Report Models (SMDL) functionality deprecated/discontinued since SSRS 2016

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Report Models (SMDL) functionality deprecated/discontinued since SSRS 2016

mvanreek 1

I read here :

https://www.eugenechiang.com/2020/09/25/ssrs-semantic-modeling-language-smdl/

that Report Models (SMDL) functionality is deprecated/discontinued since SSRS 2016, or more specific:
the features 'upload' (in Report Manager) and 'manage' (if you click in the Report Manager on ... next to the reportmodel) don't work anymore.
But on the link in above post that should have a workaround, I don't see it.
And also when I googled for SSRS 2016+ deprecated/discontinued features, I found e.g this,

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/reporting-services/discontinued-functionality-sql-server-reporting-services-2019?view=sql-server-ver15

but nowhere I could find something about report models deprecated/discontinued features. If someone does have an official Microsoft-page with that info,please share.

I downloaded SQL+SSRS 2019 DEV editions on my PC and could deploy an existing report model from Visual Studio 2008 to my local-host.
But I doubt how to deploy a report model to a real production SSRS-server, where we won't have any Visual Studio installed (for security reasons).

I know Microsoft's Tabular Model is the replacement for Report Models, but for a legacy solution we have at work, we have to work with these report models for a while still,
and I wonder if this is an impediment to migrate our reporting-solution in SSRS 2012 to SSRS 2016+ ?

I

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Answer 1

Joyzhao-MSFT 15,636

Hi @mvanreek ,
As you see in the document, the report model is already discontinued feature in SQL 2016. There's no workaround to migrate old report models into SQL 2016. Report Model is not so flexible for nowadays requirement. Because for some simple model, you just need to open connection to relational data source and use the data with expressions. And for some complicated models, report model is not strong enough like Multidimensional or Tabular model. So in this scenario, I suggest you replace all report models with Tabular or Multidimensional models.
Best Regards,
Joy

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mvanreek 1 Reputation point

2021-12-27T06:35:26.897+00:00

hi Joyzhao,
In the first place, thanks for your answer.
I checked all pages from SSRS2012+ (so SSRS 2016 to SSRS 2019) for deprecated and discontinued features, but I did not see anything mentioned about SMDL-reportmodels.
What I did see is for example in SSRS2019, this feature is discontinued: "Customized style sheets for HTML Viewer and Report Manager", see:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/reporting-services/discontinued-functionality-to-sql-server-reporting-services-in-sql-server?view=sql-server-ver15
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But if you know were this information is shared by Microsoft (where you work I see), please share.

As I said, our current reporting-solution is based on SSRS 2012 with ReportBuilder and SMDL Report Models, and with this semantic layer end-users
can make their own ad-hoc reports, which are mainly simple lists (e.g.: employee birthday list, list with contact-info (telephone, email) of all employees (per department) etc.,
so nothing analytical (and so no real need for tabular model), Our reporting-solution is part of our SAAS-offering, and customers have created thousands of ad-hoc reports,
so a change from report-model to tabular model would mean that they have to red- all their reports...
Joyzhao-MSFT 15,636 Reputation points

2021-12-27T08:53:22.877+00:00

Reports that were created in any previous version of Reporting Services can be upgraded. This includes the following versions:
SQL Server 2008
SQL Server 2008 R2
SQL Server 2012 (11.x)
SQL Server 2014 (12.x)

In the early official documents, SMDL is no longer recommended and it is recommended to update the report. For update reports, please refer to: Upgrade Reports (SSRS).
mvanreek 1 Reputation point

2021-12-27T23:56:15.797+00:00

thanks again, although it was not an answer to this question, which was about SSRS-2016+ (as a possible target-version for migrating our current SSRS-2012 solution):

I read here :

https://www.eugenechiang.com/2020/09/25/ssrs-semantic-modeling-language-smdl/
that Report Models (SMDL) functionality is deprecated/discontinued since SSRS 2016, or more specific:
the features 'upload' (in Report Manager) and 'manage' (if you click in the Report Manager on ... next to the reportmodel) don't work anymore.
But on the link in above post that should have a workaround, I don't see it.

If in SSRS-2016+ you can't upload a Report Model anymore (so via ' upload' menu in Report Manager), then what to do, what workaround would you recommend (if there is any, besides the one I used on my PC, so deploy via VS2008) ?

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Report Models (SMDL) functionality deprecated/discontinued since SSRS 2016

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