Free - Reporting on Hierarchical Recursive data using MS Reporting Services

I will start with a question here. How many of you had chance to interact with Employee table from sample database Northwind? There you go… I can imagine countless hands in air, and why not it is one of the standard databases comes with both Access and SQL server. All right, are we going to discuses Northwind database here? NO. Is Employee table is something special? I would say YES to this. Why special? Well, if you pay a close attention, it is just like any other standard table, however, two fields from the table, “EmployeeID” and “ReportsTo” are related to each other in an interesting way! Yes, you got it right; I am talking about Hierarchical relationship which we also call commonly as Recursive data. I am trying to shade some light on reporting of data which is recursive in nature.

Overview

What is Recursive Data?

I am sure you must have come face to face with this challenge called Recursive Data if you have to deal with databases. Hierarchical data which defines the level of association with a defined relationship ca be called recursive in nature. A typical example would be to take Accounting Application Database which has a table called ChartOfAccounts, the Primary Key “Account_Id” will have foreign key relationship with another column called “Reporting_Account_Id”. Another example is the one which I am using in this article is that each Employee has a Manager assigned.

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As, we all know in community, there are always more then one way to address an issue. I am certainly not suggesting this is only way we can handle data which is Recursive in nature. I would love to hear from you if you like to share some of your tricks and looking forward to have any constructive criticism you got for me.

Disclaimer: Please feel free to use the content of this Article as you may please, however, I won't be held liable for any adverse effect, if at all it produces.

Thanks for reading… till my next attempt. Chao.

Asif Sayed

I started to code in 1990 using C and GW basic, then moved to 4GL world with DBIII, Clipper and FoxPro etc. and continued till I found and hooked to MS goody bag Visual Basic. For last four years, I am working extensively on .NET technologies and scripting both VB.NET and C#. My ideal choice of database is SQL Server; however, I do interact with Oracle when required. I have worked on all sort of Business applications, but my ideal project would be anything which has some Financial part associated with it, I wish I can put a Balance-sheet report in all the project I do… I also teach .NET related technologies as part-time faculty with local community college and try to help share my knowledge with others.

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