQL Server Reporting Services reports can be accessed via a web page...

http://servername/reports

Your users can navigate to this address and find all the reports there in which you have given them access. You can even break this up into logical folders to help group your reports. If the report has no parameters, the users simply have to click a link and viola...there is the report. If there are parameters, the top of the report page has fields asking for them, then the users hit a button on the page and get the report. The company I currently work for - a large banking institution - has opted for this usage.

You can go much deeper than this...In a previous employment (a small distribution company), I used Visual Studio to create a much more visually appealing version of this setup. It really did nothing more than the web pages did, but had the look and feel that were standard at that company. Of course, you would need to be familiar with developing in the .Net framework and if your only experience is in VBA, this may seem a bit daunting to start.

You could start with the basic SSRS reports pages, which will lead to fast deployment and meet the requirements of presenting the data, and then move to a web or windows-based application later that creates a better look and feel if you need it.

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Robert L. Johnson III
CCNA, CCDA, MCSA, CNA, Net+, A+, CHDP
VB.NET Programmer