March 22, 2018 at 10:35 am
Hi all
We've been using Report Builder from the SSRS web-page to produce reports and using Report Parts for standard items (headers, footers, etc.) but we want to start using Visual Studio so we can get the reports into source control.
I can't see any way of using report parts in the Visual Studio report builder.
We've been using report parts so that any changes to the report parts are automatically pushed through to the individual reports as opposed to us going through every report and updating it manually.
Is there any way to use report parts from Visual Studio?
March 22, 2018 at 11:10 am
richardmgreen1 - Thursday, March 22, 2018 10:35 AMHi allWe've been using Report Builder from the SSRS web-page to produce reports and using Report Parts for standard items (headers, footers, etc.) but we want to start using Visual Studio so we can get the reports into source control.
I can't see any way of using report parts in the Visual Studio report builder.
We've been using report parts so that any changes to the report parts are automatically pushed through to the individual reports as opposed to us going through every report and updating it manually.
Is there any way to use report parts from Visual Studio?
You can publish new report parts but you can't search for them and use them in Report Designer like you can with Report Builder. It's more limited in Report Designer. This is the documentation on what you can and can't do -
Report Parts in Report Designer (SSRS)
Creating a template with report parts might be a workaround - you may want to see if that would work for you:
Creating a Custom Report Template in SSRS
Sue
March 26, 2018 at 3:39 am
Thanks Sue, I'll have a look at those links.
The reason for using report parts was so we could have a standard header/footer/colour scheme that we could change in one place and propogate through all our reports.
If we can't use them in Report Designer then I guess we'll have to think of something else.
April 24, 2018 at 7:50 am
richardmgreen1 - Monday, March 26, 2018 3:39 AMThanks Sue, I'll have a look at those links.The reason for using report parts was so we could have a standard header/footer/colour scheme that we could change in one place and propogate through all our reports.
If we can't use them in Report Designer then I guess we'll have to think of something else.
That's why she suggested a report template. Every new report has to start with that template, and you're at least good until one of those "report parts" has to change. That's the danger of becoming dependent on those kinds of reports. Too many, and you have a maintenance nightmare. Reports really should just be reports. Overdoing the formatting to the point of insisting on standardization is the functional equivalent of agreeing in advance that you will maintain that standardization. Get some quality SSRS developers though, and you can have the rough equivalent of "report parts" by having some of the xml that represents headers and footers and such, sitting in source control, as well as in a template report, and the better SSRS devs you have will be able to copy and paste some of that xml where needed, as needed. Be very cautious about standardizing headers and footers - it's too easy for that to become more trouble than it's worth.
Steve (aka sgmunson) 🙂 🙂 🙂
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April 24, 2018 at 8:59 am
Thanks for that.
I'll take a look at the XML and see what we can do.
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