general

I just got started using Reporting Services and was completely lost using the BOL. This book really helped me understand how to get started and to write some more advanced reports. Some of the screen pictures were a little out of date (apparently taken from the beta version) but this was not a big deal. The errata info at the Wrox forums was also very helpful and I was able to get answers from the authors on the P2P forum. In all, I'm happy I bought the book. Good job.

The architecture overviews are good, but from there on it's full of errors and lacking the detail needed to make it useful. It has what you could loosely call "excercises" that I've gone through (step-by-step) and found many errors with. Errors that require many hours of debugging and fixing on the part of the reader. The writing is very cursory, overly broad and not detailed enough to be useful. The book often mentions that something useful CAN be done with Report Services but doesn't explain HOW to do it. Perhaps a revised edition is in order. One with more detail and with walkthroughs that have been followed, tested and confirmed accurate.

I have never wrote a review online here at amazon, but this book was such a disappointment that i decided to tell people about it. Basically this is an extension of "The Rational Guide to: SQL Server Reporting Services" by Anthony T. Mann, book with lots of screen shots. It does have a few simple excersises but thats about it. For example on pages 80-81 of the book in the grooping section it reads: "Tabular or matrix data may be sorted and grouped on one or multiple levels" then there is a nice screen shot of grouped design, it does not tell you how to do it. Then a few paragraphs later after the another screen shot it reads: "In this design for this report, there are four list controls placed inside one another. Grouping have been created for each of the lists to organize them into hierarchy" It says nothing about designing such a thing. Basically the book lacks hands on excersises. I found it totally useless.