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Prerequisites for tutorials (Report Builder)

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To do the Report Builder tutorials, you need to be able to view and save SQL Server 2016 (13.x) Reporting Services or later (SSRS) paginated reports on a report server or SharePoint site that is integrated with a report server. For data, all tutorials use literal queries that an instance of SQL Server must process.

If you don't have access to a report server or site or to a data source, you can learn about Report Builder by building an offline report. See Tutorial: Create a quick chart report offline (Report Builder).

Requirements

You must have the following prerequisites to complete Report Builder tutorials:

  • Access to Report Builder. You can run Report Builder from a Reporting Services report server or a Reporting Services report server in SharePoint integrated mode. Only the first step, how to open Report Builder, is different on the different servers.

    On a report server, select New > Paginated Report.

    On a report server in SharePoint integrated mode, navigate to the Documents tab. Select New Document, and from the drop-down list, choose Report Builder Report. For example, https://<servername>/sites/mySite/reports. The SharePoint administrator must enable the Report Builder Report feature for each document library.

  • The URL to a Reporting Services report server or a SharePoint site that is integrated with a Reporting Services report server. You must have permission to save and view reports, shared data sources, shared datasets, and models. By default, the URL for a report server is https://<servername>/reportserver. By default, the URL for a SharePoint site is https://<sitename> or https://<server>/site.

  • The name of a SQL Server instance and credentials sufficient for read-only access to any database. The dataset queries in the tutorials use literal data. But a SQL Server instance must process each query to return the metadata that is required for a report dataset. For example, the following connection string specifies only a server: data source=<servername>. You need read access to the default database that is assigned to you by the system administrator who grants you permission to access the server. You can also specify a database, as shown in the following connection string: data source=<servername>;initial catalog=<database>.

  • For the Tutorial: Map report (Report Builder), the report server must be configured to support Bing maps as a background. For more information, see Plan a map paginated report (Report Builder).

  • The Tutorial: Create drillthrough and main reports (Report Builder) tutorial requires access to the Contoso Sales cube.

The report server administrator must grant you the necessary permissions on the report server, configure Reporting Services folder locations, and configure Report Builder default options. For more information, see Install Report Builder.

Next step

More questions? Try asking the Reporting Services forum.