SSRS Interactive Sorting with Multi-Column Grouping

By Tom Nonmacher

Welcome to the world of SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), a powerful and versatile tool of SQL Server 2022. Today we are going to delve into the topic of SSRS Interactive Sorting with Multi-Column Grouping. This feature allows users to modify the report layout at runtime, enabling them to explore data in their own way. Let's start with a simple report, and then we will implement interactive sorting on it.

Suppose you have a report that displays sales data grouped by product category and subcategory. The report structure could look something like this: Product Category > Product Subcategory > Product > Sales Amount. To implement interactive sorting on the 'Sales Amount' column, you need to set the 'Interactive Sort' properties of the text box in the column header.

-- Create a new Report
-- Set DataSource to "SalesDB" on Azure SQL
-- Set DataSet to "ProductSales"
-- Add Group "ProductCategory" and "ProductSubcategory"
-- Add Value "Product" and "SalesAmount"
-- Select "SalesAmount" TextBox in the column header
-- Go to TextBox Properties > Interactive Sorting
-- Set Sort expression to "Fields!SalesAmount.Value"
-- Set Sort scope to "Product"

Now, when you run the report, you will notice a small interactive sort button on the 'Sales Amount' column header. When you click on this button, it will sort the 'Sales Amount' within each 'Product' group. If you have nested groups, you can set the sort scope to the outer group to sort the data across all child groups.

SSRS is not limited to SQL Server data sources, you can also use it with other technologies like Azure SQL, Microsoft Fabric, and Databricks. For instance, you can use Databricks to process large amounts of data with Delta Lake, and then use SSRS to create reports on the processed data. Here is an example of how you can create a Databricks notebook that reads data from Delta Lake and writes the result to an Azure SQL database which can be used as a data source in SSRS.

-- Create a new Databricks notebook
-- Install Delta Lake
-- Read data from Delta Lake
-- Process data
-- Write result to Azure SQL using JDBC connector
-- Set Azure SQL database as DataSource in SSRS
-- Create a new Report using the processed data

SSRS is also compatible with OpenAI's GPT-3, which can be used to generate dynamic SQL queries. For instance, you can use GPT-3 to generate a SQL query based on a natural language question, and then use the query to fetch data from the database and display it in the report. This opens up a whole new world of possibilities for creating dynamic and interactive reports.

As we can see, SSRS Interactive Sorting with Multi-Column Grouping is a powerful feature that can be used to create more interactive and user-friendly reports. With the integration of Azure SQL, Microsoft Fabric, Delta Lake, OpenAI, and Databricks, the possibilities are endless. We hope this guide has been helpful in understanding how to implement SSRS Interactive Sorting with Multi-Column Grouping. Happy reporting!

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