6/6/2008 11:24:24 AM

The most up-to-date version of this file is available online at the Microsoft Download Center on the SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Add-in Readme page.

For help with SQL Server technical issues not related to documentation, see Getting Assistance with SQL Server.

Contents

1.0 Introduction

The Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Reporting Services Add-in for SharePoint Technologies is a Web download that provides features for running a report server within a larger deployment of Microsoft Windows® SharePoint® Services 3.0 or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. The Reporting Services Add-in provides the following functionality:

  • A Report Viewer Web Part, which provides report viewing capability, export to other rendering formats, page navigation, search, print, and zoom.
  • Web application pages so that you can create subscriptions and schedules, set model item security, and manage reports, models, and data sources.
  • Support for standard Windows SharePoint Services features including document management, collaboration, security, and deployment with report server content types. You can use alerts, versioning (check in/out), and Filter Web Parts with reports. You can add the Report Viewer Web Part to any page or dashboard on a SharePoint site and customize its appearance. You can use SharePoint permission levels and roles to control access to report server content. You can also use SharePoint forms authentication to support access over Internet connections.
  • Support for additional languages. The Web application pages, Report Builder, and ReportBuilder.chm are available in the standard SQL Server languages (Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Spanish), and the following additional languages: Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Norwegian (Bokmal), Polish, Portuguese (Portugal), Portuguese (Brazilian), Swedish, and Turkish.

The Reporting Services Add-in works together with a SQL Server 2008 report server that you configure for SharePoint integration. Reporting Services provides the following features:

  • Synchronization from SharePoint content databases to the report server database.
  • A custom security extension that uses SharePoint permissions to control access to report server operations.
  • A delivery extension that you can use in subscriptions to deliver reports to SharePoint libraries.
  • Support for creating a database in SharePoint integrated mode in the Reporting Services Configuration tool.
  • Publish reports and models from Report Designer and Model Designer to a SharePoint library.
  • Open reports and models in Report Builder from a SharePoint library, and save reports to SharePoint libraries across the site.
  • A SOAP endpoint for managing report server content in SharePoint integrated mode.

2.0 Requirements

3.0 Upgrade

If you have an existing installation of the Reporting Services Add-in, you can upgrade to the current version. Setup will detect the existing version and prompt you to confirm the update.

Note the Reporting Services Add-in is not instance-aware. You can only have one instance of the add-in on a computer. You cannot run early versions side-by-side the current version.

4.0 Installation

To install the Reporting Services Add-in, you must have an installation of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or Office SharePoint Server 2007. To use the features provided by the Reporting Services Add-in, you must have a SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services report server configured to run in SharePoint integrated mode.

You must be a SharePoint farm administrator to install the Reporting Services Add-in.

You must be a Site Collection administrator to configure report server integration for a SharePoint Web front-end.

  1. Download and run the Setup program for the Reporting Services Add-in. Setup will copy program files and create entries in the SharePoint databases. If you are integrating Reporting Services with a SharePoint farm, you must install the Reporting Services Add-in on each Web front-end in the farm.
  2. Run SharePointRS.msi to run the Installation Wizard. The wizard displays a Welcome page, the End User License Agreement, and a registration information page. Click Install to run setup.

If you get errors during installation, you can run Setup in files-only mode, and then run a custom actions executable after the files are copied to the server. To install the Reporting Services Add-in in files-only mode, do the following:

  1. Run SharePointRS.msi SKIPCA=1. A files-only installation runs the Installation Wizard.
  2. Find the rsCustomAction.exe file on the file system. This file is copied to your computer by the Setup program. The file will be located in the %Temp% directory.
    To get the path information for this file, click Start, click Run, and then type %temp%. The file should be located in \Documents and Settings\<your name>\LOCALS~1\Temp.
  3. Open a command prompt window. To do this, click Start, click Run, and type cmd.
  4. Navigate to the folder that contains the rsCustomAction executable.
  5. Enter the following command. This configuration step will take several minutes to complete. The W3SVC service will be restarted during this process.
    rsCustomAction.exe /i

Configure the report server integration settings in Central Administration.

Configure report server integration

  1. In Administrative Tools, click SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration.
  2. Click Application Management. You should see a new section named Reporting Services. This section has links to pages used to specify integration settings. If you do not see this section, you must activate the report server integration features manually:
    1. Click Start, click Administrative Tools, and then click SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration.
    2. Click Site Actions.
    3. Click Site Settings.
    4. Click Site Collection Features.
    5. Find Report Server Integration Feature in the list.
    6. Click Activate.
  3. In the Reporting Services section, click Manage integration settings.
    1. Specify the report server URL (for example, http://example-server-name/reportserver). Do not use "localhost". For best results, open a browser window and verify that the URL you intend to use is valid. A valid URL will open to the root node of the report server folder hierarchy. If you get an error, the report server URL is not valid and must not be used. For more information about URL syntax, see “Configuring Report Server Virtual Directories” in SQL Server Books Online.
    2. In Authentication Mode, select either Windows Authentication or Trusted Account to specify whether the proxy server endpoint sends a header with a security token for an impersonated connection on the report server.
      All requests that originate from a user action on a Reporting Services application page are forwarded by the proxy server endpoint to a report server for processing. Each request includes information in the header that determines how the request is authenticated on the report server.
      If the SharePoint Web application is configured for Windows Authentication and the Kerberos protocol is enabled, you can select Windows Authentication to connect through Windows integrated security. No security token is sent in the header. Optionally, you can select Trusted Account to impersonate the process identity of the SharePoint Web application and pass the SharePoint user identity token in the request header to the report server.
      If the SharePoint Web application is configured for Forms authentication, the request header will always include a SharePoint user identity, and any value that you specify for Authentication mode is ignored.
    3. Click OK.
  4. In the Reporting Services section, click Grant database access. During this step, the service account information is retrieved from the report server instance. A database login and permissions for the service account are assigned. Integrating a Reporting Services report server with a SharePoint Web application requires that the report server be able to access the SharePoint configuration and content databases. The report server must be able to connect as a trusted user with read and write permissions.
    1. Specify the name of the report server. Unless you modified the registration properties, this value is the name of the computer.
    2. Specify whether the instance is the default instance or a named instance. If you are not sure, start the Reporting Services Configuration tool and connect to the report server. In the Instance Selection dialog box, expand Instance Name to view a list of the instances installed on the server. MSSQLSERVER is the name of the default instance. All other instances are named instances.
    3. Click OK. The Enter Credentials dialog box opens.
    4. In the Enter Credentials dialog box, specify the User Name and Password to connect to the report server to retrieve the service account. Be sure to enter credentials for an account that is a member of the local Administrators group on the report server computer.
  5. In the Reporting Services section, click Set server defaults to optionally set values to limit report history, enable logging, and set a report processing time-out. For more information about these options, click Help.

Set Permissions and Add Reporting Services Content Types

You must assign user and group accounts to SharePoint groups or permission levels to grant site access to those users. Users who can access a site can also perform reporting tasks. For example, users with view permissions to access a site can also view reports on that site.

To complete the integration steps, you must ensure that all users who access and manage report server content on a SharePoint Web application have the appropriate permissions. You might also want to add Reporting Services content types so that users who have permission to use Report Builder can start it from the New menu. To add content types:

  1. Open the library for which you want to add Reporting Services content types.
  2. On the Settings menu, click Document Library Settings.
  3. Under Content Types, click Add from existing site content types. If Content Types is not available, locate the General Settings section and click Advanced settings to allow content type management.
  4. In the Content Types section, select Yes to allow multiple content types.
  5. In the Select Content Types section, in Select Site content types from list, click the arrow to select Reporting Services.
  6. In the Available Site Content Types list, click Report Builder Report, and then click Add to move the selected content type to the Content types to add list.
  7. To add Report Model and Report Data Source content types, repeat steps 5 and 6.
  8. When you finish selecting all the content types that you want to add, click OK.

Verify the Installation

Verify integration by starting the Reporting Services Configuration tool and opening the SharePoint Integration page to view server status. You should see a link that you can click to start SharePoint Central Administration.

You can also verify an installation by opening a browser window and entering a URL to the report server. The URL should resemble http://example-server-name/reportserver.

Finally, you should be able to navigate to a library in the SharePoint site and upload report definition (.rdl) files and report model (.smdl) files. Make sure that the data source properties for the report are correct. The data source must have a valid connection string to an external data source. The credential type must be valid for your network topology. Specifically, if Kerberos authentication is not enabled for your domain, you cannot use the Windows integrated security credential type if the report server is on a different computer. Instead, you should specify stored credentials. After you verify that the data source properties are correct, you can click the report name to open the report. The report will open in the Report Viewer Web Part automatically.

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5.0 Uninstalling the Reporting Services Add-in

6.0 Features in This Release

The following list introduces new features in this release:

  • Upgrade
  • Data-driven subscriptions
  • Job management through Management Studio. You can cancel jobs by connecting to a report server that runs in SharePoint integrated mode and selecting specific jobs to cancel.

Supported Features

This section summarizes the available features when you run a report server in SharePoint integrated mode.

  • Use the Reporting Services Configuration tool to create a report server database in SharePoint integrated mode.
  • Use the report server configuration pages in Central Administration to grant the service account access to the SharePoint configuration and content databases, configure authentication type on requests sent to the report server, and set report server defaults.
  • Use SharePoint security to control access to report server content and operations.
  • Add reports and models that you created in SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services design tools to a SharePoint library. You can publish reports from Report Designer, or use the Upload action on a SharePoint library to upload any report server item. If you publish the files, be sure to specify fully qualified URLs. An example URL for a file uploaded to Shared Documents on the top-level site of a SharePoint Web application might be http://example-server-name/Shared Documents/CompanySales.rdl. The URL must include a file name extension. If the library is on a site, you must also include any sites and subsites before the library. For more information, see "Deploying Reports, Models, and Shared Data Sources to a SharePoint Site" in SQL Server Books Online.
  • Create new shared data source (.rsds) files from a SharePoint site to use with the reports and models that you add to the library. A new file name extension named .rsds is introduced in this release; it is used for shared data source files that you create and store in a library.
  • Use the Report Viewer Web Part to view reports.
  • Use Report Builder from a SharePoint site. You can open or modify an existing Report Builder report definition file from a library. You can load a model in Report Builder to create new reports from report model (.smdl) files that have been uploaded or published to a SharePoint library.
  • Use Web pages and configuration options to set permissions and properties on reports (.rdl), models (.smdl), resources, and shared data sources (.rsds) that you add or create on a SharePoint site. You can also use Web application pages to schedule report and subscription processing.
  • Create standard and data-driven subscriptions to distribute reports individually or on a large scale to a pool of recipients that is defined at run time.
Note:
SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services SP2 and later include two Web Parts that provide minimal integration between a report server and a SharePoint site. Those Web Parts are not part of the Reporting Services Add-in and have different requirements and functionality. For more information about how those Web Parts compare with the Web Part that is included in the Reporting Services Add-in, see "Planning for SharePoint Integration" in SQL Server Books Online.

Unsupported Features

There are no plans to support the following SharePoint technology features for items that are processed on a Reporting Services report server:

  • Outlook Calendar integration for scheduled report server operations. You cannot use Outlook Calendar to schedule data or subscription processing on a report server.
  • Personalization features are not supported for the Report Viewer Web Part. Date, time, and currencies must be specified in the formats that are defined at the site level.
  • Anonymous access cannot be enabled for the SharePoint Web application.

There are no plans to support the following features on a report server that runs in SharePoint integrated mode:

  • Report Manager. All content management is performed through application pages on a SharePoint site.
  • The Reporting Services role-based authorization model that includes predefined roles such as Browser, Content Manager, and Publisher. A report server that is configured for SharePoint integration always uses SharePoint permissions and groups to control access to report server content and operations.
  • Custom security extensions. A report server that runs in SharePoint integrated mode uses a modified version of the default security extension; you cannot use the Reporting Services custom authentication features in a report server that runs in SharePoint integrated mode.
  • Migrating report server content between report server databases that are configured for different modes. The content that is stored in each database type contains permissions and addresses that are not valid in a different mode.
  • Linked reports are not supported.
  • Batching methods are not supported.
  • My Reports is not supported.

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7.0 Known Problems

This section describes known issues in this release for the Reporting Services Add-in.

7.1 An ASP.NET Timeout Error Occurs After Two Minutes of Report Processing

For a report server that runs in SharePoint integrated mode, you might encounter an ASP.NET time-out error for long-running reports that require more processing time than the default time-out specifies. By default, the ASP.NET time-out is approximately two minutes. Reports that need more than two minutes to process will quit unexpectedly and the Windows SharePoint Services error page will appear with the following error: “An unexpected error has occurred.”

If you think this error is due to a time-out issue, you can work around the error by adding an httpRuntime executionTimeout attribute to the Web.config file of the SharePoint Web application.

Be sure to provide a value that is sufficient to complete processing for long-running reports. For a native mode report server, the default value is 9000 seconds for a report server and Report Manager. Consider choosing a similar value when you specify executionTimeout for the SharePoint Web application.

To change the timeout value for a SharePoint Web application:

  1. Go to <drive>:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\<dir>. The directory name is based on the port number used to access the SharePoint site. If the SharePoint site uses port 80, the path will be \inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\80.

  2. Open Web.config.

  3. Search for httpRuntime.

  4. Add the executionTimeout value. The following examples provides an illustration of syntax that is valid for this attribute:

    <httpRuntime maxRequestLength="51200" executionTimeout = "9000" />

For more information, see httpRuntime Element (ASP.NET Settings Schema) on MSDN.

If you have deployed multiple applications in a SharePoint farm, repeat the previous steps for each Web.config file in the farm. This requirement applies to all the SharePoint Web application Web.config files in the subdirectories under <drive>:\inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories. It also applies to Web.config files for applications in the farm that are installed on different computers.

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7.2 Do not specify http://localhost for a report server URL that is used throughout a SharePoint farm

When you specify a report server URL in the Manage integration settings page in SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration, do not use http://locahost/reportserver for the report server URL if the report server is integrated with SharePoint Web applications that are part of a farm deployment. A URL address that specifies http://localhost will not be valid for SharePoint Web front-ends that are installed on remote servers.

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7.3 Domain user account requirements for SharePoint administration and services

A deployment of a SharePoint product or technology uses a variety of accounts to run services and access front-end and back-end servers. If you specify domain accounts for your deployment, be sure to follow best practice recommendations and specify accounts that are used exclusively by the SharePoint Web application. Do not configure a service account to run under the domain user account of an actual person who will be accessing the SharePoint site.

A domain account is required if:

  • The SharePoint site and the report server are on different computers.
  • The SharePoint site is hosted in an application pool that runs as a built-in account, such as NetworkService.
  • The report server endpoint on the SharePoint Web application is configured to use Trusted Account mode.

If you do not use a domain user account, the following error occurs when a user views a report or accesses Reporting Services features from the SharePoint site:

"An unexpected error occurred while connecting to the report server. Verify that the report server is available and configured for SharePoint integrated mode. The permissions granted to user '<acccountname>' are insufficient for performing this operation."

You avoid this error by following the recommendations in the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 product documentation and run the application pool service as a domain account. For more information about service account requirements and recommendations, see Plan for administrative and service accounts in the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 product documentation.

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7.4 Service account requirements for Reporting Services

A report server running in SharePoint integrated mode is subject to restrictions on using built-in accounts. The following combination of factors will result in account requirements for the Report Server service:

  • The report server is integrated with a SharePoint farm that includes more than one computer.
  • The report server and SharePoint Central Administration Web site run on separate computers.

In this scenario, if the Report Server service runs under a built-in account such as NetworkService, the "Grant database access" option in SharePoint Central Administration will not work correctly. Consequently, if you try to access a Reporting Services feature through a SharePoint site, you will receive the following error:

"An unexpected error occurred while connecting to the report server. Verify that the report server is available and configured for SharePoint integrated mode. --> Server was unable to process request. --> Client found response content type of 'text/html; charset=utf-8', but expected 'text.xml'."

To avoid this error, choose one of the following approaches:

  • On the computer that hosts the report server, continue to run the Report Server service as NetworkService and add the built-in account, such as NT_AUTHORITY\NetworkService to the WSS_WPG Windows group.
  • Configure the service accounts to run under a domain user account as follows:
    1. Create a Service Principle Name (SPN) that registers the Report Server service with the account you intend to use.
    2. Start the Reporting Services Configuration tool and connect to the report server.
    3. Click Service Account, type a domain user account, and click Apply.
    4. Restart the Report Server service.

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8.0 Documentation notes

There are currently no documentation issues.