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Publishing Reports to a Report Server

After you have designed and tested a report or set of reports, use Report Designer to publish the reports to a production report server. The process for publishing to a test server and to a production server is the same. In Report Designer in Business Intelligence Development Studio, the terms publish and deploy are interchangeable.

Before you can publish a report, you must have permission to do this. The ability to add content to a report server is determined through role-based security that is defined by your report server administrator. Publishing operations are typically granted through the Publisher role. For more information about required permissions, see Publisher Role and your report server administrator.

Publishing Multiple Reports

When you publish a report project, you publish all reports in that project. Report Designer supports multiple project configurations and provides three configurations by default: DebugLocal, Debug, and Production. You can use the DebugLocal configuration to view reports in a local preview window, the Debug configuration to publish reports to a test server, and the Production configuration to publish reports to a production server. You can also add more configurations. For example, you can add a configuration that publishes reports to a test server.

There are several properties that you can set for a report project configuration.

Property

Description

StartItem

A debug property that contains the name of the report to display in the preview window or in a browser window when the report project is run.

OverwriteDataSources

A deployment property that indicates whether to overwrite an existing data source on the server. Set this to False if you do not want to overwrite the existing data source. Set it to True to republish the data source information to the server.

TargetDataSourceFolder

The name of the folder in which to store the published shared data sources. If you do not specify a folder, the data source is published to the same folder as the report. If the folder does not exist on the report server, Report Designer creates the folder when the reports are published.

When publishing to a report server that is running in native mode, specify the full path of the folder hierarchy starting at the root. For example, Folder1/Folder2/Folder3.

When publishing to a report server that is running in SharePoint integrated mode, use a URL to the SharePoint library. For example, http://<servername>/<site>/Documents/MyFolder.

TargetReportFolder

The name of the folder in which to store the published reports. By default, this is the name of the report project. If the folder does not exist on the report server, Report Designer creates the folder when the reports are published.

When publishing to a report server that is running in native mode, specify the full path of the folder hierarchy starting at the root. If a folder is located within another folder, include the path to the folder that starts at the root. For example, Folder1/Folder2/Folder3.

When publishing to a report server that is running in SharePoint integrated mode, use a URL to SharePoint library. For example, http://<servername>/<site>/Documents/MyFolder.

TargetServerURL

The URL of the target report server. Before you publish a report, you must set this property to a valid report server URL.

When publishing to a report server that is running in native mode, use the URL of the virtual directory of the report server. For example, https://server/reportserver or https://server/reportserver. This is the virtual directory of the report server, not Report Manager. By default, the report server is installed in a virtual directory named "reportserver".

When publishing to a report server that is running in SharePoint integrated mode, use a URL to a SharePoint top-level site or subsite. If you do not specify a site, the default top-level site is used. For example, https://servername, https://servername/site or https://servername/site/subsite.

You can publish to any report server that is the same version as the Report Designer you are using. You can also publish to a later version of the report server. For more information, see Upgrading Reports.

If possible, always publish reports to a secure server that uses an HTTPS connection. Specifying a secure server protects the report definition and authentication data from being intercepted when the report is published.

Build and Deploy

There are three ways to debug or deploy reports in a project:

  • Click Start on the Debug menu.

  • Click the Start button.

  • Press F5.

Two Configuration Manager properties in each project determine how Report Designer runs a report project: the Build property and the Deploy property. All project properties can be accessed through the project property pages. To access these properties, in Solution Explorer, right-click the report project and then click Properties. To open Configuration Manager, click Configuration Manager.

The following table describes these properties.

Setting

Result

Build is selected.

Report Designer builds the report project and reports errors in the Task List window.

Build is not selected.

Report Designer does not build the project; errors are only detected by the report server or preview process.

Deploy is selected.

The reports in the project are published to the report server as defined in the Deployment properties for the project.

Deploy is not selected.

Report Designer displays the report in a local preview window.

For instructions about publishing reports, see:

Publishing a Single Report

If you do not want to publish all reports in a project, you can select to publish a single report. To do this, select a configuration that deploys the report (for example, the Production configuration), right-click the report, and then click Run. The target server URL and folder must be configured as explained earlier in this topic.

Build and Deploy

In addition to running a project or report as described previously in this topic, you can also build or deploy the project or report. These options are available when you right-click a report or project, or view the Build menu for the solution or project. The following table describes these options.

Option

Description

Build

The project or reports are built, but not deployed or displayed. This option can be used to check for errors in the report.

Deploy

The project or reports are built and deployed. If the current configuration builds the reports but does not deploy them, a report is displayed in the Preview window. If the current configuration deploys the report, the report or reports are published to the report server. The difference between Deploy and Start (or Run) is that a browser window is not opened when you use Deploy.