Scatter charts fully broken in RB 2.0?

Question

How can you so completely break something that used to work in Reporting Services 2005? I just can't figure out how to build a scatter chart in RB 2.0. When it comes to charts I find it easier to build the chart in 2005 and import it into RB 2.0.

Consider scatter charts. In RB 2.0 you only get one drop area for values. What the @#%$&? Are we supposed to drop X values to the category field drop area? Could whoever came up with this idea please read Robert Bruckner's whitepaper on charts? You are not supposed to group by X value. And how do you edit category groups in RB 2.0? OK, eventually I figured it out - right-click on the item dropped in the category area. This is so hard to discover. It is much better in 2005: There is just one chart dialog. Everything that has anything to do with charts can be manipulated from that dialog.

Take a look at 2005 designer. There are separate drop areas for X and Y values. Category drop area is separate. In my case I can drop the primary key of the table into the category area (so that duplicate X values don't get merged), the X value into the X drop area and the Y value into the Y drop area.

Thankfully if you design the chart in 2005 and import into RB 2.0 and execute the report the chart is rendered fine. But in the editor I can't see my X field.

Hope you can release a patch to fix this problem. I don't like to go back to 2005 to design stuff and import into RB 2.0.

Answer 1

Hi,

There are definitely some usability issues in working with the scatter charts in RB 2.0.  We do appreciate the feedback and will work to improve the experience. I've posted a blog entry that describes how you can work with them at http://blogs.msdn.com/seanboon/archive/2009/06/03/working-with-xy-scatter-charts-in-reporting-services-2008.aspx#comments

-Sean

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Program Manager, SQL Server Reporting Services This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. http://blogs.msdn.com/seanboon http://www.twitter.com/ssrs

Answer 2

The solution you are proposing will work in some scenarios. If you want to plot each point returned by the query then it works. But sometimes you want to plot avg(Salary) versus avg(YearsOfExperience) grouped by DepartmentID. Your solution does not work in this case.

Answer 3

You should be able to place the DepartmentID on series and then the proposed solutions should still work.  If it doesn't, let me know and we can work through a sample.

-Sean

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Program Manager, SQL Server Reporting Services This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. http://blogs.msdn.com/seanboon http://www.twitter.com/ssrs