Share via

Create a detailed report with Report Designer

  • Article

TFS 2017 | TFS 2015 | TFS 2013

This article describes how to track your team's progress by creating reports that contain detailed information from Visual Studio Application Lifecycle Management. For example, you can create a report that includes details such as titles of work items. To create this type of report, you can use SQL Server's Report Designer and the relational database of the Azure DevOps data warehouse.

After you create your first report, you might change it by experimenting with different data and layouts. For example, you could group the table by the Assigned To field.

If you haven't created reports for Azure DevOps before, see Dashboards and reports. For more information about how to use Report Designer, see the Microsoft Web site: Designing and Implementing Reports Using Report Designer. To create reports that primarily show aggregate information, see Create an aggregate report using Report Designer and the Analysis Services Cube.

Prerequisites

  • You must have Visual Studio and SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio installed on the same computer.

    To install Business Intelligence Development Studio, run the Setup program for SQL Server, and select the Client Components check box when you specify the components to install. To install the most recent service pack for SQL Server, see the following page on the Microsoft Web site: How to obtain the latest service pack for SQL Server 2008.

  • You must be a member of the TfsWarehouseDataReaders security role in the Analysis Services database on the data-tier server of Azure DevOps. For more information, see How to: Grant Access to the Databases of the Data Warehouse.

  • You must be a member of the Azure DevOps Content Manager role in SQL Server Reporting Services. For more information, see Add accounts to administer Azure DevOps.

Create a report

  1. In Visual Studio, create or open a Report Server project. For more information, see Create a Report Server Project.

  2. On the Project menu, select Add New Item.

    The Add New Item dialog box appears.

  3. Select Report Wizard, and then select Add.

    The Report Wizard opens to the Select Data Source page.

  4. Select the TFS2010ReportDS shared data source, and then select Next.

    Even though you might have installed or upgraded to TFS 2013, these names, which were assigned to the data sources for TFS 2010, are in use.

    The wizard advances to the Design the Query page.

    Note

    The data source that you specify connects to the relational database from the Azure DevOps data warehouse. For more information, see Choose the source of data and authoring tool. If your project does not have this data source, create it. For more information, see Create a Report Server Project.

  5. Select Query Builder.

    The Query Build dialog box appears.

Create the query that will retrieve the data

  1. Select Generic Query Designer on the query builder toolbar to enable the query designer.

  2. Select Add Table on the query builder toolbar.

    The Add Table dialog box appears.

  3. Select the Current Work Item table, and then select Add.

  4. Select the Work Item table, and then select Add.

    This table contains the Work Item dimension.

  5. Select the Person table, select Add, and then select Close.

    This table contains the Person dimension. The fact table for current work items has foreign keys to this table for the Assigned To, Changed By, and Created By fields.

  6. In the Work Item table, select the check boxes for System_Title and System_State.

  7. In the Person table, select the check box for Person.

  8. In the query pane, delete the clauses that use Changed By and Created By so that you now have the following query.

    SELECT Person.Person, [Work Item].System_State  
FROM   [Current Work Item] INNER JOIN  
       [Work Item] ON [Current Work Item].[Work Item] =  
       [Work Item].__ID INNER JOIN  
       Person ON [Current Work Item].[Assigned To] = Person.__ID

  9. Select Run on the query builder toolbar to verify that the query works, and then select OK.

    The Query Builder is closed, and the Design the Query page of the Report Wizard reappears.

Design the report layout

  1. Select Next.

    The wizard advances to the Report Type page.

  2. Select Tabular, and then select Next.

    The wizard advances to the Design the Table page.

  3. Select System_Title, and then select Details.

  4. Select Person, and then select Details.

  5. Select System_State, select Group, and then select Next.

    The wizard advances to the Choose the Table Layout page.

  6. Select the layout options that you prefer, and then select Next.

    The wizard advances to the Choose the Table Style page.

  7. Select any style, and then select Next.

    The wizard advances to the Completing the Report page.

  8. Type a name for the report, select Preview Report, and then select Finish to create the report.

    The wizard closes, and the report document window appears with the Preview tab active.

Deploy the report

  1. In Solution Explorer, select the report.

  2. On the Build menu, select Deploy ReportName.

    To successfully deploy the report, your project settings must be set to appropriate values. For more information, see Create a Report Server Project.

Table reference for the relational warehouse database