SQL Server Reporting Services
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SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) is a server based report generation environment developed by Microsoft. It can be used to deliver a 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.
SSRS is a competitor of Crystal Reports and other Business intelligence tools, and is included in Express, Workgroup, Standard, and Enterprise editions of Microsoft SQL Server as an install option. Reporting Services was first released in 2004 as an add-on to SQL Server 2000. The current version was released as a part of SQL Server 2005 in November 2005.
In SSRS, 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[2] including Excel, PDF, CSV, XML, TIFF (and other image formats[3]), and HTML Web Archive. One noticeable omission is the ability to render reports in Microsoft Word (DOC) format (export to DOC will be added in SQL Server 2008). However, there is a possibility to develop third-party rendering extensions that fill this gap and some .NET component vendors do offer those extensions as commercial add-ons for Reporting Services.
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.
In addition to using the standalone Report Server that comes with SQL Server, RDL reports can also be viewed using the ASP.NET ReportViewer web control or the ReportViewer Windows Forms control. This allows reports to be embedded directly into web pages or .NET Windows applications. The ReportViewer control processes reports in one of two ways: (a) server processing, where the report is rendered by and obtained from the Report Server; and (b) local processing, where the control renders the RDL file itself.
Another interesting feature that came up with SQL 2005 reporting services is the ability to design and deliver the ADHOC reports using the Report Models. Designer develop the report schema and deploy that in the reporting server where the client/user can able choose the relevant fields/data of their wish and they can able to generate the reports. Client/Users can download the click once deployment software of the reports in their local to generate the aforesaid Report Model.
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- ^ including Visual Studio.NET 2003 and Visual Studio 2005
- ^ MSDN Library: Reporting Services Render Method - See Device Information Settings
- ^ Image Device Information Settings - SSRS can render BMP, EMF, GIF, JPEG, PNG, and TIFF.
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