Reporting Services: Frequently Asked Questions

SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services is a server-based enterprise reporting environment, managed through Web services, that delivers a variety of interactive and printed reports.

SQL Server 2005 retains the core functionality of SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services. The product contains several key additions and enhancements, including the following:

Detailed explanations of Reporting Services enhancements are available at the Microsoft SQL Server TechCenter page for Reporting Services.

You can upgrade most installations using the SQL Server 2005 setup program. All report server content and settings will be fully functional after the upgrade process.

In cases where you have customized your report server deployment (added extensions, changed virtual directory settings, or encrypted the ASP.NET account user name in the registry), you will need to migrate your Reporting Services installation. In this case, you install a new instance of SSRS 2005 and use the Reporting Services configuration tool to migrate settings.

If you deployed custom extensions for Reporting Services 2000, you may need to rebuild these extensions so that SSRS 2005 can use them. Consult SQL Server Books Online for specific instructions on what you need to do to move to SSRS 2005.

Yes, all reports will continue to work as they did in SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services. If you want to take advantage of new report functionality, you will need to convert the reports to the new report definition format in the SQL Server 2005 Report Designer.

Yes. SSRS 2005 provides backward compatibility for Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) as well as URL access–based applications. You will not have to change your applications to start using SQL Server 2005. Note, however, that the new functionality available in SSRS 2005 is not available in the backward compatibility SOAP endpoint.

Report Manager, the Web-based management tool, is still available in SSRS 2005. In additions, all of the Report Manager functionality is now available in SQL Server 2000 Management Studio, a Windows-based console that gives you a single place to manage all components of SQL Server. Finally, a new Reporting Services Configuration tool allows you to manage various aspects of your report server, including service identities and database connections.

SSRS 2005 provides an option in setup to install but not configure the report server. It also provides the Reporting Services Configuration tool that lets you create a virtual directory on any Web site.

Report Builder is a business-user, ad-hoc report design client that allows users to design reports based on the business terms (Report Builder model) they are familiar with, but without needing to understand database schemas or how to write SQL or MDX queries. Report Builder works with both SQL Server and Analysis Services data sources.

Report Builder supports relational SQL and Analysis Services data sources in SQL Server 2005. To create a model for Analysis Services cube, go to Report Manager or Management Studio, create a data source for your Analysis Services database, and then select the Generate Model option to create the model.

While models that provide access to SQL Server Analysis Services are automatically generated on the report server, the Report Builder Model Designer can be used to generate or modify the models that are built on top of SQL Server relational databases. These model-building projects are a new type of project within a Visual Studio–based development shell.

In the filter dialog box, click the name of the criteria that you would like to prompt the user for when viewing the report. For example, for the criteria Order Year=2000, click Order Year. Select the Prompt option in the drop-down list.

Support for templates, styles, and images are frequently requested and will be considered for a future release.

No. Unlike SSRS 2000, which required users to purchase Visual Studio 2003, SQL Server 2005 comes with Business Intelligence Development Studio, which provides the Visual Studio shell and the business intelligence projects including Report Designer and Report Builder Model Designer. If users already have Visual Studio 2005, these projects are installed along with language projects.

Hidden parameters, multivalue parameters, dynamic connection strings, end-user sort, and fixed headers were the major features added to report processing in SSRS 2005.

In addition to the data source types available in SSRS 2000 (SQL Server, Oracle, ODBC, OLE DB), the following have been added in SSRS 2005:

Visual Studio 2005 (Standard and Enterprise editions) contains a set of freely redistributable Report Viewer controls that make it easy to embed Reporting Services functionality into custom applications. Two versions of the Report Viewer exist, one for rich Windows client applications and one for ASP.NET applications.

In addition to publishing reports to a report server, you can build reports using the Report Designer that is directly integrated with Visual Studio language projects. You can embed reports directly in any Windows Forms or ASP.NET Web application without access to a report server. The data access in embedded reports is a natural extension of the Visual Studio data facilities. Not only can you use traditional databases as a source of data for your reports, you can use object collections as well.

SSRS 2005 has added the following enhancements: