Wednesday, February 11, 2009

SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS)

2.Can you explain Report definition language (RDL) file in reporting services?

-RDL is an XML description of a report in reporting services. So basically the RDL file has the XML grammar which describes a reporting services report

3. what are the basic process of making a report in reporting services?

Here are the basic steps which will help you in creating reports in reporting services:-
. Open Visual studio 2005
à File à New project
à Select 'Business Intelligence Reports'
à Select Report Server project..
When the project is created in the solution explorer you will see two folder 'Shared data resources' ( we will come to data sources in the coming questions) and 'Reports'. Right click the 'Reports' folder and click add new reports.. You need to give credentials in the wizard. Once done it pops up a query builder. Specify the report query in the query builder and go next.. Wizard then helps you to select the report type and some other features. Next , next and you should see a RDL file in your 'Reports' folder. . Click on the view menu and select tool box and you should be able to design the report.. Till now we are only in the design mode of report. As said previously all reports meta-data are stored in SQL Server database 'ReportServer'. In order that the report's meta-data gets saved in database we need to publish the report.. To publish the report we need to specify the IIS report path. So right click on the report project, select properties and specify the 'TargetServerURL' property.


4. How can we consume the reports in ASP.NET?

There are three famous ways of calling reporting services report in ASP.NET:-
. Using URL way to access reports..
Using reporting web service to programmatically access reports..
Using report viewer control.

5.Can you explain the difference between private and shared data sources?

Private data source is used by single report only while shared data sources are shared between reports. As a practice it is good to have shared data source so if you want to change anything you need to change only on one data source.
6.How does reports caching in reporting services work ?

reporting services has two main databases 'ReportServer' and 'ReportServerTempDB'

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