We've gearing up for a potential Cloud Server Migration as our In-House Server is aging and its capabilities are now being limited vs latest technologies. However, one constraint I'm looking at is the problem of Migrating our Power BI Report Server's reports.
In the past, I was able to migrate from SSRS to Power BI Report Server with the help of a script that automatically backups all Reports in the Server while also populating them in the same Folder Structure as they were in the Server.
I've done some extensive research but I haven't seen any similar approach for Power BI and I was wondering if anyone else have encountered the same problem and/or have a solution for it.
I found a Question posted here on Stackoverflow that is centered for SSRS but somehow also works for Power BI Server. You just need to install this PowerShell Extension and fire the script away.
The only issue here is that it only backs up paginated reports (.rdl) and not .pbix or Graphical Reports.
I've read that TFS supports SSRS and VSTS supports Power BI but I have not found any meaningful comparison on the actual reports or their usefulness. Nor about which might have different or better dashboards. Anyone know of any?
A quick Google search shows up with this link for Dashboards and reports for VSTS and TFS. Shows Power BI, SSRS reports, and indicates which ones are exclusive to the platforms.
https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/docs/report/overview
As for usefulness, that all depends on your organization and is a bit subjective because of how each org uses reports.
Were still using Reporting Services for SQL2008 (not SP2). I recently started using report builder 2.0, but it looks like report builder isn't able to modify data models - and VS2010 lacks business intelligence features. My question is: Have data models been depreciated? If not, what is the current tool for managing them? I have new reports to write so I'm trying to think ahead. Can datasets be used, and access controled, for ad-hoc reporting?
There isn't a way to modify the report models using vs2010 you would still have to have vs2008 BIDS installed to be able to modify these. It looks like reports models may be depreciated from SQL 2012 (http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/sqlreportingservices/thread/0d0650d1-6d40-4d12-a471-54fb29b3356d).
If you starting a new project then personally I would look at using shared data sets based on views or stored procedures as these will be a lot easier to maintain and use. You can then use the permissions on these to control who has access to what.
I have an Access db file, and I need to slice and dice the data for various reports that my boss wants.
Is Microsoft Reporting Services a tool that is appropriate for this kind of activity?
If so, would I import the Access data in SQL Server, then the reporting services is a tool that works on SQL Server, allowing the report builder to build custom reports?
SSRS is great for what your trying to do if you wish to stick with Micrsoft tech.
SQL Server Express Adv edition comes with report server. There are plenty of guides out there for install / set up but once going you can use a little application called Report Builder that lets you design the layout of the reports themselves.
Reporting server esentially generates reports from templates you produce in report builder app.
The free edition of report server that comees with SQL Express Adv can export reports into three types, word files, excell or PDFs and does a very good job at it. It also exposes a webservice with a whole myrad of web methods thats very very usefull. ASP.Net also has a control which you can drop into your apps which will render a report.
So in short, yes :)
Hope this helps.
Broad question is: Is there anything Telerik Reporting can do that SSRS (2005) cannot?
Specifics: We're looking to migrate our current Reporting infrastructure from in-house ASP.NET + Crystal (VS Edition) to something else.
Ignoring the cost factor (we have a Telerik license), is there any pros or cons to going with Telerik over SSRS?
Key elements we need are:
generate reports from a custom ASP.NET application
schedule reports
email reports on demand or on a schedule
pdf output, drilldown html
massage the dataset in C# before passing it to the rendering engine
Any experiences or sites that point out advantages or limitations (with either engine) would be greatly appreciated.
SSRS is a server-based reporting system whereas Telerik Reporting is purely an embedded reporting tool. You should compare Telerik Reporting to SSRS ReportViewer control in local processing mode, not the whole SSRS system, unless you intend to use the SSRS server too. I think this is the first question to answer: you should evaluate the pros and cons of using a report server.
The usual reason of choosing embedded reporting is to avoid a server dependency. If you are an application developer and deploy your application to multiple sites, you would have to support multiple SSRS installation in addition to your application. Telerik reports compile to a dll that you can deploy with your application easily.
Generally, server-based SSRS is more feature-rich than Telerik reporting, especially the SSRS 2008 tablix is handy. I think that Telerik Reporting has supported crosstabs only from Q1 2009. It does not support interactive features like drilldown. You should see the known limitations of Telerik reporting and also the substantial improvements in SSRS 2008 compared to SSRS 2005. On the other hand, ReportViewer in local mode understands RDL 2005 only, so you are limited to SSRS 2005 features.
Now, it is easier to look at your requirements.
Generating reports from a custom ASP.NET application
SSRS Server: Microsoft ReportViewer web control configured for remote processing views the reports processed and rendered by an SSRS server
SSRS local mode: Microsoft ReportViewer processes and renders the local RDL 2005 report definitions
Telerik: Telerik ReportViewer processes and renders reports. Reports can be deployed as a single dll with all the resources (images etc.) embedded. This is the strong point of Telerik reporting.
Scheduling reports
SSRS: Server-side feature, not supported in local mode
Telerik : Not supported
Email reports on demand or on a schedule
SSRS : Server-side feature, not supported in local mode
Telerik: Not supported
Pdf output
SSRS: Various output formats in server mode. In local mode, ReportViewer supports only Excel and PDF
Telerik: Various output formats, including pdf
Drilldown html
SSRS Server: Drilldown to a subreport (another RDL report definition) with parameter passing, static urls in report elements
SSRS local mode: Static urls but no interactive features
Telerik: Static urls but no interactive features
Massage the dataset in C# before passing it to the rendering engine
SSRS Server: Supports report datasets defined in RDL, OLEDB compatible
data sources, XML data, Integration Services packages and standard .NET providers
SSRS local mode: This quote is directly from Lachev's book (p.525):
ReportViewer supports two types of
data sources in local processing mode:
a dataset that contains an ADO.NET
DataTable object or an enumerable
collection of business objects.
ReportViewer Windows Forms also
supports binding to instances of
System.Windows.Forms.BindingSource and
to System.Type. Report Viewer Web
server supports binding to an instance
of System.Web.UI.IDataSource.
Telerik: any DataSet or DataView can be set as a datasource at runtime
Given your key elements, and assuming that you are doing internal reporting inside a corporate firewall, I'd definitely recommend using an SSRS server. Try to get one SQL Server 2008 licence or use SQL 2008 Express as a reporting server. But if you absolutely have to use embedded reporting, Telerik is probably a better choice, at least until Microsoft ReportViewer supports RDL 2008 in local mode. This new ReportViewer should be shipped with Visual Studio 2010.
For SSRS, I recommend reading Teo Lachev's Applied Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services. Sample chapters are available at the book's site the and in Google Books.
Telerik Reporting has excellent support too. Developing Telerik reports relies heavily on samples and support forums.
I have also written blog posts on embedded reporting and Telerik Reporting in particular.
Just adding to mika's reply regarding Telerik interactivity:
Their reporting now offers a few interactivity features, namely navigating to a subreport (drill-through), navigate to a bookmark, and navigate to URL. Their current roadmap mentions that they will add interactive sorting and drill-down by the end of 2011. These should bring their reporting product much closer to SSRS in this regard.
I want to add some new information about Telerik's solution.
Some of the things that were previously not supported, such as Scheduling reports and Email reports on demand or on a schedule are now available as part of the Telerik Report Server product. The Report Server comes with the Report Designer mentioned above. More information about if is available here.
One of the main reasons we stopped using SSRS and went with Telerik is because Telerik has much better support across browsers. Naturally, one would not expect MS to provide equal support for a rival product when it comes to browser compatibility.
Since you are planning one doing a web based application this may be a factor.
I first started using Telerik reporting version 2010 Q2 and never had an issue linking reports over a web app to provide drill-down or linking functionality. It was quite simple and intuitive.
Another thing to think about is that SSRS report files which are RDL files, whereas a Telerik report is compiled into your app. If you need to change your report you'll need to recompile and redeploy your app. For RDL files, you simply upload them to the SSRS server. I still prefer Telerik though, even though it means a slightly longer SDLC for a change request.
Another thing that grinds my noodle is that as long as we used SSRS we had to have both VS 2008 and 2010 installed, because VS 2010 does not have support for designing RDL reports like 2008 has (BIDS is basically a scaled down version of VS 2008: Visual Studio 2010 Reporting Services Projects? )
With Telerik we can stick to using VS 2010.
Comment on "Telerik Reporting has excellent support too. Developing Telerik reports relies heavily on samples and support forums.":
No. You're making an assumption. I have created many complex reports without needing any direction from forums/sample/etc - its a very intuitive tool. I am sure there are many developers out there who have been able to do just fine without "heavy" reliance on the forums/samples - its not rocket science, it's cake.
SSRS Local mode is not supported in Azure.
In the latest versions Telerik Reporting have Report Designer that is tool like Report Builder and the report viewer support XML report definitions (trdx). So no compiling is required if you change the reports.