SQL Server Reporting Services

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SQL Server Reporting Services is a server based report generation environment developed by Microsoft. It can be used to deliver variety of interactive and printed reports. It is administered via a web interface. Reporting services features a web services interface to support the development of custom reporting applications.

Reports are created as RDL files. RDL is an XML markup language.

Reports can be designed using recent versions of Microsoft Visual Studio^[1] with the included Business Intelligence Projects plug-in installed or with the included Report Builder, a user friendly tool that does not offer all the functionality of the Visual Studio IDE. Once created, RDL files can be rendered in a variety of formats including Excel, PDF, CSV, XML, TIFF, and HTML Web Archive. One noticeable omission is the ability to render reports in Microsoft Word (DOC) format.

Users can interact with the ReportServer web service directly, or instead use Report Manager, a web-based application that interface with the ReportServer web service. With Report Manager users can view, subscribe to, and manage reports as well as manage and maintain data sources and security settings. Reports can be delivered via e-mail or placed on a file system. Security is role based and can be assigned on an individual item, such as a report or data source, a folder of items, or site wide. Security roles and rights are inherited and can be overloaded.

SSRS is a competitor of Crystal Reports, and is included with all distributions of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 as an install option.