Visual Studio Reports - Parameter Passing

Hello everyone, I've recently started work on a project involving moving database reports from a less then reliable reporting suite to using MS Visual Studio reporting tools. Now this is all well and good and the actual database interaction I don't really have any issues with but I am less then familiar with the reporting tools in Visual Studio and seem to have run into a bit of a snag.

The old reports are used by various users that don't want to have to dig into a file and put the desired query parameters into the raw SQL queries which makes sense since that is the whole point. However the only way I have been able to add user input parameters to my MS SQL reports has, while technically they 'work', resulted in a drastic increase in the time it takes to perform the required action.

Basically, if I hard code a parameter into the query it takes about a second, but if I "filter" the results using the parameter it has to return basically the entire table then grab the preferred portion... which results in increasing to 40-60 seconds depending on the report and the criteria/tables joined. So basically I'm wondering if any of you know of a way to directly use the parameters in the query itself. Basically like place a variable in the query so once you input the parameters I can use something along the lines of



Unfortunately that itself seems to just crap out when ran.

Anyways, if any of you have used the VS reporting tools or know of what I'm missing (I assume its simple and I'm just over looking something basic since I haven't used these tools much) I'd be appreciative. Thanks.

 

 

 

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I'm not that familiar with reporting. But i think you need to give more detail so others can help you better. For example, which version of Visual Studio are you using, which reporting tools are you using (normally i would assume it's crystal report) and which version is it.

Also how you access your report? Is it access through another application which you or your company wrote, or a third party application? Or via other method which i'm not know of.

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Ah right. Yea I have very, veeeery little familiarity with this stuff so far, like I've seen reporting tools used but never bothered looking at them before. It's Visual Studio 2005 and I'm using whatever the default reporting package is when you create a "Report Server Project" and it will be accessed through a web interface as it'll reside on an internal server I believe.

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