Overview of Reporting Services for SQL Server

Generating reports out of SQL Server data cubes was never so easier before the birth of SQL Server Reporting Services. These services offer much more flexibility and features to generate reports in various formats and in very little time. Report subscription is one more new feature added to the list.
I would like to discuss brief overview of the Reporting services in this blog.
Reporting Services:
With tones of historical data available in the organization, it becomes very difficult to use it intelligently and wisely. This information can be used to identify various trends in the organization. It is definitely useful in improving the efficiency and effectiveness within the organization. This is why Business Intelligence (BI) is a buzz word today.
Reporting Services enable employees at all levels of an organization to realize the promise of BI to promote better decision making.
Delivered through:
· Traditional and interactive reports
· Scalable, manageable and embeddable server infrastructure
· Integration with SharePoint, Office applications, browser and other familiar tools
· Single platform and tools for all types of structured data
Some of the key points are:
· Server based reporting engine.
· Creates tabular, matrix, graphical and free form reports.
· Reports are viewed over the web.
· Easily integrate into existing applications.
· Report designer very similar to MS Access.
· Standardized Report Definition Language (RDL).

Following are some the mail report formats supported by Reporting Services:
· HTML3.2 & HTML4.0
· TIFF
· Acrobat (PDF)
· Web Archive File (MHTML)
· Microsoft Excel
· Comma Separated File (CSV)
· HTML With Office Web Components
· XML File with Report Data.




It is also important here to understand the Reporting Life Cycle. The life cycle is divided into 3 parts as Authoring, Management and Delivery.

Authoring
· It is basically the process of creating report definitions through the use of Report Authoring Tools.
· Authoring tools transform the report design into a report definition based on Report Definition Language (RDL).
· The Report Definition contains layout, connection and query information.
· Report Designer can be used within VS.NET.

Management
· Report Definitions, folders, and resources are published and managed as a Web Service.
· Managed Reports can be executed either on demand or a specified schedule.
· Reports can be cached for consistency and performance.
· Report Manager is web-based report access and management tool.

Delivery
· Basically two methods are available such as: on-demand access and Push Subscription.
· For on-demand delivery, user normally selects the report using Report Manager.
· Push subscriptions automatically generate the report as per schedule and store reports to a destination.
· Report Delivery can be automated by using mails, file system or custom delivery options.

Report Processions Flow:

The Intermediate format can be used in variety of ways like: caching, snapshot, history etc. When a report is accessed, the Report Server decides whether to generate the report from the scratch or used cached report. This blog is just to introduce reporting services. I am planning to write about each feature in detail.

Cheers,Amol