Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 1-1
The largest group of reporting professionals is not the software developers or other technical experts.
They have strong computer user skills, but they don't spend their time writing code and using tools like
Visual Studio, Enterprise Manager, or SQL Server Management Studio. They are regular business users
who need to design reports to run their businesses. As a software developer, coming to this realization
was a wake-up call. As I taught Reporting Services 2000 classes for Microsoft, I often spent a large por-
tion of the classroom time just teaching students to use the Visual Studio user interface. It was new to
them and unlike any other application they were accustomed to. Report designers who have been using
other tools such as Crystal Reports, for example, will typically be a little intimidated by the Reporting
Services design tools because they may be unfamiliar and may seem to be more “raw” and developer-
centric than what they're used to using. In order to take advantage of advanced report capabilities, these
individuals must either acquire some simple programming skills or work with software developers to
add custom code and expressions to their reports.
Application and Reporting Technology
The definition of reporting is changing. Like so many components of the computer/information industry,
the lines between one thing and another have become very fuzzy. This applies to so many concepts in our
industry. For example, many traditional desktop applications now run in a web browser. Are these client
or server applications? These days it's hard to draw a line and categorize a business solution. Not long
ago, if an application opened in a web browser it was considered to be a server-side application — all of
the processing occurred on a web server. Likewise, if an application ran from an icon on your computer, it
was a client-side application, where all of the files and processing occurred on your own computer. Have
you attended an Internet hosted meeting or seminar? If so, you probably navigated to a site in your web
browser, entered a meeting number, and, magically, you were looking at PowerPoint slides and a demon-
stration running on the presenter's desktop computer. Although you may have started from a web page
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