What are spark lines and How to create Spark lines in report using SSRS?

Problem: What are spark lines and How to create Spark lines in report using SSRS?

Solution:  Sparklines and Data Bars

In Reporting Services reports, sparklines and data bars are often used in tables and matrices. Their impact comes from viewing many of them together and being able to quickly compare them one above the other, rather than viewing them singly. They make it easy to see the outliers, the rows that are not performing like the others. Although they are small, each sparkline often represents multiple data points, often over time. Data bars can represent multiple data points, but typically illustrate only one. Each sparkline typically presents a single series. You cannot add a sparkline to a detail group in a table. Because sparklines display aggregated data, they must go in a cell associated with a group. 

Sparklines and data bars have the same basic chart elements of categories, series, and values, but they have no legend, axis lines, labels, or tick marks.

If you want to know how to launch and create a basic report Create a report SQL Server

Example:

In the example, I would like to show we can create a Spark report using SSDT.

Step 1: Drag a sparkline and choose a type of chart to represent the data.

 I have selected lines from the options and the next hit ok.

Step 2: Drag report dataset fields for numeric and non-numeric data to the Chart Data pane of the chart. When you click the chart on the design surface, the Chart Data pane appears, with three areas—Category Groups, Series Groups, and Values.

In the dataset region I am using the following query which I am going to use in the group by order counts year 2016.

/****** Script for SelectTopNRows command from SSMS  ******/

SELECT count(Invoiceid)

      ,  datename(month,(invoicedate))as month,

                  year(invoicedate) as year

                    FROM [DB].[dbo].[Invoice]

                                where year(invoicedate)=2016

group by datename(month,(invoicedate)),year(invoicedate)

order by MIN(month(invoicedate) )

Use the data set fields and drag those into sum portion to get the total counts and rows as months.

Output:

As we can see this can be used in the dashboard to show how the orders are fluctuating over the months.