Can we merge two cells of two different rows while designing a report in SSRS???
Best Answer
It depends on the version of SSRS you are using. You can only merge across columns in SQL Server 2005. But with SQL Server 2008 you can merge across columns and rows.
That being said, you can place a table within a table in both versions which can provide the illusion of merged rows. Add a table to the report that and select a value to group on. Add the group on value to the first column in the grouping header. In the second column of the grouping header insert another table. Add to that table the values and details that correspond to the grouping value that you wanted to merge rows across.
I know you said 2005, but I will put in notes around 2008 as well.
SRS Pros:
- It is free (provided you have the SQL server license)
- Tight data integration with SQL Server, but it handles anything .NET can (Oracle, ODBC etc...) just fine. (2008 has native support for Terradata too)
- Components for Visual Studio, SharePoint and PerformancePoint all exist to make it easy to leverage it. It is just a web app though so integration into any web page or app that can talk to a web server is easy too.
- Built in tools to do subscriptions (i.e. emails that get sent out on a regular basis to a list of people with the report on them). The list of recipients can be static people or a sharepoint site or a dynamic list of people (pulled from a DB) (08 adds support for dynamic to sharepoint too)
- 3rd party vendors exist to enhance the product
- Export to a variety of formats (XML, CSV, Excel, PDF etc...)
- Ability to design templates which power users can use to build reports without knowing SQL (since the SQL is contained in the template). Power users use a special report builder tool which is delivered via click once.
- Works differently to Crystal reports (I don't like Crystal thats why this is a pro for me)
SRS Cons:
- Charting controls look like Excel 2003 and are limited. (2008 has the Dundas controls in by default so they are much more powerful, more varied and better looking)
- Kerberos issues due to it being a web app can cause annoying problems (2008 removes that as it is no longer an IIS web app. It runs it's own web server based off the IIS core but is closer to a stand alone app - so the security issues aren't a problem)
- Designer support is a pain. 2000 Reports must be developed in VS 2003, 2005 reports must be developed in VS 2005, 2008 reports must be developed in VS 2008. By Visual Studio I mean the normal one or the thin downed version you get with the SQL Management tools.
- Compatibility. Each version of reporting services can run only the current version and one version back of the reports.
- Security is limited to Integrated Windows or Anonymous (2008 has added support for forms based security and for custom providers, like you get with ASP.NET)
Best Answer
It depends on the version of SSRS you are using. You can only merge across columns in SQL Server 2005. But with SQL Server 2008 you can merge across columns and rows.
That being said, you can place a table within a table in both versions which can provide the illusion of merged rows. Add a table to the report that and select a value to group on. Add the group on value to the first column in the grouping header. In the second column of the grouping header insert another table. Add to that table the values and details that correspond to the grouping value that you wanted to merge rows across.