SSRS Prototype

By Padma Arae

SSRS Architecture

The Reporting Life Cycle (In depth Architecture)

Authoring

The authoring phase is concerned with the actual development of reports. Authoring generally includes the following features:

Connecting to a data source Writing database queries Creating report layout Creating report parameters Setting report properties such as height and width

Report Designer Report Designer is a developer-oriented, comprehensive report authoring, previewing, and publishing tool hosted in Business Intelligence Development Studio or Visual Studio. To organize the report development process, Report Designer provides three tab views of a report: Data, Layout, and Preview.

Report Model Designer

The Report Model Designer generates report models for use by Report Builder. The Report Model Designer is hosted in Business Intelligence Development Studio or Visual Studio and is intended for use by developers. Actually, BIDS is a Visual Studio shell with only Business Intelligence projects and no language projects. One of the Business Intelligence projects is the Report Model Project, which launches the Report Model Designer and allows developers to create models.

Report Builder
One of the most requested features in the previous version of SSRS was an ability to develop end-user reports. Microsoft delivered this functionality in SSRS 2005. Report Builder is a Click Once, ad hoc, end-user report authoring and Publishing tool, which provides drag-and-drop, easy-to-use report design functionality.

Management

After developing the report, you move into the management phase, which is concerned with setting properties of reports specific to the production environment. These properties include:

Data source connection information Default parameter values Security permissions Report caching Report execution schedules Report delivery schedules

Report Manager

The Report Manager is a web-based interface that provides both user-level access to reports and administrative features to Configure security, subscriptions, report caching, and data access. Report Manager is a web-based report access and management tool providing access to a single instance of a Report Server. Some of the operations that users can perform using the Report Manager include view, search and subscribe to reports, manage security (report access and roles), create folders and move reports around folders, manage data sources, set report parameters, and more. cont..

Actions that a user can perform using Report Manager depend on the users security permissions. The default URL that invokes Report Manager is http://<server>/reports.

Delivery

The delivery phase looks at how reports get to the end users. Delivery includes:

Providing an end user interface for browsing reports Publishing reports on a specific schedule Delivering reports to end users

Scheduling and Delivery Processor

The Scheduling and Delivery Processor is hosted in SSRS Windows service and monitors for events. When the Scheduling and Delivery Processor receives an event,

the Scheduling and Delivery Processor collaborates with the

Report Processor to render a report. After a report is rendered, the Scheduling and Delivery Processor uses delivery extensions to deliver a report. The Scheduling and Delivery Processor leverages the SQL Server Agent as a scheduling engine. The schedule is based on the local time of the Report Server that owns the schedule. cont

When an administrator creates a new schedule, the SSRS creates a SQL Server Agent job to run on the requested schedule. Then SSRS adds a row in the Schedule table of the Report Server database. The rows Scheduled field is the jobs identifier. Administrators can schedule subscriptions, report history, and snapshot execution.

Security

Setting server-level and item-level security Defining Reporting Services Roles Assigning Windows Users and Groups to roles

Report Features

Relational, multidimensional, XML, and custom data sources Tabular, matrix, chart, and free-form report layouts Ad hoc reports Drill through reports and interactivity Presentation formats Custom controls and report items

Cont

Navigation Aggregations Graphical elements Report and Model Design Tools Deployment and Administration Report Access and Delivery Features Programmability and Extensibility

Report Management Features

Uploading RDL files Managing folder hierarchies Setting data source credentials Managing default parameter values Creating linked reports Creating execution snapshots Setting caching options

Demo of working prototypes

Questions ?

Thank You