Migrating from Crystal to SSRS questions

Hi all,
Our company is considering converting all our reports from Crystal to SSRS.
We have done a fair bit of research. I have a number of questions that I
can't find answers to. If anyone with experience using the software could
help me out with some answers, I'd be most grateful.
1. Can you save data with a report? or do you have to connect to data every
time you run a report?
2. I've heard when scrolling a matrix report that the row heading overlaps
values when scrolling and looks very messy. Is this true and is there a way
to stop it happening as a lot of our reports are Matrix based?
3. Is there an equivalent to Crystal's Group Explorer, for just viewing a
certain group?
4. With regards date formatting we have heard it defaults to US date. Is it
possible to permanently overide this or do you have to do it manually for
each report?
Many thanks
JHJH,
I'm having some difficulty getting this feature to work accross the
entire row header. But, what I've found out so far is RS2005 does
offer the feature, but it's not very intuitive to use. The only way
I've found it to work (somewhat) is
1. Add a group to your Matrix/Table.
2. Edit the group by right-clicking the group text-box.
3. Check the box at the bottom of the General tab for "Group header
should remain visible while scrolling".
I haven't figured out yet how to select the entire row (which in my
case contains about 15 measures) and set the row to freeze like in
excel. I even tried to add subsequent groups as separate
measures...can't figure that one out either.
Corey
JH wrote:
> Hi all,
> Our company is considering converting all our reports from Crystal to SSRS.
> We have done a fair bit of research. I have a number of questions that I
> can't find answers to. If anyone with experience using the software could
> help me out with some answers, I'd be most grateful.
> 1. Can you save data with a report? or do you have to connect to data every
> time you run a report?
> 2. I've heard when scrolling a matrix report that the row heading overlaps
> values when scrolling and looks very messy. Is this true and is there a way
> to stop it happening as a lot of our reports are Matrix based?
> 3. Is there an equivalent to Crystal's Group Explorer, for just viewing a
> certain group?
> 4. With regards date formatting we have heard it defaults to US date. Is it
> possible to permanently overide this or do you have to do it manually for
> each report?
> Many thanks
> JH

Migrating all reports to a new server

I'm Managing Reporting Services in a mid-size company, and we are just
beginning to develop reports for different departments...We just set
up a new server and redeployed all of our reports (there were just a
few so far)...
My question is..What happens when we have hundreds of reports and need
to migrate our entire reporting services system to a new server?
Subsequently, In a worst-case situation, how would we recover reports?
I appreciate your help!
-ScottStill looking for a response...This is an important need. Thanks in
advance!

Migrate existing standalone to cluster

While away on vacation my company had some software installed that required a
new instance of SQL Server 2K to be created on our existing active/passive
cluster.
Because the techs doing the install did not know the password for our domain
cluster user account they created the standalone instance on the db server.
What I need to know is how do I go about migrating it to a clustered instance
instead of a standalone so as to take advantage of the failover capabilities?
i.e. I already have a clustered server with one clustered instance. They
installed a standalone instance alongside and now I need to migrate the new
instance to another named clustered instance.
Is it possible to go with the existing clustered instance and simply move
the DB's to the cluster? What's driving the need for two instances?
Tom
Thomas A. Moreau, BSc, PhD, MCSE, MCDBA
SQL Server MVP
Columnist, SQL Server Professional
Toronto, ON Canada
www.pinpub.com
..
"Cary" <Cary@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:F9743B37-FC4D-4909-A4CA-608078BB5A3E@.microsoft.com...
While away on vacation my company had some software installed that required
a
new instance of SQL Server 2K to be created on our existing active/passive
cluster.
Because the techs doing the install did not know the password for our domain
cluster user account they created the standalone instance on the db server.
What I need to know is how do I go about migrating it to a clustered
instance
instead of a standalone so as to take advantage of the failover
capabilities?
i.e. I already have a clustered server with one clustered instance. They
installed a standalone instance alongside and now I need to migrate the new
instance to another named clustered instance.
|||Oh you'll love this...
The software we purchased for our new document management system *cough*
Documentum *cough*, is designed so as to require a case-sensitive database.
I know...D-U-M Dum...And because all of our other databases are NOT
case-sensitive (and there's no way in h*ll I would change that) we had to
create a new instance that was.
"Tom Moreau" wrote:

> Is it possible to go with the existing clustered instance and simply move
> the DB's to the cluster? What's driving the need for two instances?
> --
> Tom
> ----
> Thomas A. Moreau, BSc, PhD, MCSE, MCDBA
> SQL Server MVP
> Columnist, SQL Server Professional
> Toronto, ON Canada
> www.pinpub.com
> ..
> "Cary" <Cary@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:F9743B37-FC4D-4909-A4CA-608078BB5A3E@.microsoft.com...
> While away on vacation my company had some software installed that required
> a
> new instance of SQL Server 2K to be created on our existing active/passive
> cluster.
> Because the techs doing the install did not know the password for our domain
> cluster user account they created the standalone instance on the db server.
> What I need to know is how do I go about migrating it to a clustered
> instance
> instead of a standalone so as to take advantage of the failover
> capabilities?
> i.e. I already have a clustered server with one clustered instance. They
> installed a standalone instance alongside and now I need to migrate the new
> instance to another named clustered instance.
>
|||That's not justification enough. You can create a case-sensitive database
within an instance that is not case sensitive.
Tom
Thomas A. Moreau, BSc, PhD, MCSE, MCDBA
SQL Server MVP
Columnist, SQL Server Professional
Toronto, ON Canada
www.pinpub.com
..
"Cary" <Cary@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:A8F1525E-3D96-4842-AFBD-87160EC34CB8@.microsoft.com...
Oh you'll love this...
The software we purchased for our new document management system *cough*
Documentum *cough*, is designed so as to require a case-sensitive database.
I know...D-U-M Dum...And because all of our other databases are NOT
case-sensitive (and there's no way in h*ll I would change that) we had to
create a new instance that was.
"Tom Moreau" wrote:

> Is it possible to go with the existing clustered instance and simply move
> the DB's to the cluster? What's driving the need for two instances?
> --
> Tom
> ----
> Thomas A. Moreau, BSc, PhD, MCSE, MCDBA
> SQL Server MVP
> Columnist, SQL Server Professional
> Toronto, ON Canada
> www.pinpub.com
> ..
> "Cary" <Cary@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:F9743B37-FC4D-4909-A4CA-608078BB5A3E@.microsoft.com...
> While away on vacation my company had some software installed that
> required
> a
> new instance of SQL Server 2K to be created on our existing active/passive
> cluster.
> Because the techs doing the install did not know the password for our
> domain
> cluster user account they created the standalone instance on the db
> server.
> What I need to know is how do I go about migrating it to a clustered
> instance
> instead of a standalone so as to take advantage of the failover
> capabilities?
> i.e. I already have a clustered server with one clustered instance. They
> installed a standalone instance alongside and now I need to migrate the
> new
> instance to another named clustered instance.
>
|||Not that it will matter much anyway, since it is already installed, but how
do you go about making a case-sensitive db inside of an insensitive instance?
And I still need to know how to change the standalone to a clustered...
"Tom Moreau" wrote:

> That's not justification enough. You can create a case-sensitive database
> within an instance that is not case sensitive.
> --
> Tom
> ----
> Thomas A. Moreau, BSc, PhD, MCSE, MCDBA
> SQL Server MVP
> Columnist, SQL Server Professional
> Toronto, ON Canada
> www.pinpub.com
> ..
> "Cary" <Cary@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:A8F1525E-3D96-4842-AFBD-87160EC34CB8@.microsoft.com...
> Oh you'll love this...
> The software we purchased for our new document management system *cough*
> Documentum *cough*, is designed so as to require a case-sensitive database.
> I know...D-U-M Dum...And because all of our other databases are NOT
> case-sensitive (and there's no way in h*ll I would change that) we had to
> create a new instance that was.
> "Tom Moreau" wrote:
>
>
|||To create a database with a case-sensitive collation, just use the COLLATE
option:
create database MyDB
collate Latin1_General_CS_AI
As for the other bit, you'll have to create the new virtual server (and
named instance) in the same manner as you created the other virtual server
and instance. However, you can specify the collation for the new instance
at that time. Once that's done, then backup and restore the DB's from the
standalone to the new instance. Finally, remove the standalone.
Tom
Thomas A. Moreau, BSc, PhD, MCSE, MCDBA
SQL Server MVP
Columnist, SQL Server Professional
Toronto, ON Canada
www.pinpub.com
..
"Cary" <Cary@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:FBFC5A77-4A41-4B6E-B076-370E9111321B@.microsoft.com...
Not that it will matter much anyway, since it is already installed, but how
do you go about making a case-sensitive db inside of an insensitive
instance?
And I still need to know how to change the standalone to a clustered...
"Tom Moreau" wrote:

> That's not justification enough. You can create a case-sensitive database
> within an instance that is not case sensitive.
> --
> Tom
> ----
> Thomas A. Moreau, BSc, PhD, MCSE, MCDBA
> SQL Server MVP
> Columnist, SQL Server Professional
> Toronto, ON Canada
> www.pinpub.com
> ..
> "Cary" <Cary@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:A8F1525E-3D96-4842-AFBD-87160EC34CB8@.microsoft.com...
> Oh you'll love this...
> The software we purchased for our new document management system *cough*
> Documentum *cough*, is designed so as to require a case-sensitive
> database.
> I know...D-U-M Dum...And because all of our other databases are NOT
> case-sensitive (and there's no way in h*ll I would change that) we had to
> create a new instance that was.
> "Tom Moreau" wrote:
>
>
|||Creating a database in an instance with a collation that is differnt than
the default server collation, as Tom suggested, is certainly one approach
you can explore. If everything is under your control, you can make this
work. A vendor package like Ducumentum, however, may crap out becasue of the
likely collation conflict with the tempdb database. So test it out!
Linchi
"Cary" <Cary@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:FBFC5A77-4A41-4B6E-B076-370E9111321B@.microsoft.com...[vbcol=seagreen]
> Not that it will matter much anyway, since it is already installed, but
> how
> do you go about making a case-sensitive db inside of an insensitive
> instance?
> And I still need to know how to change the standalone to a clustered...
>
> "Tom Moreau" wrote:
|||Question regarding what Linchi wrote about the temp DB being an issue. We
are currently in the same situation with a mulitnode cluster that will house
a peoplesoft instance (different collation than the other instances) but have
concerns on how failover will happen with this different collation instance
vs the collation instances that are indentical. Will failover happen just as
if all the collations were the same or do we have to take special precautions?
"Linchi Shea" wrote:

> Creating a database in an instance with a collation that is differnt than
> the default server collation, as Tom suggested, is certainly one approach
> you can explore. If everything is under your control, you can make this
> work. A vendor package like Ducumentum, however, may crap out becasue of the
> likely collation conflict with the tempdb database. So test it out!
> Linchi
> "Cary" <Cary@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:FBFC5A77-4A41-4B6E-B076-370E9111321B@.microsoft.com...
>
>
|||Multiple collations are no different on a cluster than on a stand-alone box.
Failover will work exactly the same regardless of the system or anyuser
database collation. Collations have been separated from the system code
page since SQL 7.0
Geoff N. Hiten
Senior Database Administrator
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
"Todd" <Todd@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:32F54FD8-2882-4125-8202-D6CE442C83E5@.microsoft.com...[vbcol=seagreen]
> Question regarding what Linchi wrote about the temp DB being an issue. We
> are currently in the same situation with a mulitnode cluster that will
> house
> a peoplesoft instance (different collation than the other instances) but
> have
> concerns on how failover will happen with this different collation
> instance
> vs the collation instances that are indentical. Will failover happen just
> as
> if all the collations were the same or do we have to take special
> precautions?
> "Linchi Shea" wrote: