[SSRS [SQL SERVER REPORTING SERVICES]] February 23, 2017

SQL Server Reporting Services [SSRS]

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People use reports to communicate information, make decisions, and identify opportunities. Reporting Services is a
server-based reporting platform that provides a full range of ready-to-use tools and services to help people throughout
an organization create, deploy, manage, and use reports quickly and easily. With Reporting Services, we can retrieve data
from relational, multidimensional, and XML based data sources; publish reports that can be viewed in various formats;
and centrally manage report security and subscriptions. The reports that are created can be viewed over a Web-based
connection or as part of a Microsoft Windows application or SharePoint site.

Reporting Lifecycle
The Reporting Lifecycle includes
Report designing – The designing is done in Visual Studio Report Designer. It generates a class which embodies the
Report Definition.
Report processing – The processing includes binging the report definition with data from the report data source. It
performs on all grouping, sorting and filtering calculations. The expressions are evaluated except the page header, footer
and section items. Later it fires the Binding event and Bound event. As a result of the processing, it produces Report
Instance. Report instance may be persisted and stored which can be rendered at a later point of time.
Report Rendering – Report rendering starts by passing the Report Instance to a specific rendering extension (HTML or
PDF formats). The instance of reports is paged if paging supported by output format. The expressions of items are
evaluated in the page header and footer sections for every page. As a final step, the report is rendered to the specific
output document.

How SSRS works?

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 [SSRS [SQL SERVER REPORTING SERVICES]] February 23, 2017

Features
 Relational, multidimensional, XML, and custom data sources - Build reports using data from any data source type
that has a Microsoft .NET Framework managed data provider, OLE DB provider, or ODBC data source.
 Tabular, matrix, chart, and free-form report layouts - Create tabular reports for column-based data, matrix reports
for summarized data, chart reports for graphical data, and free-form reports for everything else.
 Ad hoc reports - Create and save reports on the fly and save them locally or publish them directly to a report
server or SharePoint site, where they can be managed like other reports. Ad hoc reporting is supported through
report models and report templates.
 Drill through reports and interactivity - Add interactive features by providing links to sub reports and drill through
reports. Use parameters to filter data for customized views.
 Presentation formats - Choose a presentation format when you open the report, or after you open the report.
You can choose Web-oriented, page-oriented, and desktop application formats.
 Custom controls and report items - You can embed custom controls or report items that you create or purchase
from a third-party vendor. A custom control requires a custom report processing extension.
 Navigation - You can add bookmarks and document maps to provide navigation options within a large report.
 Aggregations - You can aggregate and summarize data using controls and expressions.
 Graphical elements - You can embed or reference images and other resources, including external content.

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 [SSRS [SQL SERVER REPORTING SERVICES]] February 23, 2017

Reporting Services includes the following core components:

 A complete set of tools that you can use to create, manage, and view reports.
 A Report Server component that hosts and processes reports in a variety of formats. Output formats include
HTML, PDF, TIFF, Excel, CSV, and more.
 An API that allows developers to integrate or extend data and report processing in custom applications, or create
custom tools to build and manage reports.

Type of SSRS reports

1. Parameterized reports - A parameterized report uses input values to complete report or data processing. With a
parameterized report, you can vary the output of a report based on values that are set when the report runs.

2. Linked reports - A linked report is a report server item that provides an access point to an existing report. Conceptually,
it is similar to a program shortcut that you use to run a program or open a file.

3. Snapshot reports - A report snapshot is a report that contains layout information and query results that were retrieved
at a specific point in time.

4. Cached reports - A cached report is a saved copy of a processed report. Cached reports are used to improve performance
by reducing the number of processing requests to the report processor and by reducing the time required to retrieve large
reports. They have a mandatory expiration period, usually in minutes.

5. Ad hoc reports - A clickthrough report is a report that displays related data from a report model when you click the
interactive data contained within your model-based report.

6. Clickthrough reports – Clickthrough reports are auto generated. However, you can create an alternative customized
report to the model for interactive data items that is displayed instead. The custom report is a standard Reporting Services
report.

7. Drilldown reports - Drilldown reports initially hide complexity and enable the user to toggle conditionally hidden report
items to control how much detail data they want to see. Drilldown reports must retrieve all possible data that can be
shown in the report.

8. Drillthrough reports - Drillthrough reports are standard reports that are accessed through a hyperlink on a text box in
the original report. Drillthrough reports work with a main report and are the target of a drillthrough action for a report
item such as placeholder text or a chart.

9. Subreports - A subreport is a report that displays another report inside the body of a main report. Conceptually, a
subreport is similar to a frame in a Web page.

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