Use Cases for Reporting Services

Overview

• Report Viewer Control
• Reporting Services (Standalone)
• Reporting Services (SharePoint-Integration)
• Reporting Builder

Types of files used

.RDLC No Reporting Services installation required Takes .NET DataSet (object in code) as a data source / dataset. Code change required to update DataSet. Report is generated by the hosted application Can be referenced by Report Viewer Control Requires .NET application Use newest version of Visual Studio to create report User Parameter GUI is manually created by developer on page.

.RDL Requires Reporting Services installation DataSet is defined using GUI, not code No code changes required to update DataSet. Report is generated by Reporting Services Can be referenced by Report Viewer Control .NET application is optional Use Business Intelligence Studio to create report. User Parameter GUI is automatically generated by Reporting Server or manually on page.

Report Viewer Control

• Generates a preview of the report for users
• Allows user to print or save reports in different formats including PDF, HTML, DOC, etc
• Requires a .NET application to host the ASP.NET Server control
• Can use .rdlc and .rdl

Reporting Services (Standalone)

• Useful when wanting to add Reporting Services to a .NET application because permissions can be managed using Active Directory groups/users or using service account (and delegating permissions to the .NET application).
• Serves up .RDL files.
• Generates preview of .RDL files
• Provides UI to manage
• Permissions on report
• Individual accounts
• Active Directory Groups
• Schedule delivery of report
• DataSource

Reporting Services (SharePoint Integration)

• Useful when wanting to add Reporting Services to a SharePoint site because permissions can be managed using SharePoint groups instead of Active Directory groups as with the standalone installation of Reporting Services.
• Serves up .RDL files still done by Reporting Services
• Generates preview of .RDL files still done by Reporting Services
• SharePoint provides the following UI (instead of Reporting Services) to manage
• Permissions on report
• Schedule delivery of report
• DataSource

Report Builder

• Report Builder can be used to edit .RDL files (not .RDLC)
• Report Builder is almost identical in functionality to BIDS (Business Intelligence Development Studio). 
• The most noticeable difference is the lack of Intellisense.
• The UI is also more geared to be more end user vs. developer friendly.
• Report Builder is available as an install or as a ClickOnce installation.

Link on reporting service

Did you receive the error below?

Webpage error details
User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E; Tablet PC 2.0)

Timestamp: Wed, 15 May 2013 22:03:02 UTC

Message: Sys.WebForms.PageRequestManagerParserErrorException: The message received from the server could not be parsed. Common causes for this error are when the response is modified by calls to Response.Write(), response filters, HttpModules, or server trace is enabled.

Details: Error parsing near '

Line: 5
Char: 62099
Code: 0

The cause for me was the following 

The Problem:


I have reporting services installed in SharePoint 201 SP1. I have two reports and they both take parameters. The main report has parameters that use the parameter panel and the user specifies the parameters they want. The second report uses the parameter panel, but it should not since it is taking the parameters from a link on the main report that passes the parameter to the second report. Only one report can use the panel. The Back to the Parent Report link in Reporting Services doesn’t seem to support the scenario where both reports are using the parameter panel.

To reproduce the problem, I did the following.
1. Bring up the main report and run with some parameters.
2. Click the link that takes me to the secondary report.
3. Click the Back to the Parent Report button.
4. Click the link that takes me to the secondary report
This time, the screen redraws and I get the above JavaScript error.


The Solution:

Change the parameter type on the second report to be Hidden. This will cause the parameter to not be shown in the UI when the second report is shown. This will fix the problem. Another solution is for the main report to not have any parameters, but that is usually not feasible since users typically will need to interact with it.



To change the parameter to Hidden do the following:

1. Open the report in Report Builder

2. Go to Report Data |
Parameters and expand the list of parameters

3. Right-click on each of the parameters and do the following

4. Select the Parameter Properties menu item.

5. Under the General tab change the Select parameter visibility radio button to Hidden.