Using Visual Studio instead of Report Designer

  • When I'm on the SSRS server using a browser to browse all of the reports we have, I can click on the corner of a report and choose "Edit in Report Builder". It will open the report using the the Designer and I don't have to save the file anywhere to make any edits.  When I'm done, I can click on the Save button and it will save it on the server itself.

    Is there anyway to make Visual Studio connect to that same instance of SSRS so that I can browse the reports, make edits and then click on the save button without having to save all of the .rdl files out to my local machine or to a network share?  If I do that, I'd have to upload it manually after I was done making changes and I'd prefer not to have to go through that extra step.

    I already have SSDT and the extension in place to where I can create reporting services projects but when I do that, it's saving them to a file structure instead of the SSRS server and I'd have to manually do an upload to make the report available.

    I'm looking for a way to make VS2017 connect to SSRS the same way that the Report Designer connects to it to edit existing reports.

  • No - there isn't a way to make Visual Studio work the same as Report Builder...and you really don't want to do that.  The benefit of using SSDT is that you can create projects that include many reports - and solutions that include many projects and implement source control as needed.

    Deploying a report or project from SSDT is quite simple - you can deploy the full project, or just individual reports.  To deploy - you need to define the destination information in the project properties, but once that is done you can easily deploy the report(s) just by right-click and deploy.

     

    Jeffrey Williams
    “We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

    ― Charles R. Swindoll

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