Report Designer
Report Designer is a collection of graphical query and design tools that are hosted within the Microsoft Visual Studio environment. Report Designer provides a Report Data pane to organize data used in your report, and tabbed views for Design and Preview so that you can design a report interactively. Report Designer also provides query designers to help specify data to retrieve from data sources and the Expression dialog to specify report data to use in the report layout.
Report Designer is hosted in the Business Intelligence Development Studio, which is fully integrated with the Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 development environment. If you do not have Visual Studio 2008 installed, SQL Server Setup installs the shell so that you can run Report Designer.
To learn how to create a basic report in Report Designer, see Report Design Basics (SSRS) and Tutorial: Creating a Basic Table Report (SSRS).
Add Report Data
In Solution Explorer, create data connections and datasets for your report. All of the information that the report processor needs to retrieve data is defined by the Report Definition Language (RDL) file. Credentials for the data connections can be managed independently from the report.
Design Reports
Report Designer supports table, matrix, and free-form list reports; charts, gauges, and maps. All of the features that you can add to a report are defined in the RDL file. You can change and save .rdl files directly, or use Report Designer to make changes to a report.
Preview the Report
While designing a report, you can test it locally before publishing it to a report server. When you select the Preview tab, Report Designer runs the report using the same processing and rendering extensions that the report server uses, ensuring that users see the report as it was intended when they run the report. When you are ready to publish your report, use Report Designer to publish the report to a report server.
Publish to a Server
When you publish a report, the report definition (.rdl) file on your hard drive is copied to the report server database. After a report is published, it can be managed and secured independently from the report definition file that you work with in Visual Studio.
To publish a report, you can use the build and deploy commands available through Visual Studio. For more information, see Publishing Data Sources and Reports (SSRS).
View the Report
After you publish a report, Reporting Services provides multiple ways to view a report. You can view the report directly using a browser and Report Manager, create subscriptions for report delivery, or export the report to a different file format such as Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word. For more information, see Finding, Viewing, and Managing Reports (Report Builder 3.0 and SSRS).
Manage the Report
After you publish a report, you can manage reports and their data sources independently. You can create report snapshots, set caching properties, create new sets of parameters for the same report, and change report data sources. For more information, see Report Manager.
See Also