With SQL Server 2008 R2, using the LocalReport class throws The report definition is not valid. The Report definition has an invalid target namespace"

I needed SQL Server 2008 R2 to get a a few features. One of them was having the ability to define tabs for Excel rendering in reports. Another was the shared dataset features and shared report features.

Anyways, I wanted to try using LocalReport to render an Excel workbook from a report without actually needing SSRS installed and the report deployed and all that. It's a solution a lot of developers seem to use.

Here's the issue.

The ReportViewer control was not updated to handle rdl or rdlc files made with Report Builder 3.0. I don't user Report Builder (I use BIDS) but as far as I can tell, if you've set bids Target Deployment Server to R2 (which I have), you create rdl files that match the new schema.

That's what ReportViewer is complaining about. There seems to be no fix planned. It's a "wait for Denali" thing, as frustrating as that is.

So my workaround was to go ahead and deploy and configure to a real SSRS server, instantiate a ReportViewer control on my own in code set to Remote Processing and go get the form. It's working so far.

I know that's not a good workaround for everyone. I'm not sure how the licensing works, but I suppose it might be okay to use the cheaper SQL Developer Edition and ship RDL files you make with the free ReportViewer controls.

Quarter Start and End Dates Table in SQL Server 2008 with DATEDIFF and DATEADD

I was asked if I could populate a table with the next 40 quarter end dates. It's always best to populate calendar tables than to try to write SQL code to figure it out on the fly or in a view. That way lies madness.

Without further ado, this populated the next 100 dates.

/*
* *** Create Simple Quarters Table ***
* Just hitting execute will create a table with Quarter Start and End dates
* and a row number to order them by or do joins with later.
*/

-- If you want more than 100 future quarters, watch out for max recursion. Scroll down and bump that number accordingly.

-- Uncomment this after you've made the Quarters table
DROP TABLE [Quarters]

DECLARE @todaysDate [datetime];
DECLARE @todaysQtrNum int;
DECLARE @qtrCalc int

SET @todaysDate = GETDATE(); -- Or set the date yourself here
SET @todaysQtrNum = DATEDIFF(q, 0, @todaysDate);
SET @qtrCalc = 99; -- How many future quarters are we calculating (1 more will be added for current)

WITH Numbers(n)
AS
(
SELECT 0 AS n
UNION ALL
SELECT (n + 1) AS n
FROM Numbers
WHERE
n < @qtrCalc
)

SELECT n as QtrNumber,
--@todaysDate as Today,
--@todaysqtrnum as TodaysQtrNumber,
DATEADD(q, @todaysQtrNum+n, 0) AS QuarterStart,
DATEADD(d, -1, DATEADD(q, @todaysQtrNum+n+1, 0)) AS QuarterEnd
INTO [Quarters]
from Numbers
--OPTION(MAXRECURSION 100) -- defaults 100

-- See your creation
SELECT * FROM [Quarters]

P.S. Certainly this could be incorporated into a larger Calendar table. It just wasn't needed here and sometimes you might want the specialization.

P.P.S. I found the numbers query technique using recursion on Code.I.net blog. It won't get you past around 10000 for quarters and AFAIK recursion is limited to 32767 anyways. But it worked and sometimes that's all you need (especially when it's one time use).