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  • Sky Anytime – Killing Kontiki

    February 8th, 2008 in Blog, Uncategorized

    I think it’s about time for a good old rant. Nothing to do with Business Intelligence, but… Anyone out there who uses Sky Anytime (and I believe the BBC iPlayer) will have probably noticed that they use a nasty peer-to-peer file sharing application called Kontiki, which they install automatically without giving you any control over. My problem is that I have a good 8Mb download speed but my upload is still a rather paltry 256K (I…

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  • Extract Datasource and Query from Excel Pivot

    January 23rd, 2008 in Analysis Services, Blog, SQL Server

    Have you ever tried to reverse engineer an Excel pivot table? It’s not as easy as you would think! Whether you just want to find out the datasource details, or identify the query that was used, there is just no simple way of getting Excel to tell you. The macro below will loop through every sheet in a workbook, and will document the datasources, SQL or MDX queries as well as the page, row, column and data fields. To use it, add it into…

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  • Report Parameter Selection Memory

    January 11th, 2008 in Blog, Reporting Services, SQL Server

    This post explains a method of enhancing Reporting Services reports to make them more user friendly. I have been quizzed many times by end users who want reports to remember the parameter selections so that next time they run the report they haven’t got to re-select the same parameters. This is especially useful if there are a lot of long parameter lists, and each user tends to run the same selection frequently. This process is made…

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  • Open SSRS report in a new Window

    December 20th, 2007 in Blog, Reporting Services, SQL Server

    There isn’t yet a built-in facility within Reporting Services to open a report link (i.e. a drillthrough report) in a new browser window or tab, however it isn’t too tricky to get this to work using a bit of javascript. javascript:void(window.open(Destination,’_blank’)) My preferred method is to wrap this up into a custom code function such as Function OpenURL(ByVal URL As String) As String Return…

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  • Excel Addin for Analysis Services

    December 15th, 2007 in Analysis Services, Blog, SQL Server

    For any users of Analysis Services, if you haven’t already downloaded the Excel (2002/2003) addin you’re missing out. It’s a free download from Microsoft which significantly expands Excel’s cube querying ability. Well recommended! Get it at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=DAE82128-9F21-475D-88A4-4B6E6C069FF0&displaylang=en [Update 31 Aug 2023: Microsoft have now removed this download –…

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  • Convert MDX fields to SQL

    December 15th, 2007 in Analysis Services, Blog, Reporting Services, SQL Server

    A number of our customers have reporting systems that use both MDX and SQL, retrieving data from both OLAP and SQL Server databases. This generates the problem of converting an MDX field ([Dimension].[Hierarchy].&[Attribute]) into SQL Server field value (Attribute). The following code is a Reporting Services custom code section that will rip off the MDX and leave you with the value.     Public Function MDXParamToSQL(Parameter As String,…

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  • Chris Hays Reporting Services Sleazy Hacks

    December 15th, 2007 in Blog, Reporting Services, SQL Server

    It really wouldn’t be fair to kick off the Frog-Blog without a shout out to Chris Hays and his superb ‘Sleazy Hacks’ site. If you want to push SQL Server Reporting Services further than anyone else, then Chris will definately have something of use to you. He designed the RDL report language – the guy knows what he’s talking about. blogs.msdn.com/ChrisHays

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  • The Frog-Blog is open for business!

    December 15th, 2007 in Blog, Uncategorized

    Well, what can I say – the very first Frog-Blog post. Keep checking back often for new and (hopefully) useful info… Alex

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