Book/resource recommendation for learning charting with Reporting Services

Question

What books or online resource would you recommend for learning how to do advanced charts and dashboard design with Reporting Services?

Answer 1

While not specific to SSRS The Visual Display of Quantitative Information is the place to start.

Answer 2

I am very partial to Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data. I also found, having read that book, that COLOURLovers was a great place to get very nice palettes of colo(u)rs which are part of the recommendation in the book.

Personally, I'm not sure SSRS is quite right for dashboard applications (I have worked on a implementation of SSRS) though SSAS certainly is great from the reporting/warehouse side IMHO, but the SSRS story doesn't seem to fit... just my anecdotal opinon.

It's a big topic so good luck!

Richard

Answer 3

SSRS might not be the best approach for a dashboard, though it offers great reporting functionality.

You may want to take a look at Microsoft PerformancePoint 2007. It can make dashboards and widgets out of SSRS, SQL, Excel etc data and display it visually on Sharepoint.

Answer 4

I have read most of the SSRS 2008 books on the market and would highly recommend two - they both have decent amounts of content around charts and gauges

Applied Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services By Teo Lachev http://www.amazon.com/Applied-Microsoft-Server-Reporting-Services/dp/0976635313/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233159590&sr=8-1

Microsoft® SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services by Brian Larson http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft%C2%AE-Server-Reporting-Services-Microsoft/dp/0071548084/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233159590&sr=8-2