© sqldbatips.com, 2007. All rights reserved.
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Reporting Services Linked Report Generator Installation
2.1 Reporting Services Linked Report Generator Requirements
2.2 Reporting Services Linked Report Generator Tested Environments
3.1 Advanced Options
4.0 Using Reporting Services Linked Report Generator
4.1 Managing Report Servers List
5.0 Troubleshooting Reporting Services Linked Report Generator
7.0 Configuration File Formats
7.2 Report Servers - servers.xml
8.0 Acknowledgements
9.0 Release History
Reporting Services Linked Report Generator is a .NET Windows Forms application that enables automatic generation of linked reports to any number of Reporting Services folders based on a single base report. This can be useful where you have a hierachical folder structure and need to deploy the same report to multiple levels of the folder hierachy at the same time.
To install Reporting Services Linked Report Generator simply unzip RSLinkgen.zip to a folder e.g. C:\RSLinkgen. The following files are included and must be present for the application to work correctly. Note that if upgrading from a previous version, you must at least copy RSLinkgen.exe and RSLinkgen.cfg over the existing files. This ensures that new options are picked up. No other files will change when an update is released unless explicitly stated in the release notes.
In order to run Reporting Services Linked Report Generator you need to have the .NET Framework 1.1 installed.
Reporting Services Linked Report Generator has been tested with the following operating systems and Reporting Services versions
Reporting Services Linked Report Generator is not localized and has only been tested against English versions of Operating Systems and Reporting Services.
The following table details the options available in Reporting Services Linked Report Generator. These options are stored in RSLinkgen.cfg
Tab
|
Setting
|
Description
|
Value
|
General
|
Overwrite Linked Report
|
When set to True, existing linked reports are overwritten without
warning
When set to False, existing linked reports are not overwritten |
True
False (default) |
General
|
Show Properties Dialog
|
When set to True, an additional dialog is shown prior to report
generation to allow modification of the linked report name and description
When set to False, an additional dialog is not shown and linked report generation occurs immediately |
True
False (default) |
General
|
Transfer Report Size Properties
|
When set to True, the following properties are transferred from the
soure report to the linked report : PageHeight, PageWidth, TopMargin,
BottomMargin, LeftMargin and RightMargin
When set to False, these properties are not transferred |
True (default)
False |
General
|
Keep Existing Server Parameters
|
When set to True, a linked report that overwrites an existing linked
report will maintain any customisations to the report parameters made on the
Report Server for the target linked report e.g. custom default parameter values
When set to False, overwriting a linked report will copy the report parameters from the source report |
True (default)
False |
General
|
Authentication Mode
|
The credentials used to connect to a Report Server when generating linked reports. This can be either Windows Integrated Authentication or Basic Authentication. The authentication applied in IIS to the Virtual Directory hosting the ReportServer web service(s) determines what this setting should be. By default during installation of Reporting Services this is set to Windows Integrated Authentication. |
Windows Basic |
The following options cannot be set using the user interface but only via RSLinkgen.cfg
Tab
|
Setting
|
Description
|
Value
|
N/A
|
UseSSLFix
|
When set to True, the fix described in KB 823177 is included in the code path. Set this option to True only if experiencing connection errors when accessing a secure Report Server via SSL | True
False (default) |
In order to use Reporting Services Linked Report Generator you must first
connect to a Report Server. The list of available Report Servers is
managed via the Servers Tab of the Options Form. An overview of the
general steps in using Reporting Services Linked Report Generator is shown
below.
Note : It is recommended to always backup the Report Server database before
running generated scripts against it.
The Reporting Services Linked Report Generator User Interface consists of the following features
The Servers Tab of the Options Form contains a Data Grid control that allows managing of the Report Server definitions. The label column is used in the Reporting Services Linked Report Generator Server drop down list to select a Report Server to connect to. These labels must be unique. The Servername column is used to specify the full URL for the Reporting Services Web Service a label corresponds to. These definitions are stored in the servers.xml configuration file.
Some errors that you might encounter and their resolutions are shown below
<ConfigValues OptionName="UseSSLFix">True</ConfigValues>
If you have any questions or feedback about Reporting Services Linked Report Generator use the links below
Note that it is NOT recommended to alter these files directly. All
changes should be made through the Options form.
User configurable values are highlighted in bold
<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?>
<ConfigOpt xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<ConfigValues OptionName="OverwriteLinkedReport">False</ConfigValues>
<ConfigValues OptionName="ShowPropertiesDialog">False</ConfigValues>
<ConfigValues OptionName="UseSSLFix">False</ConfigValues>
<ConfigValues OptionName="UseBasicAuthentication">False</ConfigValues>
<ConfigValues OptionName="TransferReportSize">True</ConfigValues>
<ConfigValues OptionName="KeepExistingParameters">True</ConfigValues>
<ConfigValues OptionName="FormHeight">442</ConfigValues>
<ConfigValues OptionName="FormWidth">330</ConfigValues>
<ConfigValues OptionName="ServersFile">servers.xml</ConfigValues>
</ConfigOpt><?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<servers>
<server label="SQL2000" reportservice="http://localhost/ReportServer/ReportService.asmx" />
<server label="SQL2005" reportservice="http://localhost/ReportServer/ReportService2005.asmx" />
<server label="SQL2008" reportservice="http://localhost/ReportServer/ReportService2005.asmx" />
</servers>The following assemblies, code samples and books have helped a lot in the building of Reporting Services Linked Report Generator
Date
|
Build
|
Description
|
19/06/2005
|
1.0.0.0
|
Initial public release |
29/03/2006
|
1.0.0.2
|
Added full support for SQL2005, a resizable UI and added a new option that allows the transfer of report size properties from the source report to the linked report |
|
04/01/2007
|
1.0.0.3
|
Added support for Basic Authentication as well as Windows Integrated Authentication |
10/03/2007
|
1.0.0.4
|
Added ability to keep server side report parameters for existing linked reports |
14/03/2007
|
1.0.0.7
|
Added fix for NullReferenceException when enumerating Report Server catalog |
|
24/04/2009
|
1.0.0.8
|
Confirmed support for SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services |
THIS APPLICATION AND INFORMATION ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND/OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE