How to remove extra page with tablix SSRS 2012

Recently I had to create a transaction summary report for my accounts receivable project. To display the transactions I choose a tablix as shown below

The grouping for the tablix was on a sequenceid (assign a rank to all the transactions with one clientid), I applied page break at the end of the group

I thought the report was done, however in the print preview the report was printing a blank page in between the group the fix for that is

Body Width <= Page Width - (Left Margin + Right Margin)

report width= 8.5, left margin = 0.164, right margin = 0.164

(report width – (left margin + right margin)) = 8.172

Click on any white space on the report and hit F4 to see body properties

The Width in the body was 8.2in this threw me off and I was getting blank pages, so reduced it to 8.15 that fixed the issue.

Extended Properties in SQL Server

Extended properties (EP) are SQL Server objects which can be used for documenting other database objects such as tables, views, functions etc. Extended properties offer a common standard place for information about various database objects

Extended properties have three level categories such as Schema -> Table -> Column.  Adding, altering of extended properties are handled through system stored procedures  

sp_addextendedproperty  -> adds a new extended property to a database object

sp_dropextendedproperty -> removes an extended property from a database object

sp_updateextendedproperty -> updates the value of an existing extended property

The above stored procedures have the following parameters

@name = Name of the extended property  

@value = Comments/Description

@level0type = Schema, @level0name = name of schema (dbo)

@level1type = Table,  @level1name = table name

@level2type = Column, @level2name = column name

The Level0/1/2Type’s are not limited to Schema/Table/Column, refer to http://blogs.lessthandot.com/index.php/datamgmt/datadesign/document-your-sql-server-databases/, for a detailed explanation

Consider a sample schema,

create table dbo.Consumers

(

            SeqID int identity(1,1) not null,

            Name varchar(100) not null,

)

To add a description for the SeqID column we can use ‘sp_addextendedproperty’ system stored procedure

-- creating

exec sp_addextendedproperty

@name = N'MS_Description',

@value = 'Sequence ID to identify consumers, auto incrementing number ',

@level0type = N'Schema', @level0name = dbo,

@level1type = N'Table',  @level1name = Consumers,

@level2type = N'Column', @level2name = SeqID;

-- altering

exec sp_updateextendedproperty

@name = N'MS_Description',

@value = N' Sequence ID to identify consumers, auto incrementing number seed value 1’,

@level0type = N'Schema', @level0name = dbo,

@level1type = N'Table',  @level1name = Consumers,

@level2type = N'Column', @level2name = SeqID;

-- dropping

EXEC sp_dropextendedproperty

@name = N'MS_Description',

@level0type = N'Schema', @level0name = dbo,

@level1type = N'Table',  @level1name = Consumers,

@level2type = N'Column', @level2name = SeqID

The best use of extended properties is getting the column definitions of a table. I always create the following sql query as a stored procedure and filter it by table name

-- viewing

select col.name as [Column], ep.value as  [Description]

from sys.tables tab inner join sys.columns col

on tab.object_id = col.object_id left join sys.extended_properties ep

on tab.object_id = ep.major_id

and col.column_id = ep.minor_id

and ep.name = 'MS_Description'

where tab.name = @TabName