Book Review – Professional SharePoint 2007 Reporting

ProSPSSRS2008001_smallI returned from SharePoint Conference to find my copy of Professional SharePoint 2007 Reporting with SQL Server Reporting 2008 Reporting Services waiting for me. I happened to get in involoved in some technical editing towards the end of this book. If you are a SharePoint person who knows the basics of Reporting Services and want to learn more about the integration of SharePoint and SSRS then pick up a copy. If you are a SharePoint person who needs to learn SSRS then you Must pick up a copy of this book.

I “officially” met Reza, one of the three authors, in Montreal where he was speaking on SharePoint and Reporting Services integration. I can easily say the Reza knows his SSRS, inside and out. I also know Coskun and Jacob but have not seen them speak. Every time I spoke at same venue as Coskun we spoke during the same time slot.

This book covers topics including:

– Install of SSRS 2008 in integrated mode
– Basic report design
– Business Intelligence Developer Studio
– Creating reports of various complexities such as linked reports
– Deployment of reports
– Management of reports

For myself I found the Deploying Reports to SharePoint, Advanced Deployment Techniques and Managing Reports chapter to be most valuable. Advanced Deployment Techniques includes a great PowerShell script to allow you to easily publish your report. The Managing Reports sections covers topics including unattended report processing, on-demand report execution and subscriptions.

This is one of the few, if not the only, book dedicated to the topic of SQL Server Reporting Services and SharePoint. Many other books contain a single chapter on SSRS and SharePoint . If you are working with SSRS in SharePoint or contemplating integrating SSRS with SharePoint then this book should be on your shelf.