Shared Schedules and Custom Schedules

Reporting Services provides shared schedules and report-specific schedules to help you control processing and distribution of reports. The difference between the two types of schedules is how they are defined, stored, and managed. The internal construction of the two types of schedules is the same. All schedules specify a type of recurrence: monthly, weekly, or daily. Within the recurrence type, you set the intervals and range for how often an event is to occur. The type of recurrence pattern and how those patterns are specified is the same whether you create a shared schedule or a report-specific schedule.

Comparing Shared and Report-Specific Schedules

Both types of schedules yield the same output and have an almost identical composition in how they specify dates, times, and duration.

  • Shared schedules are portable, multipurpose items that contain ready-to-use schedule information. You create a shared schedule once, and then reference it in a subscription or property page when you need to specify schedule information. Shared schedules can be centrally managed, paused, and resumed. Because shared schedules are system-level items, creating a shared schedule requires system-level permissions. For this reason, a report server administrator or content manager typically creates the shared schedules that are available on your report server. Shared schedules are stored and managed on the report server by using Report Manager.

  • Report-specific schedules are defined in the context of an individual report, subscription, or report execution operation to determine cache expiration or snapshot updates. These schedules are created inline when you define a subscription or set report execution properties. You can create a report-specific schedule if a shared schedule does not provide the frequency or recurrence pattern that you need. To prevent a report from running, you must edit a report-specific schedule manually. Report-specific schedules can be created by individual users.

For more information, see Scheduling Reports, Shared Datasets, and Subscriptions.