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Lesson 2: Modifying the Report Data Source Properties

In this lesson, you will use Report Manager to select a report that will be delivered to recipients. The data-driven subscription that you will define will distribute the Adventure Works sample report, Employee Sales Summary. In the steps that follow, you will modify the data source connection information used by the report to get data. Only reports that use stored credentials to access a report data source can be distributed through a data-driven subscription. Stored credentials are necessary for unattended report processing.

To modify the data source properties

  1. Start Report Manager.

  2. Click Home, and then navigate to the folder containing the Adventure Works sample reports. By default, the folder name is AdventureWorks2008R2 Sample Reports. For more information about the sample reports, see Initial Installation (Reporting Services).

  3. Open the Employee Sales Summary sample report, click the Properties tab, and then click Data Sources.

  4. Select A custom data source.

  5. For Connection Type, select Microsoft SQL Server.

  6. Type the following connection string (the following string assumes that the sample database is on a local database server):

    data source=localhost; initial catalog=AdventureWorks2008R2

  7. Click Credentials stored securely in the report server.

  8. Type your user name (use the format domain\user) and password. If you do not have permission to access the AdventureWorks2008R2 database, specify a login that does.

  9. Click Use as windows credentials when connecting to the data source, and then click OK. If you are not using a domain account (for example, if you are using a SQL Server login), do not click this checkbox.

  10. Click Apply.

  11. View the report to verify that the report runs with the credentials you specified. To view the report, click the View tab. Note that once the report is open, you must select an Employee name and then click the View Report button to view the report.

Next Steps

You successfully configured the report to get data using stored credentials. Next, you specify the subscription using the Data-Driven Subscription pages in Report Manager. See Lesson 3: Defining a Data-Driven Subscription.