Beginning Microsoft SQL Server 2008 ... - S3 Tech Training

Chapter 17: Reporting for Duty, Sir! A Look At Reporting Services
Deploying the Report
The thing left to do is to deploy the report. As with the Report Model approach, you can right-click the
report in the Solution Explorer and choose Deploy. There is, however, a minor catch; you need to define
the target to deploy to in the project definition.
1. Right-click the Report Server Project and choose Properties.
2. In the TargetServerURL field, enter the URL to your ReportServer. In my case, this may be as
simple as http://localhost/ReportServer, but the server name could be any server you
have appropriate rights to deploy to. (The Virtual Directory may also be something other than
ReportServer if you defined it that way at install.)
After you’ve deployed, you’ll want to view the report. Navigate to your report server (if on the local host
and using the default directory, it would be http://localhost/Reports, just as it was for the Report
Model examples earlier). Click on your report project, and choose your Non Credit Card Orders report.
It will take a bit to come up the first time you load it. (If you navigate back to it again, the report definition
will be cached and thus come up fairly quickly.) You should see your report just as we defined it in
our project.
Summary
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Reporting Services has had a major impact on many SQL Server installations. For many companies, having
a relatively robust reporting server built right into their central data store has been liberating, making it
much easier to disseminate information to data consumers. For other organizations, Reporting Services has
provided an adequate solution to replace long-standing reporting packages such as Crystal Reports. SQL
Server 2008 adds several new features and controls to allow for more elegant and powerful reports, plus
the engine has been redesigned to allow for much higher scalability.
In this chapter, we’ve really only scratched the surface of what’s possible. Reports can be parameterized,
you can embed charts, integrate with other products (such as Microsoft SharePoint Services or Microsoft
Office SharePoint Services), drill through from one report to another, and even embed reports inside of
other reports.
For more information on reporting, I’d suggest a book specific to Reporting Services.