Line Chart for Analysis Services Data

This article focuses upon Line charts, and extends the examination of Reporting Services charts for Analysis Services data sources that we began in an earlier article of my MSSQL Server Reporting Services series, Introducing Reporting Services Charts for Analysis Services. In that article we summarized the many different chart (or chart data region) types that are available, and looked ahead to individual articles surrounding each type, where we would specify details – and real world innovations – involving the use of each in reporting Analysis Services data. We noted that the focus of these related articles, perhaps interspersed among other topics within my MSSQL Server Reporting Services series over time, would be the design and creation of Analysis Services chart reports of various types, and the exploitation of the rich and flexible features contained in Reporting Services that enable us to make report data more meaningful, and easier to understand, from the perspective of our information consumer audiences.

In many cases, which I try to outline in my articles at appropriate junctures, the functionality of well-established, but expensive, solutions, such as Cognos (PowerPlay, Impromptu, and other applications), Business Objects, and myriad other reporting / OLAP applications can be met in most respects by Reporting Services – at a tiny fraction of the total cost of ownership. Moreover, the flexibility and richness of the chart data regions alone in Reporting Services exceed, in many ways, the rather fixed options available in other enterprise reporting solutions.