May 20, 2010 at 9:27 am
jcrawf02 (5/20/2010)
Advice requested -trying to develop a searcheable db of our available reports for end users, including description, author, screenshots, blah blah blah.
We have a standard documentation template that is supposed to be used on all scripts, and we save them on the file system.
Wanted to parse through them and grab the documentation info for the db.
Not having tried this before, and therefore not having tainted my mind with any one tool, should I use PowerShell? Perl? Something else? (a temp... lol)
By reports are you talking about SSRS reports or other custom solutions? If it's SSRS only you could Query the ReportserverDB's catalog table and get a large part of what you'd need. You could probably make use of the webservice to access it so that you're not querying the tables directly (in case MS changes something in the next release etc.). In might be interesting enough to document and share via and article 😉
-Luke.
May 20, 2010 at 11:11 am
Luke L (5/20/2010)
jcrawf02 (5/20/2010)
Advice requested -trying to develop a searcheable db of our available reports for end users, including description, author, screenshots, blah blah blah.
We have a standard documentation template that is supposed to be used on all scripts, and we save them on the file system.
Wanted to parse through them and grab the documentation info for the db.
Not having tried this before, and therefore not having tainted my mind with any one tool, should I use PowerShell? Perl? Something else? (a temp... lol)
By reports are you talking about SSRS reports or other custom solutions? If it's SSRS only you could Query the ReportserverDB's catalog table and get a large part of what you'd need. You could probably make use of the webservice to access it so that you're not querying the tables directly (in case MS changes something in the next release etc.). In might be interesting enough to document and share via and article 😉
-Luke.
SSRS is part of it, but I was hoping to also catalogue all the 'one and done' reports we run that aren't expected to be repeatable. We just store those scripts on a shared drive somewhere, and we're not using that info effectively, people end up rebuilding something that's almost the same as what someone else has done, without realizing it.
Interesting idea though for an article....thanks 😉
---------------------------------------------------------
How best to post your question[/url]
How to post performance problems[/url]
Tally Table:What it is and how it replaces a loop[/url]
"stewsterl 80804 (10/16/2009)I guess when you stop and try to understand the solution provided you not only learn, but save yourself some headaches when you need to make any slight changes."
May 20, 2010 at 11:13 am
Roy Ernest (5/20/2010)
Steve Jones - Editor (5/20/2010)
jcrawf02 (5/20/2010)
Advice requested -trying to develop a searcheable db of our available reports for end users, including description, author, screenshots, blah blah blah.
We have a standard documentation template that is supposed to be used on all scripts, and we save them on the file system.
Wanted to parse through them and grab the documentation info for the db.
Not SSIS to load and cleanse the info and then store it in the db? That way you could easily check for dups as well, or keep a table of what's loaded, skip those filenames if the datestamp is older than what you've stored.
Can SSIS parse through each and every file and look for key words? I do not know much about SSIS. So I am asking the question. PS is not bad to go through your files and parse for keywords.
I don't know if it can do that either, but I'll assume it's possible, since Steve brought it up.
Time to go read me some BOL...
---------------------------------------------------------
How best to post your question[/url]
How to post performance problems[/url]
Tally Table:What it is and how it replaces a loop[/url]
"stewsterl 80804 (10/16/2009)I guess when you stop and try to understand the solution provided you not only learn, but save yourself some headaches when you need to make any slight changes."
May 20, 2010 at 11:25 am
jcrawf02 (5/20/2010)
SSRS is part of it, but I was hoping to also catalogue all the 'one and done' reports we run that aren't expected to be repeatable. We just store those scripts on a shared drive somewhere, and we're not using that info effectively, people end up rebuilding something that's almost the same as what someone else has done, without realizing it.Interesting idea though for an article....thanks 😉
Somewhat of a pain for some of the end users, or so they will think, but in a past life I created and simple intranet App to capture the report request information even for once and done types. Then I would update it with more information that made sense to me from a data perspective. I kinda used it like a KB search for much the same thing you seem to be talking about. If they wanted a report it had to go through that app. In the end they were getting reports faster because I didn't have to ask a hundred follow up questions. it was all in the App.
I understand this doesn't help for your previously created reports, and you're still probably looking for a way to gather that data via grep, SSIS perl or whatever, but once you have the data and know what you need in the future something like that might be a way of standardizing the input so you don't have to keep going through the same process...
May 20, 2010 at 11:38 am
Luke L (5/20/2010)
jcrawf02 (5/20/2010)
SSRS is part of it, but I was hoping to also catalogue all the 'one and done' reports we run that aren't expected to be repeatable. We just store those scripts on a shared drive somewhere, and we're not using that info effectively, people end up rebuilding something that's almost the same as what someone else has done, without realizing it.Interesting idea though for an article....thanks 😉
Somewhat of a pain for some of the end users, or so they will think, but in a past life I created and simple intranet App to capture the report request information even for once and done types. Then I would update it with more information that made sense to me from a data perspective. I kinda used it like a KB search for much the same thing you seem to be talking about. If they wanted a report it had to go through that app. In the end they were getting reports faster because I didn't have to ask a hundred follow up questions. it was all in the App.
I understand this doesn't help for your previously created reports, and you're still probably looking for a way to gather that data via grep, SSIS perl or whatever, but once you have the data and know what you need in the future something like that might be a way of standardizing the input so you don't have to keep going through the same process...
Sorry, are you saying you mapped the user requests to something that made sense to you? Like they say they want a 'claim header report' and you have it transformed to 'claimid,startdate,enddate,provider,etc' based on previous requests? or something different?
---------------------------------------------------------
How best to post your question[/url]
How to post performance problems[/url]
Tally Table:What it is and how it replaces a loop[/url]
"stewsterl 80804 (10/16/2009)I guess when you stop and try to understand the solution provided you not only learn, but save yourself some headaches when you need to make any slight changes."
May 20, 2010 at 11:58 am
jcrawf02 (5/20/2010)
Roy Ernest (5/20/2010)
Steve Jones - Editor (5/20/2010)
jcrawf02 (5/20/2010)
Advice requested -trying to develop a searcheable db of our available reports for end users, including description, author, screenshots, blah blah blah.
We have a standard documentation template that is supposed to be used on all scripts, and we save them on the file system.
Wanted to parse through them and grab the documentation info for the db.
Not SSIS to load and cleanse the info and then store it in the db? That way you could easily check for dups as well, or keep a table of what's loaded, skip those filenames if the datestamp is older than what you've stored.
Can SSIS parse through each and every file and look for key words? I do not know much about SSIS. So I am asking the question. PS is not bad to go through your files and parse for keywords.
I don't know if it can do that either, but I'll assume it's possible, since Steve brought it up.
Time to go read me some BOL...
Don't forget that you can use VB or C# in SSIS tasks, so the answer is yes it can do it. Is it a good way to do it? Other than just VB (without SSIS), it's probably the best way i can yhink of right now.
For best practices on asking questions, please read the following article: Forum Etiquette: How to post data/code on a forum to get the best help[/url]
May 20, 2010 at 12:04 pm
jcrawf02 (5/20/2010)
Sorry, are you saying you mapped the user requests to something that made sense to you? Like they say they want a 'claim header report' and you have it transformed to 'claimid,startdate,enddate,provider,etc' based on previous requests? or something different?
Somewhat yes. I made them choose simple things which came with a bit of user education like what style Summary/Detail I.E. Crosstab/Matrix or Tabular, date ranges etc most of which I could do via Drop Down Lists. Then there were some free form fields with some very explicit examples. That and If they didn't ask for a piece of information I just didn't supply it. Yes I know it's kind of a hardnosed approach which made a bit more work for me in the beginning, but it didn't take them long to be trained to include what they needed. It also helped that I was really only getting requests from about 15 different people. If it had been more than that it would have probably not worked as well. But yes, eventually I included a keyword/tagging system by which when a user said they wanted the 'Claim header report' that was equivalent to the appropriate tables/columns.
As it evolved it eventually included a very verbose data dictionary that helped them to figure out what they wanted. The system evolved over the course of about 1-2 years.
May 20, 2010 at 12:48 pm
interesting. We currently have our requests set up through Sharepoint, so we have some of those elements, but we're not parsing through our requests for keywords, and although it's supposed to be searchable, it doesn't always work.
---------------------------------------------------------
How best to post your question[/url]
How to post performance problems[/url]
Tally Table:What it is and how it replaces a loop[/url]
"stewsterl 80804 (10/16/2009)I guess when you stop and try to understand the solution provided you not only learn, but save yourself some headaches when you need to make any slight changes."
May 20, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Looking for insight / opinions on this.
I was searching for the SQLSat Utah information and came across this blog. I am uncertain if it is RSS'd or if they syndicated from SSC or what. It makes me wonder. Anybody have any thoughts on it?
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
SQL RNNR
Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw[/url]
Learn Extended Events
May 20, 2010 at 2:53 pm
CirquedeSQLeil (5/20/2010)
Looking for insight / opinions on this.I was searching for the SQLSat Utah information and came across this blog. I am uncertain if it is RSS'd or if they syndicated from SSC or what. It makes me wonder. Anybody have any thoughts on it?
Looks like they are grabbing the RSS from SSC. On the right side where they list contributors they list SSC and the other sites that they are getting content from. I think it's borderline because they never asked me if they could grab my stuff and other sites like SSC and SQLServerPedia ask first.
Jack Corbett
Consultant - Straight Path Solutions
Check out these links on how to get faster and more accurate answers:
Forum Etiquette: How to post data/code on a forum to get the best help
Need an Answer? Actually, No ... You Need a Question
May 20, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Jack Corbett (5/20/2010)
CirquedeSQLeil (5/20/2010)
...Looks like they are grabbing the RSS from SSC. On the right side where they list contributors they list SSC and the other sites that they are getting content from. I think it's borderline because they never asked me if they could grab my stuff and other sites like SSC and SQLServerPedia ask first.
That's kind of what I was thinking. I think it is borderline on two fronts. They are syndicating my stuff that is syndicated to SSC. They are grabbing it from here so SSC may have interest in it as well. They didn't ask either of us. It is not until you get to the end of the article that you see who wrote it (much the same as an RSS or syndication). For instance, here are all of the articles I syndicate to SSC. But you don't know that it is me until the end of each article where there is a tag with my name.
If they would have asked, I would have said yes. As it stands now, I would like to see more attribution (since they did not ask). It just looks too much like they blogged the material at first glance.
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
SQL RNNR
Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw[/url]
Learn Extended Events
May 20, 2010 at 3:47 pm
not to mention the very close naming to http://www.sqlblog.com
---------------------------------------------------------
How best to post your question[/url]
How to post performance problems[/url]
Tally Table:What it is and how it replaces a loop[/url]
"stewsterl 80804 (10/16/2009)I guess when you stop and try to understand the solution provided you not only learn, but save yourself some headaches when you need to make any slight changes."
May 20, 2010 at 3:48 pm
CirquedeSQLeil (5/20/2010)
Looking for insight / opinions on this.I was searching for the SQLSat Utah information and came across this blog. I am uncertain if it is RSS'd or if they syndicated from SSC or what. It makes me wonder. Anybody have any thoughts on it?
I somehow don't think Kimberly agreed to be syndicated on an unknown site.
http://www.sqlblogs.net/?cat=762
Um... <snigger>
http://www.sqlblogs.net/?cat=563
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
May 20, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Jack Corbett (5/20/2010)
I think it's borderline because they never asked me if they could grab my stuff and other sites like SSC and SQLServerPedia ask first.
Disagree. Republished without permission, without clear attribution (way it's written make it look like the ppl work/publish on that site) and in full in most cases. Not borderline in the slightest.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
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