Tutorial: Add a sparkline to your report (Report Builder)

Article
09/25/2024

In this tutorial in Report Builder, you create a basic table with a sparkline chart in a Reporting Services paginated report.

Sparklines and data bars are small, simple charts that convey large amounts information in a little space, often in tables and matrices in Reporting Services reports. The following illustration shows a report similar to the one that you create in this tutorial.

Screenshot that shows the Report Builder sparkline.

Estimated time to complete this tutorial: 30 minutes.

Requirements

For more information about requirements, see Prerequisites for tutorials (Report Builder).

1. Create a report with a table

Start Report Builder either from your computer, the Reporting Services web portal, or SharePoint integrated mode.

The New Report or Dataset dialog box opens.

If you don't see the New Report or Dataset dialog box, on the File menu > New.
In the left pane, verify that New Report is selected.
In the right pane, select Table or Matrix Wizard.
On the Choose a dataset page, select Create a dataset > Next. The Choose a connection to a data source page opens.

Note

This tutorial doesn't need specific data; it just needs a connection to a SQL Server database. If you already have a data source connection listed under Data Source Connections, you can select it and go to step 10. For more information, see Alternative ways to get a data connection (Report Builder).
Select New. The Data Source Properties dialog box opens.
In Name, enter Product Sales, a name for the data source.
In Select a connection type, verify that Microsoft SQL Server is selected.
In Connection string, enter the following text:

Data Source\=<servername>

The expression <servername>, for example Report001, specifies a computer on which an instance of the SQL Server Database Engine is installed. Because the report data isn't extracted from a SQL Server database, you need not include the name of a database. The default database on the specified server is used to parse the query.
Select Credentials. Enter the credentials that you need to access the external data source.
Select OK.

You're back on the Choose a connection to a data source page.
To verify that you can connect to the data source, select Test Connection.

The message "Connection created successfully" appears.
Select OK.
Select Next.

2. Create a query and table layout in the Table Wizard for your report

In a report, you can use a shared dataset that has a predefined query, or you can create an embedded dataset for use only in your report. In this tutorial, you create an embedded dataset.

Note

In this tutorial, the query contains the data values, so that it does not need an external data source. This makes the query quite long. In a business environment, a query would not contain the data. This is for learning purposes only.

Create a query and table layout in the Table Wizard

On the Design a query page, the relational query designer is open. For this tutorial, you use the text-based query designer.
Select Edit As Text. The text-based query designer displays a query pane and a results pane.

Paste the following Transact-SQL query into the Query box.

SELECT CAST('2015-01-04' AS date) as SalesDate, 'Accessories' as Subcategory,   
   'Carrying Case' as Product, CAST(16996.60 AS money) AS Sales, 68 as Quantity  
UNION SELECT CAST('2015-01-05' AS date) as SalesDate, 'Accessories' as Subcategory,  
   'Carrying Case' as Product, CAST(1350.00 AS money) AS Sales, 18 as Quantity  
UNION SELECT CAST('2015-01-10' AS date) as SalesDate, 'Accessories' as Subcategory,  
   'Carrying Case' as Product, CAST(1147.50 AS money) AS Sales, 17 as Quantity  
UNION SELECT CAST('2015-01-04' AS date) as SalesDate, 'Accessories' as Subcategory,  
   'Budget Movie-Maker' as Product, CAST(1056.00 AS money) AS Sales, 44 as Quantity  
UNION SELECT CAST('2015-01-05' AS date) as SalesDate,  'Accessories' as Subcategory,  
   'Slim Digital' as Product, CAST(1380.00 AS money) AS Sales, 18 as Quantity  
UNION SELECT CAST('2015-01-05' AS date) as SalesDate,'Accessories' as Subcategory,    
   'Budget Movie-Maker' as Product, CAST(780.00 AS money) AS Sales, 26 as Quantity  
UNION SELECT CAST('2015-01-07' AS date) as SalesDate, 'Accessories' as Subcategory,   
   'Budget Movie-Maker' as Product, CAST(3798.00 AS money) AS Sales, 9 as Quantity  
UNION SELECT CAST('2015-01-08' AS date) as SalesDate, 'Camcorders' as Subcategory,   
   'Budget Movie-Maker' as Product, CAST(10400.00 AS money) AS Sales, 13 as Quantity  
UNION SELECT CAST('2015-01-09' AS date) as SalesDate, 'Camcorders' as Subcategory,   
   'Budget Movie-Maker' as Product, CAST(3000.00 AS money) AS Sales, 60 as Quantity  
UNION SELECT CAST('2015-01-10' AS date) as SalesDate,  'Digital' as Subcategory,   
   'Budget Movie-Maker' as Product, CAST(7234.50 AS money) AS Sales, 39 as Quantity  
UNION SELECT CAST('2015-01-06' AS date) as SalesDate,  'Digital' as Subcategory,   
   'Carrying Case' as Product, CAST(10836.00 AS money) AS Sales, 84 as Quantity  
UNION SELECT CAST('2015-01-07' AS date) as SalesDate,  'Digital' as Subcategory,   
   'Slim Digital' as Product, CAST(2550.00 AS money) AS Sales, 17 as Quantity  
UNION SELECT CAST('2015-01-04' AS date) as SalesDate, 'Digital' as Subcategory,   
   'Slim Digital' as Product, CAST(8357.80 AS money) AS Sales, 44 as Quantity  
UNION SELECT CAST('2015-01-08' AS date) as SalesDate, 'Digital SLR' as Subcategory,   
   'Slim Digital' as Product, CAST(18530.00 AS money) AS Sales, 34 as Quantity  
UNION SELECT CAST('2015-01-06' AS date) as SalesDate, 'Digital SLR' as Subcategory,   
   'Slim Digital' as Product, CAST(26576.00 AS money) AS Sales, 88 as Quantity

On the query designer toolbar, select Run (!).

The query runs and displays the result set for the fields SalesDate, Subcategory, Product, Sales, and Quantity.
Select Next.
On the Arrange fields page, drag Sales to Values.

Sales is aggregated by the Sum function. The value is [Sum(Sales)].
Drag Product to Row groups.
Drag SalesDate to Column groups.
Select Next.
On the Choose the layout page, under Options, verify that Show subtotals and grand totals is selected.

The wizard Preview pane displays a table with three rows. When you run the report, each row displays in the following way:
- The first row appears once for the table to show column headings.
- The second row repeats once for each product and displays the product name, total per day, and line total.
- The third row appears once for the table to display the grand totals.
Select Next.
Select Finish.
The table is added to the design surface. The table has three columns and three rows.

Look in the Grouping pane. If you can't see the Grouping pane on the View menu, select Grouping. The Row Groups pane shows one row group: Product. The Column Groups pane shows one column group: SalesDate. Detail data is all the data that the dataset query retrieves.
Select Run to preview the report.

2a. Format data as currency

By default, the summary data for the Sales field displays a general number. Format it to display the number as currency. Toggle Placeholder Styles to display formatted text boxes and placeholder text as sample values.

Select Design to switch to design view.
Select the cell in the second row (under the column headings row) in the SalesDate column. Hold down the Ctrl key and choose all cells that contain [Sum(Sales)].
On the Home tab > Number group, select Currency. The cells change to show the formatted currency.

If your regional setting is English (United States), the default sample text is [$12,345.00]. If you don't see an example currency value in the Numbers group, select Placeholder Styles > Sample Values.

2b. (Optional) Format data as dates

By default, the SalesDate field displays both date and time information. You can format them to display only the date.

Select the cell that contains [SalesDate].
On the Home tab, go to Number group > Date.

The cell displays the example date [1/31/2000].
Select Run to preview the report.

The SalesDate values display in the default date format, and the summary values for Sales display as currency.

3. Add a sparkline

Select Design to return to design view.
Select the Total column in your table.
Right-click. Point to Insert Column, and then select Left.
In the new column, right-click the cell in the [Product] row > Insert > Sparkline.
In the Select Sparkline Type dialog box, make sure the first sparkline in the Column row is selected, then choose OK.
Select the sparkline to show the Chart Data pane.
Select the plus (+) sign in the Values box, then choose Sales.

The values in the Sales field are now the values for the sparkline.
Select the plus (+) sign in the Category Groups box, then choose SalesDate.
Select Run to preview your report.

The bars in the sparkline charts don't line up with each other. There are only four bars in the second row of data, so the bars are wider than the bars in the first row, which has six. You can't compare values for each product per day. They need to line up.

Also, for each row, the tallest bar is the height of the row. This visual is misleading, too, because the largest values for each row aren't equal: the largest value for Budget Movie-Maker is $10,400, but for Slim Digital it's $26,576 - more than twice as large. And yet the largest bars in those two rows are about the same height. All the sparklines need to use the same scale.

4. Align the sparklines vertically and horizontally

Sparklines are hard to read when they don't all use the same measurements. Both the horizontal and vertical axes for each need to match the rest.

Select Design to return to design view.
Right-click the sparkline and select Vertical Axis Properties.
Check the Align axes in check box. Tablix1 is the only option in the list.

This sets the height of the bars in each sparkline relative to the others.
Select OK.
Right-click the sparkline and select Horizontal Axis Properties.
Check the Align axes in check box. Tablix1 is the only option in the list.

This sets the width of the bars in each sparkline relative to the others. If some sparklines have fewer bars than others, then those sparklines have blank spaces for the missing data.
Select OK.
Select Run to preview your report again.

Now all the bars in each sparkline align with the bars in the other sparklines, and the heights are relative.

Screenshot that shows a Report Builder sparkline that is aligned.

7. (Optional) Change column widths

By default, each cell in a table contains a text box. A text box expands vertically to accommodate text when the page is rendered. In the rendered report, each row expands to the height of the tallest rendered text box in the row. The height of the row on the design surface has no effect on the height of the row in the rendered report.

To reduce the amount of vertical space each row takes, expand the column width to accommodate the expected contents of the text boxes in the column on one line.

Change the width of columns

Select Design to return to design view.
Select the table so gray bars appear above the table and next to it. Those bars are the column and row handles
Point to the line between column handles so that the cursor changes into a double arrow. Drag the Product column so that the product name displays on one line.
Select Run to preview your report and see if you made it wide enough.

8. (Optional) Add a report title

A report title appears at the top of the report. You can place the report title in a report header or if the report doesn't use one, in a text box at the top of the report body. In this tutorial, you use the text box that is automatically placed at the top of the report body.

The text can be further enhanced by applying different font styles, sizes, and colors to phrases and individual characters of the text. For more information, see Format text in a text box in paginated reports (Report Builder).

Add a report title

On the design surface, select Click to add title.
Enter Sales by Date, and then select outside the text box.
Select the text box that contains Product Sales.
On the Home tab > Font group > for Color, select Teal.
Select Bold.
Select OK.

9. Save the report

Save the report to a report server or your computer. If you don't save the report to the report server, many Reporting Services features such as subreports aren't available.

Save the report on a report server

From the Report Builder button, select Save As.
Select Recent Sites and Servers.
Select or enter the name of the report server where you have permission to save reports.

The message "Connecting to report server" appears. When the connection is complete, you see the contents of the report folder that the report server administrator specified as the default location for reports.
In Name, replace the default name with Product Sales.
Select Save.

The report is saved to the report server. The name of report server that you're connected to appears in the status bar at the bottom of the window.

Save the report on your computer

From the Report Builder button, select Save As.
Select Desktop, My Documents, or My computer, and browse to the folder where you want to save the report.
In Name, replace the default name with Product Sales.
Select Save.

Next step

Sparklines and Data Bars

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Tutorial: Add a sparkline to your report (Report Builder)

Requirements

1. Create a report with a table

2. Create a query and table layout in the Table Wizard for your report