Has anyone found a good workaound for opening or editing an SSRS 2005 report project with Visual Studio 2008 yet?
Will the SQL server 2008 tools be the migration path for these report projects in the future? I really dont want to have to keep VS2005 installed forever just to update SSRS reports.
After an upgrade to VS2008 an existing solution that contains a VS2005 SSRS reports project will not open. From what I understand the SQL Server 2005 tools dont know about VS2008 so they will not integrate into the IDE. So currently I switch back to VS2005 for any updates to this project, and get an error loading project message everytime I open the solution in 2008.
EDIT on solution:
I was able to install the shared component for BDIS from the SQL2008 disc and am now able to open and update my SSRS 2005 .rdl project items within VS2008.
Note to others:
If you edit your SSRS 2005 reports in VS2008 and re-save you will not be able to edit them in VS2005 anymore, or deploy them to a 2005 server. They are up-converted to 2008 report files.
I don't fully understand what kind of "workaround" you want.....
In order to create and edit SSRS report projects in Visual Studio, you basically have two options:
install the "Business Intelligence Development Studio" components from your SQL Server 2008 DVD - this gives you the full suite of visual designers and everything to create and edit RDL files in Visual Studio
learn the RDL spec by heart and open the RDL files as XML and just manually edit those - joking, of course - this is not really an option, is it?
So - what exactly do you want to "work around" then??
Related
Folks.
I am responsible for converting a VS2008 Report Model Project (.SMDLPROJ) into its "equivalent" form under VS2017. Obviously, Report Models are no longer supported under SSDT for VS2017 (otherwise, I wouldn't be posting to this web site). If someone could point me in the right direction it would be most appreciated.
Thank you.
Actually SQL Server 2017 AND 2019 still support report models, BUT you need to deploy them from within a visual studio project (get BIDS from a SQL Server 2008 R2 installation). Trying to upload a .smdl file will fail.
To answer my own question these links should help:
Report model replacement in SQL Server 2016
Report Model SMDL Alternatives in SQL Server 2012
I have SQL Server Management Studio. I've imported an excel file and learned how to write queries on the database. I'm interested in a report templates. I read about SSDT and assume that would be useful to me. When I click on File > New > Project, my options don't include the "Business Intelligence" menu items (i.e. Reporting Services).
The Microsoft page: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/ssdt/download-sql-server-data-tools-ssdt
Where I downloaded SSDT, specifically refers to "Visual Studio." Is that different than Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio? Will SSDT work with SS Management Studio, or do I need to downoad "Visual Studio" as well, or are they one in the same... a bit confused. Thanks for any guidance on this.
Cheers.
Visual Studio and SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) are not the same thing. SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) only works within Visual Studio, and has nothing to do with SSMS. If you want to use what SSDT offers, you will need a compatible version of Visual Studio to do so.
Updated per request:
SSMS is used to do development around the SQL Server stack, where VS is an all around development tool that you can use to build applications in many programming languages.
Is used to be that SSDT was called Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS), and was more of a stand-alone thing; it was really off to the side of the SQL Server stack that business intelligence pros needed to get their work done. Now, with SSDT, MS has made is fit a little more with VS project templates, although you still have to download it separately.
You need SSDT to develop SSRS reports, SSAS cubes and SSIS packages, and it includes tools to help you deploy those things to the appropriate location when you are done with development.
Hope this helps you out!
Actually SSDT will include a scaled back version of Visual Studio that will allow you to create Integration Services packages, including an IDE to create and edit Script Components.
Read about it here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/ssdt/download-sql-server-data-tools-ssdt#installing-ssdt-without-visual-studio-pre-installed
Full disclosure, I had a minimum level of comfort with designing reports in VS 2005 (just enough to get the job done) and recently my computer was changed and I now have SSMS 2016 and VS2015 instead of SSMS 2008 and VS2005.
I can't seem to open my reports, .rdl isn't even a listed file extension. If I go to the directory where the .rdl files are, I can click on them and open with vs 2015, but it just gives me the xml code. So is there any way to import my old reports into VS 2015? I don't even see a place or tool bar to edit/create reports.
I tried to change the installation to include MS SQL Data Tools, but I could not find the package (maybe I have to get it online?)Presumably, I could then edit the design and layout. But right now, I don't even understand what most of the tool bar options are.
So, as for a question - Where do I start? Once I get SQL Data Tools installed, can I edit the layout/design of existing, VS2005 reports and deploy them to our existing Report Manager as I have done in the past with VS 2005? Thanks for helping!
You definitely need to install SQL Server Data Tools for Visual Studio 2015. It looks like this is now available. Without having SSDT installed VS2015 will have no concept of what an RDL file is.
I personally have no experience with VS2015. VS2013 though can open VS2005 reports, and you can deploy them as before,.
Personally I found the old reports now looked a bit messy and I had to reformat a number of them (thought this may not have been necessary - I might just have not liked the way the guy before had coded them)
Is there any way to preview reports in Visual Studio without having to put them in a ReportViewer control, and stopping and relaunching the app anytime I want to make a change to the report? I am creating the reports in Visual Studio to be used by an app I'm building in Lightswitch.
I tried setting up SQL Server Reporting Services, but I encountered permission issues attempting to use the reporting server on my localhost and it seems that a deployment step would still be required to view my reports there anyway. My goal is to make changes to the reports and be able to preview them without a build step. It doesn't take the Lightswitch solution that long to build, I'm just looking to make development more efficient if possible.
I do not think that is possible. It is possible through BIDS though...
The Visual Studio Report Designer is similar to the user interface in
Business Intelligence Development Studio in SQL Server 2008 R2 or
later, except that it does not have the preview functionality and it
saves the reports in .rdlc files rather than .rdl files. For more
information about Report Designer in Business Intelligence Development
Studio, see Reporting Services Reports in SQL Server Books Online.
Report Designer (Visual Studio)
I'm running Visual Studio 2010 SP1 Premium on Windows 7, and am trying to create SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) Reports. I've downloaded the new SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/hh297027 and installed/restarted. If I go into VS Help->About, I can see "Microsoft SQL Server Data Tools 10.3.20225.0" in the list of installed products. However, SSDT doesn't seem to be showing up in the "New Project" window, and if I try to open existing SSRS 2005 reports projects (created in BIDS/VS 2005) it says "'Reports.rptproj' cannot be opened because its project type (.rptproj) is not supported by this version of the application. To open it, please use a version that supports this type of project".
Am I incorrect in my impression that VS/SSDT does not require SQL Server being installed? Is there some other software, package, or step that I'm missing in installing SSDT?
For SQL Server 2012 SSRS, the functionality of BIDS is REPLACED by SSDT. If you are working with SQL Server 2008 R2 (or earlier) SSRS, then you'll want to use BIDS from that version of SQL Server.
When you install SSDT, it includes templates for BI projects (i.e. SSAS, SSIS, SSRS). SSDT can be installed as a stand-alone application, or, if you have VS2010 SP1 on your machine, then SSDT will install inside of VS2010.
For the OLTP (including offline) database projects, there is NO template. Rather there is a new View named 'SQL Server Object Explorer'. For more about the latter, see my blog post.
The new project type is found under Other Languages->SQL Server-> SQL Sever Database Project.
Do not confuse that with the old to be deprecated projects under Database->SQL Server->Advanced
The BIDS part of SSDT is sort of a separate install. (although they've tried making it seem like one install.) See this on information about why one or the other might not be installed:
http://www.jamesserra.com/archive/2012/04/ssdt-installation-confusion/