Axapta 3.0 and SharePoint Portal Server (SPS) 2003 join the growing list of Microsoft products for which the company has produced report packs, sets of sample reports based on SQL Server Reporting Services. Each report pack contains several report definitions and a sample database that developers can use as a starting point for building a managed reporting infrastructure with Reporting Services. By creating free report packs for a range of its products, Microsoft hopes to pique customers' interest in Reporting Services, which could provide an impetus for incremental SQL Server sales.

Kick-Start Reporting Infrastructure

Reporting Services is a component of SQL Server that provides development and management tools for creating and distributing reports from a variety of data sources, such as a data warehouse, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) application, or a datacenter monitoring tool. Reporting Services report packs contain a sample database for a specific application—for example, the Axapta report pack contains a database containing inventory and order information for a fictitious company. Accompanying the sample database are several report definitions, sets of instructions that Reporting Services uses to generate reports from the sample database.

The Axapta 3.0 report pack contains a total of eight report definitions. Among them, an "Open Production Orders" report shows the status of current production orders, and a "Rolling Invoice" report presents a year-over-year comparison of invoice amounts.

The SPS 2003 report pack also contains eight reports. For example, a "Detailed Page Report" provides information about which users have accessed a particular SPS page, and how often. Both report packs were made available in July 2005.

To use the report packs in production, developers will typically modify the report definitions to meet the needs of business users and integrate these definitions with their own production databases. Since developers are not starting from scratch, the report packs could kick-start development projects and reduce the time it takes to construct a reporting infrastructure on top of Reporting Services.

Resources

The Axapta 3.0 and SPS 2003 report packs expand the list of products for which Microsoft has provided report packs, joining Great Plains 8.0, Internet Information Services (IIS), Exchange, and Microsoft CRM.

The report pack for Axapta 3.0 can be downloaded at www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=81592B13-7960-4EF3-9D3C-B10FD325390F&displaylang=en.

The report pack for SPS 2003 is available at www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=81592B13-7960-4EF3-9D3C-B10FD325390F&displaylang=en.

Report packs for Great Plains and IIS are described in the sidebar "New Report Packs on the Way" on page 14 of the Apr. 2005 Update.

Reporting Services was outlined in "SQL Reporting Services Launches" on page 3 of the Mar. 2004 Update.

New Reporting Services features in SQL Server 2005 are discussed in "Reporting Services Updated for SQL Server 2005" on page 15 of the July 2005 Update.