Can I create a non-pie chart using Excelwriter and SSRS Integration?

Question

I'm using SoftArtisans ExcelWriter for SSRS (ver 8.6), and am wondering if it is possible to create a (non-pie) chart, e.g. a Stacked Bar chart, that has multiple series?

I can create pie charts easily enough, and that is what the help docs show, but there is no samples for other types of charts for SSRS integration.

The excel template is embedded in the .rdl file, and the spreadsheet is created when the user exports the generated report using OfficeWriter's Excel rendering extension. However the report is run manually by users, so I don't have the ability to execute any code to modify the Excel object before the user sees it.

Can anyone either confirm that only pie charts are possible for SSRS Integration, or provide some insight into how other chart types are possible?

Answer 1

You should be able to create any type of chart.

The way that OfficeWriter SSRS integration works (and just the plain Template object for that matter), is that it takes all of your data and inserts it into your data markers. Then it finds references in your workbook that pointed to your data markers, and expands them to point to all of the new inserted data.

So really you can add any type of chart. You just have to make sure that the chart you create points to the data markers as the source data.

A data marker will correspond to a single series or to horizontal axis data. Then as the data is populated, the values in the series are populated.

On our reporting demo page there's a link at the bottom that says "View Report Template" that you can click on to download and Excel file that shows a variety of different charts pointing to data markers.

Answer 2

You can create any type of chart that Excel can create, since you are creating your chart in your template file with Excel.

Here is an example of how I setup my template to build a scatter chart (Please ignore the title of the chart, I forgot to rename it from Pie Chart).

I insert a chart into my template, set the type to be scatter, and I placed 4 data markers under my chart, from two data sources.

Next I edit the Chart's series and point them to the data markers in my file. When the template is populated from ExcelWriters SSRS integration, it will replace all the datamarkers with your data, and update the chart's series.

After redeploying the template file to my report server, I can now export the file to Excel for OfficeWriter, and my output is shown below.

Disclaimer: I am a developer on OfficeWriter and work for SoftArtisans the makers of OfficeWriter.

Please let me know if this helps.