I want to create an SSRS "application", e.g. string multi-reports into User Experience

Greetings,

I am new to this site, but I come by way of a course I took last month from Pragmatic for SSRS.

I have been building reports using SSRS since last month, but now have the idea to string them altogether into a sort of seemless "reporting application" for folks at my health policy organization.

Has anyone built something like this in SSRS? I used to build this type of thing in MS Access and FileMaker, basically putting a "front-end" on a relational database. In my case, everything has to do with one of the ~100 hospitals in my state.

Basically, is there any reason I shouldn't make SSRS reports in B.I.D.S. that look like a web-based dashboard system? It seems like I could use textboxes, set texbox properties to "go to report" and then just link them altogether into a "navigable application".

Thoughts?

The first thing that comes to my mind (especially with hospital HIPA policies) is security. It seems like you'll be undermining reporting services built in security, unless you add your own security to your front end. I guess the first question to ask is, what is the built in front end of reporting services NOT providing you as all it sound like looking for is a different way to navigate the reports?

Hi Jason,

Thanks for the reply.

In my case, I'm lucky, no HIPAA data, it's all rolled up by hospital and de-identified already. Security concern number one is no problem. That's not to say that I want this confidential business data out for all to see, so I placed my SSRS box inside of my org's domain and physically in the same offices as these folks reside. I'd like to set up SSRS security accounts for each user, but that would be using the built db security.

What a list of different reports that you have to click on each one from Report Manager does NOT provide is ease-of-use for not-techy people. These folks know tons about health policy and what they want to see, but the tools they use need to be dead simple. They know how to navigate a website already so why not make my SSRS solution "look and act" like a website?

They seriously will reject my work on this if it's not easy to use and navigate. I don't want to make an expensive digital paperweight.

Is there any reason I can't implement SSRS user accounts/groups with varied access and then either hide/show items based on their security role or just make it show a message that they can't view that item b/c their security is too low?

Thanks.

Sorry it has taken me a while to respond.

bsales said:

] Is there any reason I can't implement SSRS user accounts/groups with varied access and then either hide/show items based on their security role or just make it show a message that they can't view that item b/c their security is too low?

Yes, this is how we do it. However Managing individual user permissions is pretty rough. I would suggestion managing through NT groups, and organizing your reports into specific folders to remove access to users. For instance, I separated at the highest level; in my case that was application developer. So, whatever internal or 3rd part group developed the application their reports get their own folder: Intranet, GE, Allscripts, PICIS, and so on. This also allows for multiple applications per developer in subfolders. If everyone is allowed to view the reports I add the everyone group to that high level, if not a specific NT group gets created: GE_Reporting, PICIS_Reporting and so on. I then set these NT groups as browsers for those specific reports.

Thanks Jason,

Again, I'm lucky that it's not a hospital and hence no PHI, no EMR systems, etc. everything is extracts from other systems, never PHI, and really are all a bunch of statistics to be grouped by Hospital or Parent(Healthsystem, County, SimilarSize, SimilarUrban_Rural, etc.)

I have all of this bucketing set up so that I can say, for example, show me the financials and patient volumes by year for 'HealthSouth Hospitals' or 'Critical-Access-Hospitals', etc.

As far as users and security, only two groups are needed. "Staff" (RO) and a more priviledged "Analysts" (RO+CreateViews) that will be able to create reports in BIDS. Obviously, an admin over everything goes w/o saying (RW).

Basically, I just need one "section" of the application that checks if you're in the Analyst group and turns you away if you're not. Something like tab=|enter Analyst View| .Everything else is open-browsing, no secrets. It's internal; only my org's staff will have access, via that group, remove them when they quit, can't access anyway if not in the building and logged into a workstation.

Thanks! 

Ahhh, I finally see what your trying to do. Our execs call this "5 year olding" something...frankly I find it offending for my 4 year old. ;-)

A good idea for a smaller user base, however it might lead to difficulty scaling out in different several different aspects. The biggest one is any time you have a new group or even new report you have to adjust your front end. If these were the only report groups that your company is going to use, or if you planned on standing up a different report server to handle new report clients I would say go for it. Otherwise I would just create a Report_Analyst NT group, add it to your Report_Analyst folder as the only user (besides report admins of course) and call it a day.

It is totally possible as our web guys host several of my reports in C#, silverlight, and several other different sites; however me not being a web guy am no help to you except I guess distract you from your overall goal. I hope I didn't waste your time and found the discussion valuable...I just couldn't find a reason not to use the default front end.

:Edit because these forums a terrible in Chrome

Don't apologize, this has been a useful conversation for me. One additional question along the same vein I started--Can I create a Tablix region to list other reports that could load? In other words, say you take the mockup screenshot I loaded, and as far as the user is concerned, they stay in the "Re-Admits" tab, but to the right of that pie chart is this Tablix I'm talking about. It has a list of 5 or 100 reports that also have to do with Re-Admits and when clicked, they "load" in the section where the graphs are now.

Nevermind, look at the picture I'm attaching...