Reporting services 2016 with labs

This course focuses on the new functionality of SQL Server Reporting Services 2016
1

Chris Testa-O'Neill is the founder and Principal Consultant at Claribi. An experienced
professional with over 16 years’ experience of architecting, designing and implementing
Microsoft SQL Server data and business intelligence projects at an enterprise scale. He
has significant experience of leading and mentoring both business and technical project
stakeholders in maximising investment in SQL Server and more recently in Azure
solutions.
A regular and respected speaker on the international SQL Server conference circuit, and
an organiser of SQLBits and the founder of SQLRelay, he is heavily involved with the
Community. Chris has been recognised as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP)
by Microsoft. and has been a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) for the last 13 years
having both authored and delivered Microsoft Official Courses.
In his spare time Chris watches his children compete at swimming, plays American
Football as a Running Back for the Burnley Tornadoes, while writing books exclusively for
Microsoft.
You can follow Chris on twitter @ctesta_oneill or contact him at chris@claribi.co.uk
Below are links to the organisations chris works with
2

http: //www.claribi.co.uk
https://mvp.microsoft.com/en-
us/PublicProfile/4027197?fullName=Chris%20%20Testa-O%27Neill
http://www.microsoft.com/learning
http://www.sqlbits.com
http://www.sqlrelay.co.uk
https://sqlserverfaq.com
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Currently working on the SQL Server 2016 Official Courseware with Microsoft.
3

The agenda for today is focused on the new SSRS 2016 functionality and includes:
Reporting strategy
A look at the approach Microsoft
is taking with regarding the
strategy and roadmap for
Reporting Services.
Installation

A review of the installation modes
that are available and the
supported technologies. How
integration with Power BI be
configured post installation, and an
introduction to the new Web
portal
Report Development
A specific focus on the new
features introduced in Reporting
Services 2016 that facilitates
paginated and mobile reporting
Web Portal
A deeper dive into the
functionality of the Web portal and
4

the new functionality that is
brought with the new portal.
Management
A focus on the 2016 new
functionality for managing the
reporting Catalog, caching and
refresh options, data sets and
linked reports. There is also an
opportunity for a general Q&A
regarding the SSRS management.
Subscriptions
Improved subscription setup and
management features are explored
4

Reporting Services Strategy
Paginated Reports
Provides a wide variety and visually improved data regions that enable the
creation of predicted, regular reports that are consumed both digitally and in
print. Introduces the new tree map and sunburst chart to deal better with
hierarchical data. It also includes support for .NET version 4.0 and 4.5.1., with a
new SQL Server 2016 Report Services project template for visual studio.
Mobile Reports
This includes a new mobile report publisher that great a wide range of data
regions including charts, graphs, gauges and maps and can tailor layouts to
desktop, tablets and mobile phones
Updated Web Portal

A new clearer look optimized for both paginated and mobile reports with HTML
5.0 support and High DPI for greater clarity across a wider range of form factors.
5

Two installation modes supported in Reporting Services:
Native Mode
This installation type encapsulates the Reporting Services web service, the SQL
Server agent for processing reports and subscriptions and SQL Server database
engine to host the Reporting Services databases. Native mode supports both
standalone installations, where the components are all installed on one server. It
also support high availability architectures with support for both Windows Server
Failover Cluster and Always On availability groups. The installation and
configuration of both types of architecture remain the same as in earlier versions
SharePoint Integrated
Reporting Services 2016 supports integration with SharePoint 2013 and
SharePoint 2016. The Reporting Services web service is installed as a shared
service within a SharePoint Farm, in addition SharePoint will also handle the
delivery and subscriptions of the reports held in a SharePoint Farm. Reporting
Services database are still hosted in a SQL Server database engine instance.
SharePoint Integrated mode also provides support for standalone SharePoint
Farms and High Availability architectures

The Power BI Integration page in Reporting Services Configuration Manager enables you
to register a report server within a Power BI subscription. There are a number of
requirements for the registration to be successful including:
• An Azure Active Directory (AD) must exist for your organisation
• The Power BI dashboard must be part of the Azure AD managed tenant
• The user performing the Power BI integration needs to be a member of:
• the Azure AD tenant,
• Be a Reporting Services system administrator
• A system administrator for the ReportServer Catalog database.
• Reports that you want to pin from must use stored credentials.
Successful configuration allows users of the report server to pin supported report items
to Power BI dashboards including:
• Charts
• Gauge panels
• Maps
• Images

SQL Server 2016 includes all of the data region functionality that has been enjoyed in
the past with Tablix, charts, gauges and maps. New and enhanced functionality now
includes:
Tree Map data region
A tree map data region can make it easy to discover how a whole value is broken into
sub values within hierarchical data. Sub values are represented as sub rectangles within
a parent rectangle that has a rectangle size that is proportional in size to the sub value it
represents.
Sunburst data region
Sunburst charts are a multi-level pie chart that represents hierarchical data. The centre
of the sunburst chart represents the highest level of the hierarchy. As the chart radiates
out, new levels are created to represent lower levels of a hierarchy.
Custom parameters
The most fundamental enhancement in SQL Server 2016 is the ability to control the
placement of report parameters within the design on the report

Print to PDF
The dependency on ActiveX is now removed with the print to PDF option that increases
cross browser compatibility.
10

A tree map data region can make it easy to discover how a whole value is broken into
sub values within hierarchical data. Sub values are represented as sub rectangles within
a parent rectangle that has a rectangle size that is proportional in size to the sub value it
represents.
To configure the tree map, the following properties should be considered in its’
configuration
Value
This area incorporates the metric that is being measured within the tree map data
region. The value is aggregated by default using a Sum function, but additional aggregate
functions can be used such as Average.
Category
The category enable you to group the values metric together collectively within a tree
map report with the highest values appearing in the top left of the report, and the lower
values appearing in the bottom right. For example you may want to view the data as
total sales by product category. This will break the tree map up into additional sub
rectangles per product category

Series
Additional arrangement of the tree map data region can be applied using a series
property. For example, you may want to use Year as a series. This will break the tree map
up into additional sub rectangles per year, used in conjunction with category, these will
have several layers of sub rectangles.
General formatting
As with any charting with Reporting Services, you can use an array of properties to tidy
up the chart such as formatting labels, arranging the location of titles and legends that
was previously available in earlier versions of Reporting Services
11

Sunburst charts are a multi-level pie chart that represents hierarchical data. The centre
of the sunburst chart represents the highest level of the hierarchy. As the chart radiates
out, new levels are created to represent lower levels of a hierarchy. It is possible that
blank spaces will appear in the report, indicating an absence of data in a particular level
of a hierarchy, which is a better way to represent data that is an a ragged hierarchy.
To configure the sunburst report, the following properties should be considered in its’
configuration
Value
This area incorporates the metric that is being measured within the sunburst report data
region. The value is aggregated by default using a Sum function, but additional aggregate
functions can be used such as Average.
Category
The category enable you to group the values metric together collectively within a tree
map report with the highest level of the hierarchy appearing in the centre of the circle,
and the lower level of the hierarchy appearing on the outside of the circle. For example,
Product Category as the highest level of a hierarchy would appear in the innermost of

the sunburst reports, followed by product subcategory
Series
Additional arrangement of the sunburst data region can be applied using a series
property. This will sub divide all levels of the concentric rings across the series. For
example, years will appear in different colours around the ring
General formatting
As with any charting with Reporting Services, you can use an array of properties to tidy
up the chart such as formatting labels, arranging the location of titles and legends that
was previously available in earlier versions of Reporting Services.
12

Report parameters still work in the same way as in previous versions of Reporting
Services. A parameter can either be linked to a query parameter, or a filter in order to
control the data that is returned back to a report. The same performance and
functionality considerations for query parameters and filters still remain. If you are not
sure what they are, why not stop me and ask during the session.
Key enhancement
The key enhancement is to the usability of the report parameters within the report itself.
The parameter location on a report can now be controlled by using the parameter
designer accessed from View  Parameters in Report Builder. From here a table is
presented. Each cell in the table is used to hold a report parameter object. You can add
additional columns and rows to the table so that there is more flexibility in where you
place the parameters within the report. These are added as you would when adding a
column or a row to any table in a Microsoft application. Right click a cell and click Add
Column or Add Row.
Parameter order
The order in which the parameters are placed in the table area of the parameter
designer is insignificant. However, the order of the parameters in the Report Data

toolbox is still as important for usage of features such a cascading parameters. This
enables you to control the data values of a parameter based on the selection of a value in
a previous report parameter.
13

PDF replaces Active X for printing.
This enables greater browser
computability with no
requirement to download ActiveX.
When clicked, it either open a
print dialog to print your report or
prompt you to download a .PDF

Reports can be pinned to Power BI in two different ways
Pinning from an SSRS report
From within a report on a SQL Server 2016 instance, the report viewer control
toolbar will show a Power BI desktop icon. This command is used to pin a report
from Reporting Services into a Power BI dashboard. The reports that are to be
pinned must use stored credentials that is can use when connecting from Power
BI to the report server
Connecting Power BI desktop to a 2016 Report Server.
The March 2016 release of the Power BI desktop application includes the
capability to connect to an instance of a SQL Server 2016 Reporting Server. By
selecting this option and providing credential that can connect to the server, it
will then show the KPI and Mobile Reports screens that are on the server.

When thinking about Mobile reports, there are a number of capabilities that are
optimized for mobile usage
Key Performance Indicators
Created within the Web Portal and includes enhancements that improves the
usage and accuracy of the KPIs that are created within Reporting Services
Mobile Reports
Through the acquisition of Datazen, new functionality is provided to create a
range of data regions that are optimised for tablet and mobile use.
Pinned Reports
With Power BI integration enabled, you have the ability to add reports created in
Reporting Services to a Power Bi dashboard.

To provide visualisation of key business information. You can present data from within
SQL Server Analysis Services by using Key Performance Indicators, or KPIs. This feature
enables business users to assess performance over a period of time using visual objects.
The value property is a manual expression or a field from a dataset that is compared to
the goal property, and based on the settings of the status property that will determine
how the key performance indicator should be displayed.
Previously,
KPI’s were limited to returning the first row of data from a dataset for both Goal and
Value property, which limited your ability to use a single dataset for both a report and
KPI. You can now choose to use a dataset for either Value or Goal, a new dropdown
option is available for aggregation. Now, you can now select an entire column in your
dataset and select an aggregation option (First, Last, Min, Max, Average, Sum) to set the
value.
There is also the capability to add a trend line to a KPI which will also look at the entire
column of data that provides a more accurate representation of the trend data, when a
dataset is selected from the dropdown list. There is also the option to select from 5
different visualisations to represent the dataset.

Mobile Report Publisher is an add on that can be installed to create and edit mobile
reports. The user interface consists of the following areas:
Layout
This section includes the available data regions to create a report. The data
regions include charts, gauges and maps. To use a data region simply click and
drag a data region from the layout area on the left to the designer grid in the
centre of the Mobile Report publisher application. You can then click and drag
the visualisation across the number of grids you want the visual to occupy
Data
The Data tab enables you to define the datasets that will be used within the data
regions that are placed in the designer grid. By default, sample data is created to
provide an artificial dataset that can be used by the data region. You can add
your own dataset within the Data tab, and then manage the properties of a data
region to bind the visual to the data set that you have defined. You can add local
Excel data or a shared dataset from the Reporting Services instance.
Settings

Includes the ability to set generic settings for the Mobile Report Publisher
application
Preview
The preview tab enables you to view a preview of the report while it is being
designed.
View drop down
At the top right of the Mobile Report Publisher is a view tab that enable you to
see the designer grid in three different views.
• Master
• Tablet
• Phone
A change to each view will change the number of cells that appear as each view is
selected. It is common to start to creation of your mobile reports in the master
view. As each data region is created, it is created as an object in the Master view
that can be reused in the mobile and tablet view. Should your mobile reports be
used in tablet, mobile or master mode, all three views must have data regions
added to ensure that the reports are displayed in the form factors from which it is
run.
Themes drop down
This area allows you to select the colour theme that will be used for the mobile
reports
18

In this section we will look at
Web Portal functionality
A summary of the functionality of the Web portal. Some aspects already
covered, others yet to be covered.
Custom Branding
How to add your own organisations logo and colour schemes to the Web Portal
Export to PowerPoint
How you can export reports to PowerPoint

You can use the web portal to perform the following tasks:
• View, print, and search reports
• Use Report Builder
• User Mobile Report Publisher
• Create KPIs
• Create linked reports
• Manage report security
• Manage report execution

• Manage report schedules
• Mange report subscriptions
• Send feedback or make feature requests.
More details on the management functionality later in this slide deck.
21

Custom branding enables you to define the look and feel of the Reporting Services Web
portal without deep knowledge of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). In order to fully utilise
this capability with the option to add a company logo three files are required
A colors.json file
The metadata.xml file allows you to set the name of brand package in Reporting
Services, and has a reference entry for both your colors.json file and logo.png file
Each section of the colors.json file references a different part of the web portal
(ref Christopher Finlan http://bit.ly/1UJJ9y1 )
Primary Section – button colours, hover colours
Secondary Section – title bar colour, search bar, the left-hand menu (when
present), and text colour for those items
Neutral Primary – Home background, Reports Area background
Neutral Secondary – Text Box background, Folder Options background, Settings
Menu
Neutral Tertiary – Site Settings backgrounds
Danger/Warning/Success Messages
KPI colours (Good – Green, Bad – Red, Neutral – Orange, None – Black)

A metadata.xml file
The metadata.xml file allows you to set the name of brand package in Reporting
Services, and has a reference entry for both your colors.json file and logo.png file.
The logo.png file is not referenced by default, as a result a line needs adding in the
metadata file to provide a reference to the logo as shown in bold.
<Contents>
< Item key=”colours” path=”colors.json” />
< Item key=”logo” path=”logo.png” />
< /Contents>
A logo.png file
This is optional, and is an image file of your company logo
The naming convention for the files included in the brand package are mandatory, but the
zip file in which they are stored can have any name.
Once the zip file is created it can be loaded into Reporting Services via Site Settings and
Branding.
22

The ability is now available to export an entire set of reports to PowerPoint. Data regions
from Reporting Services will appear as images, Report titles will appear as editable titles
once within PowerPoint. A default set of slides will be created that can be modified by
being able to move the images and titles to the slides that you require.

Manage report items
Tasks are made easier and more user friendly within the web portal including
downloading and renaming reports
Caching Management
Caching management options are now easier to setup
Shared Datasets
Can now be created and managed directly in the Web Portal
Linked Reports
Enable you to create a copy of a base report and set different properties

Simple actions to manage a report item can be found in the report objects properties
screen including:
• Renaming reports
• Delete reports
• Move reports
• Download
• Replace
• Edit in Report Builder

New in 2016 is the ability to create shared datasets within the Web Portal. Shared
datasets provides the ability to use consistent data across multiple reports. To create a
shared dataset, perform the following steps:
1. Open the Web portal
2. Select new from the menu bar.
3. Select Dataset.
4. This will either launch Report Builder, or prompt you to download it.
5. On the New Report or Dataset dialog, select a data source connection to use
for this dataset. You may need to browse to the location of the shared data
source.
6. Select Create.
7. Build your dataset and then select the save icon in the upper left to save the
dataset back to the report server.
There are a variety of options to manage the dataset once it is created including:
• Properties

• Caching options
• Security
• Data sources
You also have the ability to preview a shared dataset and view the report items that are
dependent on the shared dataset
27

Configuring the caching options are now more simplified with Reporting Services 2016.
Within Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services you can configure caches and snapshots
to improve the performance of retrieving report data. When a report is deployed to the
Report Server, by default, no caching or snapshot settings are defined. As a result when
you run a report, the most recent copy of the data is retrieved from the data source. A
copy is stored within the http session cache for the user. However should another user
open another connection to the same report, the data again will be retrieved from the
data source.
Caching
To improve the performance of retrieving the report data. You can cache a temporary
copy of the report. With this setting defined, when a report is first run, it is retrieved
from the data source and stored in the cache within the ReportServerTemp database.
Subsequent execution of the same report retrieves the report data from the cache.
Snapshot
An alternative approach is to create snapshots. Snapshots can be created based on a
schedule in advance of the user browsing the report. The report snapshot is stored
within the ReportServer database and the user will browse the report snapshot stored

within the ReportServer. Snapshots can also be used as the basis to store historical copies
of the report for future reference.
Impact on report parameters
If a report contains parameters, the parameter value defined determines the data that is
returned back to the cache. When parameters are used with a snapshot, the parameter
value cannot be changed. Filters however return all of the data back to the report server
cache. Furthermore, if a snapshot is defined on a report with a filter, the report
parameter that uses the filter can have its value changed.
28

Linked reports are simple to create and can provide you with the ability to provide users
with similar reports with different properties. Linked reports are based on existing
reports and you can define different general, parameter, execution, history and security
properties. The data source properties page is not available within a linked report as the
linked report uses the data source from the base report on which it is linked to and
layout of the base report that provides the report definition.
To create a linked report:
1. In Report Manager, navigate to the folder containing the report that you want
to link to, and then open the options menu can click Create Linked Report.
2. Type a name for the new linked report. Optionally type a description.
3. To select a different folder for the report, click Change Location. Click the
folder you want to use, or type the folder name in the Location box. Click
OK. If you do not select a different folder, the linked report is created in the
current folder (where the report it is based on is stored).
4. Click OK. The linked report opens.

Standard subscription
Standard subscriptions can be implemented by report users, or by report
administrators.
Data driven subscriptions
Data driven subscriptions can only be defined by administrators as a subscription
table must be manually created.

Standard subscriptions can be implemented by report users, or by report administrators.
Each report that is published to the report server contains a subscription page that
enables the users to subscribe to a report. They have the option to deliver the report
using email, SharePoint library or file share. This will alter the subscription page with
options that must be filled out such as the recipients of the email, and whether the
report should be included as an attachment in the email or as a URL link. You can also
define default parameter values should the report contain parameters

Data driven subscriptions can only be defined by administrators as a subscription table
must be manually created. This stores information specific to the subscription, such as
the recipient and parameter information for the report. The report administrator then
queries the subscription table for the information that is used within the data driven
subscription. As a result the report can be sent to multiple recipients under the
administrator’s control.

Data and people are often cited as an organisation's most important asset. Claribi will
provide a unique service that empowers organisations and its' employees to make the
most of its' data to drive:
• Operational efficiency
• Opportunities through Analytical Insights
• Productive data development
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Whether your data is in the cloud, on-prem or a combination of both. Through
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Let our experts assist you with strategic guidance, management and support that allows
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more information
Tel: 03339390102
E-mail: enquiries@claribi.co.uk

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