Verify a Reporting Services Installation

Article
03/22/2023

Reporting Services report servers can be installed in one of two modes, Native or SharePoint. The steps you should follow for verifying the installation depend on the report server mode.

Note

Reporting Services integration with SharePoint is no longer available after SQL Server 2016.

Verify SharePoint Mode Installation

To verify the Reporting Services Service

From SharePoint central administration, click Manage services on server in the System Settings group.
Verify the SQL Server Reporting Services Service is installed and in the Running state.

If you do not see the Reporting Services service in the list, verify the service is installed. For more information, see Install the first Report Server in SharePoint mode.

To verify the Service Application

To verify from Central Administration you have at least one Reporting Services service application, click Manage Service Applications in the Application Management group.
Verify there is a service application of type SQL Server Reporting Services Service Application and a corresponding application proxy.
Click near the name of the service application and then click Properties in the SharePoint toolbar. If you click the name of the service application it will open the Management pages of the service application, not the properties page.
Verify the Web Application Association is configured to point to the desired web application.

To verify the Site collection Feature

In site settings, click Site collection Features in the Site Collection Administration group.
Verify the Report Server Integration Feature is active.

To Verify Reporting Server content types

To verify or add Reporting Services report server content types, see Add Reporting Services Content Types to a SharePoint Library.

To verify you can launch Report Builder

From a document library, click Documents in the SharePoint ribbon.
Click New Document and click Report Builder Report. If you do not see this option, review the previous procedure on adding the report server content types to a library.

Create a basic report

In a SharePoint document library, create a basic Reporting Services report that only contains a text box, for example a title. The report does not contain any data sources or datasets. The goal is to verify you can open Report Builder and a basic report will preview.
Save the report to the document library and the run the report from the library. For more information on creating reports with Report Builder, see Start Report Builder.

Reporting Services samples

Complete one of the Reporting Services tutorials. For more information, see Reporting Services Tutorials (SSRS).
Download the Adventure works sample database and the Reporting Services sample reports from GitHub. For more information, see AdventureWorks sample databases.

Verify a Native Mode Installation

When you install a Native mode report server using the default configuration, Setup installs and deploys the server. You can verify whether Setup deployed the report server by performing a few simple tests. You must be a local administrator to perform these steps. To enable other users to perform testing, you must configure report server access for those users.

To verify that the report server is installed and running

Run the Reporting Services Configuration tool and connect to the report server instance you just installed. The Web Service URL page includes a link to the Report Server Web service. Click the link to verify you can access the server. If the report server database is not configured, do that first before clicking the link.
Open the Services console applications and verify that the Report Server service is running. To view the status of the Report Server service, click Start, point to Control Panel, double-click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Services. When the list of services appears, scroll to Report Server (MSSQLSERVER). The status should be Started.
Open a browser and type the report server URL in the address bar. The address consists of the server name and the virtual directory name that you specified for the report server during setup. By default, the report server virtual directory is named ReportServer. You can use the following URL to verify report server installation: https://<computer name>/ReportServer*<_instance name>*. The URL will be different if you installed the report server as a named instance. For more information about the URL format, see Configure Report Server URLs (Report Server Configuration Manager). If you are a local administrator on Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008, see Configure a Native Mode Report Server for Local Administration (SSRS).
Run reports to test report server operations. For this step, you can create a sample report from a tutorial. For more information, see Create a Basic Table Report (SSRS Tutorial).

To verify that the web portal is installed and running

Open a browser and type the Web Portal URL in the address bar. The address consists of the server name and the virtual directory name that you specified for the web portal during setup or in the Web Portal URL page in the Reporting Services Configuration tool. By default, the web portal virtual directory is Reports. You can use the following URL to verify the web portal installation:

https://<computer name>/Reports*<_instance name>*.
Use the web portal to create a new folder or upload a file to test whether definitions are passed back to the report server database. If these operations are successful, the connection is functional.

For more information, see Web Portal (SSRS Native Mode).

To verify that Report Designer is installed and running

Open SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT), and create a new project based on a Report Server project type. For more information on using the Report Server Project Wizard, see Reporting Services in SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT).
If you installed report samples, open the sample report project files and publish the reports to a report server.