OakLeaf Systems: PASS Summit: SQL Azure Reporting Services Preview and Management Portal Walkthrough

Saturday, October 22, 2011

PASS Summit: SQL Azure Reporting Services Preview and Management Portal Walkthrough - Part 2

My PASS Summit: SQL Azure Sync Services Preview and Management Portal Demo of 10/19/2011 provided a walkthrough of the new Sync Services Preview. This post, which is based on the SQL Azure Reporting Samples TechNet Wiki article of 2/1/2011 (revised 10/11/2011), provides similar treatment of the SQL Azure Reporting Services Preview.

Update 10/23/2011: Corrected a minor numbering error after step 18.

A Service Release, promised by the end of 2011, will implement release versions of these and the other new SQL Azure features described in my Quentin Clark at PASS Summit: 150 GB Max. Database Size and Live Federation Scaleout for SQL Azure post.

This Part 2 covers:

Setting up a SQL Azure Reporting Services Preview (SQLAzRSP) server
Testing the SQLAzRSP server in a browser
Deploying a sample report from BIDS to the SQL Reporting Services Preview Server
Viewing the sample report in a browser
Exporting and printing the sample report from a browser

Part 3 covers:

Creating a Hosted Service and Storage Account for Your Subscription
Downloading and Installing the SQL Azure Tools for Visual Studio 2010 SP1
Downloading and Opening the SQLAzureReportingPreviewCodeSamples in VS 2010
Displaying the report in a ReportViewer control in a local ASP.NET application
Working Around the Global.config <app settings> Failure
Deleting an Unneeded Web Role and Specifying an Extra-Small Instance
Creating Visual Studio Management Credentials
Deploying the project to a Windows Azure Web role

My PASS Summit: SQL Azure Reporting Services Preview and Management Portal Walkthrough - Part 1 post (updated 10/22/2011) covered:

Obtaining a Windows Azure Platform Subscription
Creating a SQL Azure Web server instance
Downloading the files for and creating the AdventureWorksLTAZ2208R2 SQL Azure database
Opening a SQL Azure database in SQL Server Management Studio 2008 R2 Express
Opening a SQL Azure database in the Windows Azure Management Portal’s Web-based Database manager
Downloading and opening the SQL Server Reporting Preview Report Samples in Business Intelligence Design Studio (BIDS)
Previewing a Report Sample in Business Intelligence Design Studio (BIDS)

This walkthrough requires completion of the steps in Part 1.

Setting up a SQL Azure Reporting Services Preview Server

1. Launch the Windows Azure Platform Management Portal, select the subscription that includes the SQL Azure server you created in step 1, and click the Reports button in the left navigation pane to display the main SQLAzRSP pane after loading subscription details:

2. Click the Create a New SQL Azure Reporting Server button to open the first Create a SQL Azure Reporting Server dialog. Mark the I Agree checkbox:

3. Click Next to open the second dialog and select the same Subscription and Region in which you create the database:

4. Click Next, type an Administrator name with a strong password conforming to the rules for the database Administrator’s password (see Part 1), and confirm the password:

5. Click Finish to add the Reporting Server and display the default Reporting Server page. Expand the subscriptions node and click the new server name (00v3eg3ptu for this example):

Testing the SQLAzRSP Server in a Browser

6. Click the [Link] anchor to open the SQLAzRSP server’s login page, type the credentials you created in step 4 and, optionally, mark the Remember me checkbox:

7. Click Sign In to display an empty navigation page, which verifies the server is working:

8. Copy the https://oov3eg3ptu.reporting.windows.net/reportserver URL to the clipboard for use in the next section.

Deploying a sample report from BIDS to the SQL Reporting Services Preview Server

9. Choose Start, All Programs, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, SQL Server Business Intelligence Developer Studio to launch BIDS:

10. In BIDS, choose File, Open, Project/Solution, navigate to your Documents\My Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\AdventureWorks 2008R2 Sample Reports folder, and select SQLAzureReportingReportSamples.sln:

11. Click Open to display the list of Shared Data Sources and Reports in Solution Explorer. Double-click the Product_Line_Sales_AWLTAz_2008R2.rdl report to display it in the Design pane:

12. Right-click the top SQLAzureReportingReportSamples node and click Properties to open the projects Propeties dialog. Paste the URL you copied in step 8 (https://oov3eg3ptu.reporting.windows.net/reportserver for this example) into the Target Server URL text box:

13. Click OK to save the value, right-click the SQLAzure_AdventureWorksLT.rds Shared Data Source and choo Deploy to open the Reporting Services Login dialog. Type your User Name and Password:

14. Click OK to connect and deploy the Shared Data Source. Observe the “Deploy Succeeded” message in BIDS’ status bar.

15. Right-click the Product_Line_Sales_AWLTAz_2008R2.rdl node, and choose Deploy. Wait a few seconds until the “Deploy Succeeded” message appears in BIDS’ status bar.

16. Click the Refresh button to display the Data Sources and SQLAzureReportingReportSamples folders in the Server Information pane. Open the Actions list, which includes Delete, Properties (Description only) and Permissions choices:

17. Select Permissions to edit permissions for the currently logged in user (RogerJ for this example:

Note: Content Manager has the highest permission level. See Tutorial: Setting Permissions in Reporting Services: SQL Server 2008 R2 for more information about SSRS 2008 R2 permissions.

Viewing the sample report in a browser

18. Repeat step 6, which now displays two directories:

19. Click to open the SQLAzureReportingReportSamples link:

20. Click the Product_Line_sales_AWLTAZ_2008R2 link to open the report’s Page 1, which is identical to that displayed by the BIDS preview in Part 1:

21. View the remaining 3 pages. Here’s the top part of page 2:

Exporting and printing the sample report from a browser

22. Open the Export button’s list to view the options for exporting the reports in various file formats:

Note: Simple reports also have a Feed option to export in the Open Data Protocol (OData) format.

23. Click install when you see the following message:

Note: The add-on is required to print reports from SQL Azure Reporting Services.

24. Click Print, which displays the following Security Warning dialog:

25. Click Install and then click Print. If you don’t have a default printer specified and have Microsoft OneNote installed, the Print dialog offers to send the report to OneNote: