SSRS 2008 (R2) picks up wrong regional settings

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SSRS 2008 (R2) picks up wrong regional settings

chris.stuart

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Points: 4965
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September 8, 2011 at 2:09 am

#257018

Hi All
I'm having a problem with regional settings in SSMS. I'm creating reports in SSMS which pulls the data from my server. On my PC the settings are set to South Africa English. The date format I prefer is yyyy-mm-dd, which is set on my own PC, and I've also changed this on the server when we installed it.
So, in control panel on the server and my PC, is the regional settings set to SA-Eng, but when I run my report I get the data format back mm/dd/yyyy which is the American (default for SQL Server) way of doing things.
I'm now starting off using SSRS as I want to get rid of Cognos in our environment, but if I have to change the date format every time I create a new report, it will just drive me up the wall! :w00t:
Where do I change Regional settings for SSRS / SSMS?

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Martin Schoombee SSCoach Points: 19128 More actions · Answer 1

chris.stuart (9/8/2011)
Hi All
I'm having a problem with regional settings in SSMS. I'm creating reports in SSMS which pulls the data from my server. On my PC the settings are set to South Africa English. The date format I prefer is yyyy-mm-dd, which is set on my own PC, and I've also changed this on the server when we installed it.
So, in control panel on the server and my PC, is the regional settings set to SA-Eng, but when I run my report I get the data format back mm/dd/yyyy which is the American (default for SQL Server) way of doing things.
I'm now starting off using SSRS as I want to get rid of Cognos in our environment, but if I have to change the date format every time I create a new report, it will just drive me up the wall! :w00t:
Where do I change Regional settings for SSRS / SSMS?

Hi,

You need to look at the report's language property, and set that accordingly. Also have a look at the following...I think it should answer all your questions: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms156493.aspx

chris.stuart SSCarpal Tunnel Points: 4965 More actions · Answer 2

Thanks for starting me off in the right direction, however

On both PC and Server, the regional settings is set to English South Africa. If I look at the report itself for instance, it shows EN-US for language. Where do I set the default for the reports, I dont want to change each and every report when I create new reports. Even MS documentation says that for instance Paper size of the report, it picks up the default of your local settings. The report shows inches, where I PC has nothing ever set to inches.

Surely, somewhere I can change the regional settings for SSRS, seeing that SSRS does not seem to pick up the regionals settings from my PC.

Also might it be a problem on the server, I didnt install the SSRS part on the server, and I'm sure that the DBA, would not have changed any defaults when I installed the SSRS component part.

Martin Schoombee SSCoach Points: 19128 More actions · Answer 3

chris.stuart (9/9/2011)
Thanks for starting me off in the right direction, however
On both PC and Server, the regional settings is set to English South Africa. If I look at the report itself for instance, it shows EN-US for language. Where do I set the default for the reports, I dont want to change each and every report when I create new reports. Even MS documentation says that for instance Paper size of the report, it picks up the default of your local settings. The report shows inches, where I PC has nothing ever set to inches.
Surely, somewhere I can change the regional settings for SSRS, seeing that SSRS does not seem to pick up the regionals settings from my PC.
Also might it be a problem on the server, I didnt install the SSRS part on the server, and I'm sure that the DBA, would not have changed any defaults when I installed the SSRS component part.

Unfortunately there is no default for SSRS afaik. One of the shortcomings of Reporting Services is that it cannot make use of stylesheets like your typical web application would. That makes formatting etc. quite a drag...

My advice to you would be the following:

1. Do not rely on regional settings. Format date fields explicitly...otherwise you may have different results on different servers. You want to make sure that your reports are portable and would work regardless of any regional settings.

2. Create a template report, which contains all the basic formatting you need (including page sizes, basic tablix structures etc.). It would then be as simple as copying the report and using that copy as the base for any new report. This would save a tremendous amount of time.

Hope this helps.

Martin.

chris.stuart SSCarpal Tunnel Points: 4965 More actions · Answer 4

Hi Martin.

Thanks for the response. I was goolging over the weekend and see that there is a few shortcomings in SSRS. But I'll take what you said, and apply it.

I see however that SQL Server also has a default language, and it seems that there is no way of changing the language setting, as it comes with US-EN as standard. I am however changing the default language of the log in user id's and I hope that will sort out some of the hassle.

babylon SSC Journeyman Points: 79 More actions · Answer 5

I added my local language in Internet Explorer (11) Options, General tab, Languages and then my dates appeared correctly.