Denny Lee » Reporting Services

How to Connect Report Builder 3.0 to a SQL Server 2012 PowerPivot workbook

dennyglee — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 15:32:17 +0000

With the upcoming release of SQL Server 2012, the new and cooler way to connect to a PowerPivot workbook within SharePoint is to use Power View which addresses the concept of Self Service Reporting (similar to how PowerPivot addresses Self Service BI). I even have a cool YouTube video showing how to connect Power View to Hadoop on Azure: http://dennyglee.com/2012/02/10/connecting-power-view-to-hadoop-on-azurean-awesomesauce-way-to-view-big-data-in-the-cloud/

Why Report Builder 3.0 when there is Power View?

Nevertheless, there are some situations where SQL Server 2008 R2 tool – Report Builder 3.0 – can still be quite helpful. For example, if you need to export out the values from your table or overlay the report on top of a map, you can do this in Report Builder 3.0 (but not in Power View – at least not yet).

Changes for SQL Server 2012

For SQL Server 2008 R2, to install Report Builder 3.0 with SharePoint 2010, there were a number of manual steps on how to do this. For more information, check out: PowerPivot for SharePoint: Single Server Installation. The good news is that the installation is easier for SQL Server 2012 because Report Builder is a stand-alone install package that does not require server.

But, it is a little more complicated to make a connection to a PowerPivot workbook from Report Builder 3.0 as the “create the report” option is for Power View (the middle icon, left is the Excel report, right is the Data Refresh).

So how do I connect Report Builder 3.0 to a SQL Server 2012 PowerPivot workbook?

Software Involved:

SQL Server 2012
SharePoint 2010 Enterprise SP1
Report Builder 3.0 (SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services version)
PowerPivot V2 (SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services version)

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1) For starters, download and install the SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services version of Report Builder 3.0. http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=29072

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2) Configure SharePoint 2010 to allow the management of content types (in some cases, this is already configured).

Using your browser, go to the SharePoint library that you want to configure (e.g. PowerPivot Gallery)
Go to the SharePoint 2010 Library ribbon and click on Library Settings

Click on Advanced Settings which is under the General Settings frame
Under Content Types, ensure that the Allow management of content types is set to Yes.

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3) Include Report Data Source is included in the available Content Types.

From the SharePoint 2010 Library ribbon, click on Library Settings in the same SharePoint library (e.g. PowerPivot Gallery)
Under the Content Types frame, click on Add from existing site content types. The Select Content Types dialog appears, add the Report Data Source (scroll down to it in the “Available Site Content Types”) and click Add.

When you are done, under the Content Types frame, you should see the Report Data Source now available.

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4) Now that you have configured the availability of the Report Data Source content type, go back to the SharePoint 2010 Library ribbon, click on Documents, and then click on New Document. Now you can click on Report Data Source.

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5) The new document page (for a data source) will appear as noted below. They data source parameters to configure are:

Data Source Type: Since you are connecting to a SQL Server 2012 PowerPivot workbook (that you have already uploaded to SharePoint library), the data source type is Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services.

The Connection String is in the format of:

Data Source=http://server/PowerPivot%20Gallery/PowerPivot%20Workbook.xlsx.

Note the use of %20 to replace any spaces. In the example below, the connection string is:

Data Source=http://intranet.contoso.com/SelfService%20BI/PowerPivot%20Mobile%20Hive%20Sample.xlsx.

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6) Now that you have created a Report Data Source, you can now connect Report Builder 3.0 to it.

Open up Report Builder 3.0 (from the Start menu) and it will give you the Getting Started dialog

Click on you’re the Wizard of your choice to start creating your report. With a new table or matrix, Report Builder will first ask for you to create a dataset or choose an existing dataset. Since it’s your first time, choose the default of create a dataset and click Next.
Because you had already created a Report Data Source in Step 5, click on Browser, and go to the location of your report data source (e.g. http://server/PowerPivot%20Gallery). Click to open it.

Now that you’ve chosen your data source

Click Next and you’re back to familiar territory of Designing your Query in Report Builder 3.0. To know more about how to work with Report Builder, check out the primer Getting Started with Report Builder 3.0.

Discussion

From the Report Builder application, you can create maps, charts, and/or tables which can also be exported as noted in the screenshot below.

Now that I have built my Report Builder 3.0 report, I can upload it to SharePoint (like any other document). When you click to Save the report, by default it will connect to the SharePoint farm you were originally connected to.

In this case, I have saved the report in my PowerPivot Gallery; when I go back to it, I can access the Report Builder report I had just created. And just like in the stand-alone application, from SharePoint I can export the table values of my Report Builder report.

Final

I hope this How to guide has been helpful on how to connect Report Builder 3.0 to a SQL Server 2012 PowerPivot workbook. And thanks to Robert Bruckner for setting me straight on some of this stuff, eh?!

Enjoy!
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Reference documents

Connecting Power View to Hadoop on Azure–An #awesomesauce way to view Big Data in the Cloud

dennyglee — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:00:15 +0000

The post Connecting PowerPivot to Hadoop on Azure – Self Service BI to Big Data in the Cloud provided the step-by-step details on how to connect PowerPivot to your Hadoop on Azure cluster. And while this is really powerful, one of the great features as part of SQL Server 2012 is Power View (formerly known as Project Crescent). With Power ‘View, the SQL Server BI stack extends the concept of Self Service BI (PowerPivot) to Self service Reporting.

Above is a screenshot of the Power View Mobile Hive Sample that is built on top of the PowerPivot workbook created in the Connecting PowerPivot to Hadoop on Azure blog post. But taking a different medium, the steps to create a Power View report with Hadoop on Azure source can be seen in the YouTube video below.

Power View Report to Hadoop on Azure

Enjoy!

SQL Server Reporting Services Disaster Recovery Case Study

dennyglee — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:56:56 +0000

There are many ways to perform disaster recovery with Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). Based upon customer experience and internal testing, this technical note provides guidance around best practices to design and manage robust end-to-end disaster recovery (DR). This DR method will involve both automatic and manual failover in the form of content switches, SQL Server failover clustering, and database mirroring. This case study focuses on the lessons learned from CareGroup Healthcare System.

To read more, please go to SQL Server Reporting Services Disaster Recovery Case Study.

Reporting Services, Report Builder, and ReportViewer Controls

Denny Lee — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 06:35:14 +0000

I had been asked a number of times what is the difference between Reporting Services, Report Builder, and ReportViewer Controls, so here’s a quick recap:

Reporting Services: This is the server-based reporting platform as part of the Microsoft BI stack that allows you to create reporting solutions against multiple data sources. More information can be found at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms159106.aspx. As part of the Visual Studio 2008 Business Intelligence Development Studio, you can create your reports in a development shell which ultimately creates Repot Definition Language (RDL).
Report Builder 2008: Report Builder is an Office-like tool that allows you to create reports with all of the functionality of BIDS (graphs, tables, etc.) but with more pivot-like functionality. More information can be found at: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9f783224-9871-4eea-b1d5-f3140a253db6&displaylang=en. RB will also create 2008 formatted RDL.
ReportViewer Control: These controls are part of Visual Studio 2008 to develop ASP.NET web-based applications. These controls create a different form of report definition language (client) called RDLC. You can convert RDLC to RDL as noted in this page: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms252109(VS.80).aspx. But, note that Visual Studio 2008 ReportViewer Control is compatible to 2005 RDL while Report Builder 2.0 and SSRS 2008 (Visual Studio Business Intelligence Development Studio) generate 2008 RDL which are not compatible with each other because SSRS 2008 has a new rendering engine that utilizes Tablix.

Just in case you’re interested in Reporting Services enterprise scalability, check out the Building and Deploying Large Scale SQL Server Reporting Services Environments Technical Notes series at sqlcat.com.

Reporting Services, Report Builder, and ReportViewer Controls

dennyglee — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 06:35:14 +0000

I had been asked a number of times what is the difference between Reporting Services, Report Builder, and ReportViewer Controls, so here’s a quick recap:

Reporting Services: This is the server-based reporting platform as part of the Microsoft BI stack that allows you to create reporting solutions against multiple data sources. More information can be found at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms159106.aspx. As part of the Visual Studio 2008 Business Intelligence Development Studio, you can create your reports in a development shell which ultimately creates Repot Definition Language (RDL).
Report Builder 2008: Report Builder is an Office-like tool that allows you to create reports with all of the functionality of BIDS (graphs, tables, etc.) but with more pivot-like functionality. More information can be found at: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9f783224-9871-4eea-b1d5-f3140a253db6&displaylang=en. RB will also create 2008 formatted RDL.
ReportViewer Control: These controls are part of Visual Studio 2008 to develop ASP.NET web-based applications. These controls create a different form of report definition language (client) called RDLC. You can convert RDLC to RDL as noted in this page: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms252109(VS.80).aspx. But, note that Visual Studio 2008 ReportViewer Control is compatible to 2005 RDL while Report Builder 2.0 and SSRS 2008 (Visual Studio Business Intelligence Development Studio) generate 2008 RDL which are not compatible with each other because SSRS 2008 has a new rendering engine that utilizes Tablix.

Reporting Services Performance Optimization

Denny Lee — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 07:21:15 +0000

The final technical note as part of the Building and Deploying Large Scale SQL Server Reporting Services Environments technical note series on Reporting Services Performance Optimization has just been published at Reporting Services Performance Optimization.

This technical note provides guidance on the reasons to use 64-bit, how to handle large workloads, Monitoring Reporting Services (which includes a link to a sample SSRS project to view the ExecutionLog2 view), and Memory Configurations.

Enjoy!

Reporting Services Performance Optimization

dennyglee — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 07:21:15 +0000

Enjoy!

ExecutionLog2 View – Analyzing and Optimizing Reports

Denny Lee — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:23:45 +0000

An excellent blog explaining the ExecutionLog2 view within Reporting Services has been written by Robert Bruckner at: http://blogs.msdn.com/robertbruckner/archive/2009/01/05/executionlog2-view.aspx

Quoted from Robert:

Before you can optimize particular reports or your entire system, you need metrics and understand what they tell you. In this posting, I want to focus on how to effectively interpret and utilize the data present in the new ExecutionLog2 view in the Reporting Services 2008 catalog database.

ExecutionLog2 View – Analyzing and Optimizing Reports

dennyglee — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:23:45 +0000

An excellent blog explaining the ExecutionLog2 view within Reporting Services has been written by Robert Bruckner at: http://blogs.msdn.com/robertbruckner/archive/2009/01/05/executionlog2-view.aspx

Quoted from Robert:

Technet Webcast: Building SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 Large-Scale Solutions

Denny Lee — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 01:30:08 +0000

Check out my Technet webcast on Building SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 Large-Scale Solutions.

In this webcast, you learn about successful configuration and architecture principles to maximize the scalability of your enterprise Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services (SSRS) environment. Join us as we provide you details, based on real customer scenarios, on how to make the most of your SSRS 2008 environment.

Have fun!