Report Server (where does it stores the reports)

Question

Report Server (where does it stores the reports)

river1

SSC-Insane

Points: 24309
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January 2, 2016 at 10:48 am

#323348

Hi,
I have deployed some reports from ssdt to the report server. I am able to see them through the report manager link.
But I don't know where the reports are stored in the report server. When I deploy the reports from ssdt to report server the process of deployment puts the reports in a folder or the reports are inside the reportServer Database as XML documents?
Thank you,

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Lowell SSC Guru Points: 323518 More actions · Answer 1

your project deploys SSRS reports and other objects(shared data sources, etc) and it stores the reports as xml in the ReportServer.dbo.Catalog table in [Content] column, which is a varbinary column you have to convert.

the folders are a virtual path, you can see lots of details if you select * from that table.

SELECT [Path]

,[Name]

,CONVERT(varchar(max), CONVERT(varbinary(max), [Content])) Content,*

FROM [ReportServer].[dbo].[Catalog]

Lowell

--help us help you! If you post a question, make sure you include a CREATE TABLE... statement and INSERT INTO... statement into that table to give the volunteers here representative data. with your description of the problem, we can provide a tested, verifiable solution to your question! asking the question the right way gets you a tested answer the fastest way possible!

river1 SSC-Insane Points: 24309 More actions · Answer 2

Thank you lowell.

Just two more questions.

1) You say that shared connections are also deployed. What about it the connections are not shared (if they belong just to that report)? How can I change them to point to a new server when I need?

2) You say that the folders are virtual directories. Can you explain please?

Thank you

Lowell SSC Guru Points: 323518 More actions · Answer 3

river1 (1/3/2016)
Thank you lowell.
Just two more questions.
1) You say that shared connections are also deployed. What about it the connections are not shared (if they belong just to that report)? How can I change them to point to a new server when I need?
2) You say that the folders are virtual directories. Can you explain please?
Thank you

creating the connection within each report is not a best practice specifically for when you want to change the server name or database name, or potentially the username/password combo used to access the resources....you have to modify each individual report to point to the new server. i've got hundreds of reports, but i bet only 50 are really used more than once a month. still, to have to modify more than one report, it's repetitive brain deadening function that can be avoided up front.

you can manually create a new shared data source directly from SSRS's web pages, and then edit each report to point to that source...but if someone re-deploys the report, it has the same custom data source instead of the shared one. back to square one again.

you really need to create the shared data source in the project, and change each custom data source to point to the shared.

then you deploy the shared data source as well as all the rdl's.

by virtual directories, i mean that you cannot browse to a directory or unc path, like \\MyreportServer\Reports\MonthEndReports\ . they exist as the [Path] value in the catalog table we talked about, and the SSRS web interface will build the virtual folders for you to see when you browse the reportserver, but they are not what i would call browsable.

Lowell

--help us help you! If you post a question, make sure you include a CREATE TABLE... statement and INSERT INTO... statement into that table to give the volunteers here representative data. with your description of the problem, we can provide a tested, verifiable solution to your question! asking the question the right way gets you a tested answer the fastest way possible!

river1 SSC-Insane Points: 24309 More actions · Answer 4

Grest help. Thsnk you very much. Have a great new year.

MMartin1 One Orange Chip Points: 27795 More actions · Answer 5

After deployment, the shared data source connection is stored, like the reports, to the virtual directory that SSRS deployed to. Here you can change the value of the shared connection source within the virtual directory (inside Internet Explorer) to affect all reports. So in my development work I typically have the share pointing to a test server , and once deployed I change the live shared connection to point to the live server/environment. So the configured value of the shared data connection during development does not matter as much as that all reports are indeed using this shared data connection to begin with.

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