1. What are the ways to tune Reporting Services?

http://sqlcat.com/sqlcat/b/technicalnotes/archive/2009/01/14/reportingservices-performance-optimizations.aspx
To get the highest performance when handling large workloads that include user requests for large
reports, implement the following recommendations.
Control the Size of Your Reports
You will first want to determine the purpose of these reports and whether a large multipage report
is even necessary. If a large report is necessary, how frequently will it be used? If you provide users
with smaller summary reports, can you reduce the frequency with which users attempt to access
this large multipage report? Large reports have a significant processing load on the report server,
the report server catalog, and report data, so it is necessary to evaluate each report on a case-bycase basis.
Some common problems with these large reports are that they contain data fields that are not
used in the report or they contain duplicate datasets. Often users retrieve more data than they
really need. To significantly reduce the load placed on your Reporting Services environment, create
summary reports that use aggregates created at the data source, and include only the necessary
columns. If you want to provide data feeds, you can do this asynchronously using more appropriate
tools, such as SQL Server Integration Services, to provide the file data feed.
Use Cache Execution
As noted in the Reporting Services Scale-Out Deployment Best Practices, if you have reports that
do not need to have live execution, enable the cache execution setting for each of your appropriate
reports. This setting causes the report server to cache a temporary copy of those reports in
memory.
Configure and Schedule Your Reports
For your large reports, use the Report Execution Timeouts setting to control how long a report
can execute before it times out. Some reports simply need a long time to run, so timeouts will not
help you there, but if reports are based on bad or runaway queries, execution timeouts ensure that
resources are not being inappropriately utilized.
If you have large reports that create data processing bottlenecks, you can mitigate resource
contention issues by using Scheduled Snapshots. Instead of the report data itself, a regularly
scheduled report execution snapshot is used to render the report. The scheduled snapshot can be
executed during off-peak hours, leaving more resources available for live report users during peak
hours.
Deliver Rendered Reports for Nonbrowser Formats
The rendering performance of nonbrowser formats such as PDF and XLS has improved in SQL
Server 2008 Reporting Services, as noted in the Scaling Up Reporting Services 2008 vs. Reporting
Services 2005: Lessons Learned technical note. Nevertheless, to reduce the load on your SQL
Server Reporting Services environment, you can place nonbrowser format reports onto a file share
and/or SharePoint team services, so users can access the file directly instead of continually
regenerating the report.

Prepopulate the Report Cache by Using Data-Driven Subscriptions for Parameterized Reports
For your large parameterized reports, you can improve performance by prepopulating the report
cache using data-driven subscriptions. Data-driven subscriptions enable easier population of the
cache for set combinations of parameter values that are frequently used when the parameterized
report is executed. Note that if you choose a set of parameters that are not used, you take on the
cost of running the cache with little value in return. Therefore, to identify the more frequent
parameter value combinations, analyze the ExecutionLog2 view as explained below. Ultimately,
when a user opens a report, the report server can now use a cached copy of the report instead of
creating the report on demand. You can schedule and populate the report cache by using datadriven subscriptions. For more information, see Report Caching in Reporting Services.
Back to the Report Catalogs
You can also increase the sizes of your report server catalogs, which allows the databases to store
more of the snapshot data. For more information, see Report Server Catalog Best Practices.
Tuning the Web Service
IIS and Http.sys tuning helps get the last incremental performance out of the report server
computer. The low-level options allow you to change the length of the HTTP request queue, the
duration that connections are kept alive, and so on. For large concurrent reporting loads, it may be
necessary to change these settings to allow your server computer to accept enough requests to
fully utilize the server resources.
You should consider this only if your servers are at maximum load and you do not see full resource
utilization or if you experience connection failures to the Reporting Services process. To do this:

For SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services, tune IIS.

For SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services, tune Http.sys within the operating system:
Windows 2003 or Windows 2008.

Monitoring by Using ExecutionLog2

The Reporting Services ExecutionLog2 view is a good starting point from which to analyze your
current workloads and understand its dataset size, performance, and complexity characteristics.
For more information, see Robert Bruckners blog, which provides extensive details on the
ExecutionLog2 view (http://blogs.msdn.com/robertbruckner/archive/2009/01/05/executionlog2view.aspx). For more information about query and reporting on report execution log data, see SQL
Server Books Online (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms155836.aspx).
In particular, this view contains a new AdditionalInfo column. ExecutionLog2.AdditionalInfo
contains information related to the size of memory-pressure responding data structures. One way
this information can be useful is to check whether you have reports with high values (10s, or 100s
of MBs) these reports might be candidates for further review, focusing on the design of those
reports and the dataset query sizes.
Below are some tips on how to view the ExecutionLog2 view to quickly understand potential
performance bottlenecks. Linked is the Review Execution Logs Reporting Services project, which

creates summary and detail Reporting Services reports on the last 1,000 entries into the
ExecutionLog2 view, with the sorting options noted below.

Figure 2: Review Execution Logs (ExecutionLog2) Summary Report

Figure 3: Review Execution Logs (ExecutionLog2) Details Report

Long-Running?
Sorting by ElapsedSec or RowCount helps you identify long-running reports. If the value for
TimeDataRetrieval is high, the data source is your bottleneck, and you may want to optimize. If
the there is a high value for RowCount, a lot of data is being retrieved and aggregated by
Reporting Services perhaps have your data source do this to reduce the load on your report
server.
Subscriptions or Interactive?
Sorting by the RequestType field allows you to determine whether you have a lot of subscriptions;
you can then determine the bottlenecks and stagger-schedule the reports (that is, schedule the
subscription execution times of the reports at different times).
Live Data or Snapshots?

Sorting by the Source field allows you to determine whether your reports are typically live data or
snapshots. If the reports can be snapshots (for example, yesterdays report), create snapshots so
you can avoid query execution, report processing, and report rending.
Load Balanced?
Sorting by the Instance field can help you see whether your network load balancer is handling
report requests in a balanced fashion. You can also see if some nodes are down or not processing
requests.
Discover Report Patterns
Sorting by ReportPath and TimeStart can help you to find interesting report patterns for
example, an expensive report that takes 5 minutes to run is executed every 10 minutes.
Report Health
You can sort by status to determine if you have a high number of failures that occurred before (for
example, incorrect RDL) or after (for example, subscription delivery error) the report is processed.
This can also help you identify reports where there is outdated information or settings (for
example, expired data source passwords or missing subreports).
In addition, if ScalabilityTime > 0, Reporting Services is in scale mode, which means that it is under
heavy memory pressure and will start pushing long-running reports to the file system to ensure
enough memory to complete smaller query requests. If this happens frequently, consider trying
one of the following:

Reduce the size of the dataset.

Simplify the grouping, filtering, or sorting logic in the report to use less memory.

Add more memory.

Add more servers to better handle the load.

Data-Driven Subscriptions
Based on all of this information, you can then create your own data-driven subscriptions that can
sort, filter, and track your issues. For example, you can create a subscription that alerts you if
Errors > 5%.

2. Difference between Logical Page and Physical Page

in SSRS 2008.
Control Page Size
Controlling page size in the report not only changes the report layout, it also
impacts how the report is handled by the Report Processing and Rendering

engine. There are three types of page breaks: logical page breaks, soft page
breaks, and physical page breaks.
Logical Page Breaks
Logical page breaks are defined in the report definition by using the
PageBreakAtStart and PageBreakAtEnd properties in various report
elements, including group, rectangle, list, table, matrix, and chart. Logical page
breaks are considered in all rendering extensions except for data rendering
extensions (XML and CSV).
Soft Page Breaks
Interactive rendering extensions (HTML and WinForm control) use the report's
InteractiveHeight and InteractiveWidth properties to determine page size.
The rendered pages can be slightly larger than the specified size; therefore, they
are called soft pages. Soft pages were introduced to solve the issue of getting
long pages in HTML when report authors did not include logical page breaks in
the report definition to achieve reasonable page sizes. Very long pages are not
only unreadable, but also cause performance problems in Internet Explorer. Soft
page breaks can be disabled by setting the InteractiveHeight and
InteractiveWidth to zero.
Physical Page Breaks
Set the PageHeight and PageWidth properties on the report controls where
physical page breaks occur. Physical page breaks are used in physical page
rendering extensions, such as PDF and Image. These rendering extensions
respect the page size precisely during pagination. The PageHeight and
PageWidth values defined in the report definition can be overridden by device
information settings in the rendering extension. For details, see Use Device Info
to Control the Behavior of a Rendering Extension.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb395166(v=sql.90).aspx

3. How to configure SSRS for Disaster Recovery?

The Solution
Using two servers built to the same specification, both of which have SQL Server and Reporting Services
installed, we will build a reporting solution that will utilize database mirroring. This solution can failover a
Reporting Services solution to the mirror server quickly, efficiently and without the need for human
interaction.
(To implement automatic failover, we will need a third server, with SQL 2005 express, which will act as the
mirroring service witness).

Before we begin
To shorten this article, I will assume the following:

1.

You have server administration rights and database admin rights.

2.

You have configured 2 servers (ideally identical) with SQL server & Reporting Services Configured
& ReportServer and ReportServerTempDB are configured on each server.

3.

The SQL Server Database Engine and SQL Reporting Services are started on both server.

4.

I will put in some details relating to database mirroring, but it's worth reading up on database
mirroring, as your requirements may differ slightly and ultimately, it will give you a better
understanding of what we are doing here.

Provided we have the above we can setup the reporting solution DR solution. Here are the key things we
are going to do:
1.

Initialize the Reporting Services 'Principle' and 'mirror' Servers setup.

2.

Configure the ReportServer mirroring session.

3.

Configure the SQL Agent jobs to handle the SSRS switch over

4.

Configure the Alerts that will initiate SQL Agent jobs

In this tutorial, I'll refer to the two servers as SQLTEST01 (my live server) and SQLTEST02 (my
backup/failover server). For the proposed solution we will only need 1 server running the report server
service as the report server databases. Here are the steps to setup the solution.

Prepare the reporting services

First off, we need to stop the reporting service on SQLTEST02 Reporting services. Connect to SQLTEST02
and open the Reporting Service Manager, then stop the reporting service. The next step is an important
step - we need to backup the Reporting Service Encryption Key. We do this by
1.

Connect to SQLTEST01

2.

Open Report Services Configuration and connect

3.

Select Encryption Keys

4.

Backup the encryption key, by selecting Backup entering a file location, and specifying a backup
file password.

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Reporting+Services+(SSRS)/69699/
http://sqlcat.com/sqlcat/b/technicalnotes/archive/2009/10/23/sql-serverreporting-services-disaster-recovery-case-study.aspx

4. Describe Reporting Lifecycle.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms159090.aspx
Report Life Cycle: Creating, Managing, and Delivering Reports

5. Describe the role of Encryption key in Report Server

Configuration manager.
To encrypt the credentials, connection string can be taken backup and
restore when required from configuration manager.

6. User wants only to display only pdf as export option

in report Manager. Describe Steps to perform this.
RSReportServer.Config file (-> Render -> Extension -> Make visible = false
for all except PDF)
<Render>
<Extension Name="XML"
Type="Microsoft.ReportingServices.Rendering.DataRenderer.XmlDataReport,Micr
osoft.ReportingServices.DataRendering" Visible="False"/>

7. Name and Describe few console utilities for SSRS.

SSRS includes three command-line utilities: RSConfi g.exe, which handles
confi guring the
connection properties from the Report Server to the catalog database;
RSKeyMgmt.exe,
which provides command-line support for managing encryption keys; and
RS.exe, which
allows scripting of report deployment.

8. Name few Endpoints exposed by SSRS 2008.

Management Endpoint
There are two endpoints available for managing objects on a report
server, ReportService2005, ReportService2006, and
ReportService2010. The ReportService2005 endpoint is used for
managing objects on a report server that is configured for native mode.
The ReportService2006 endpoint is used for managing objects on a
report server that is configured for SharePoint integrated mode. The
ReportService2010 endpoint merges the functionalities of
ReportService2005 and ReportService2006 and can manage objects on
a report server that that are configured for either native or SharePoint
integrated mode.

Execution Endpoint
The ReportExecution2005 endpoint makes it easy for developers to
customize report processing and rendering from a report server in both
native and SharePoint integrated modes.

SharePoint Proxy Endpoint

When a report server is configured for SharePoint integrated mode and
the Reporting Services Add-in has been installed, a set of proxy
endpoints are installed on the SharePoint server. The proxy endpoints
are the primary API for developing report solutions when a report

server is configured for SharePoint integrated mode. When

developing against the proxy endpoints, the Reporting
Services Add-in manages the exchange of credentials between
the SharePoint server and the report server in Trusted account
authentication mode. When developing against the report server
endpoints, the calling application will have to manage the credential
exchange in Trusted account authentication mode.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms155398.aspx

9. How can you access the Code in You report.

Describe the Static and instance based method with
example.
http://dotbomb.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/sql-server-reporting-servicescustom-assembly-integration-guidelines/
Static (Namespace.Class.Method)
=CurrencyConversion.DollarCurrencyConversion.ToGBP(Fields!
StandardCost.Value)

Instance based (Code.Class.Method)

=Code.m_myDollarCoversion.ToEUR(Fields!StandardCost.Value)

10.

How to add custom Assemblies to Report.

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSRS10.MSSQLSERVER\Reporting

Services\ReportServer\bin\
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies

11.

What is Linked Report?

It is a report server item that provides an access point to an existing

report.Conceptually it is similar to a program shortcut that you can use to
run a program or open file.
12.What can SQL Server Reporting Services do?
Reporting Services is a server-based reporting platform that provides comprehensive
reporting functionality for a variety of data sources.Which allow you to create tabular, matrix,
rectangle, sub-report,,charts, Gauge, indicator reports in managed environment. Like
a) Development Tool
b) Configuration Tool
c) Administration Tool
d) Report Viewing Tool

13.What are different types of roles provided by SSRS?

1) Browsers
2) Content Manager
3) My Reports
4) Publishers
5) Report Builder

14.Describe different Processing Modes offered by SSRS.

Local Processing Mode: - Process Reports In The Client Machine.

Remote Processing Mode: - Render Server Report That Are Processed On SSRS Report
Server.

15.When to Use Null Data driven Subscription?

Prepopulate the Report Cache by Using Data-Driven Subscriptions for Parameterized
Reports

16.What Factors need to take into consideration while designing a

international report (Localization).
17.What are different options to deploy report from Dev to Prod.
BIDS, Report Manager
18.What are the new Controls / Features added in SSRS 2008 / SSRS 2008 R2
19.How can you monitor the report Usage?
Execution Log
20.How can you add a new report User to report manager?
21.How can you create the dynamic Data source? Can a Shared Data source
be Dynamic?
http://wiki.softartisans.com/display/BLOGS/2011/04/19/How+to+create+a
+dynamic+Reporting+Services+shared+data+source+using+linked+serv
ers
22.A report is performing poorly. What steps you would take to troubleshoot
the Issue.
23.Write an Expression to perform a Division of two Integers fields and to
avoid NAN error.
24.Have you ever used Rank, Dense Rank Ntile, CTE and Pivot?
25.Is SSRs 2008 dependent on IIS? If not how it perform the operations.
HTTP.SYS
26.Explain the architecture of reporting services.
It is a multi tired, included with application , server, data layers. This Architecture is scalable
and modular. A single installation can be used accross multiple computers .
It include following components 1) Report Manager
2) Report Designer
3) browsers type supported by Reporting Services

4) Report Server
5) Report Server and Command line utilities
6) Report Server Database
7) Data Sources
SSRS is an optional package which you can select to install while installing SQL Server.
SSRS in turn is made up of number of components. The simplest diagram I could find that
describes these components and their deployment was fromTechNet

As you can see in above diagram when you install SSRS it creates Report Server Databases
in your SQL Server Instance. These databases are ReportServerDB and
ReportServerTempDB which are used to store report configurations and other things including
Caching, Session, etc. that improvise the overall performance. You have an option of
installing other components like Report Manager and Report Server on the same machine
where SQL Server instance is running or you can install them on a different server (typical
enterprise setup). An important thing to note here is if you opt for latter you would end up
paying for 2 or more SQL Server licenses.
As it turns out there are 3 distinguish components of SQL Server Reporting Services:
1) Report Server: Its an overloaded term. Largely used to indicate a set of components that
allow interaction with Report Server database. SSRS provides Web Services (.asmx) which
allows LOB applications to interact with Report Server database directly
(http://computername/ReportServer/reportservicexxxx.asmx where xxxx is version of SSRS).
SSRS 2005 created virtual directories for Report Server & Report Manager (discussed next),
but SSRS 2008 leverages the OS level HTTP listener making SSRS independent of IIS. This
allows bundling of Report Server & Report Manager within a windows Service
ReportingServicesService.exe. The name of this Windows Service is ReportServer.
ReportingServicesService.exe functionality also includes report processing, scheduling (auto
generated reports), subscriptions (mailers), etc.
2) Report Manager: An ASP.NET web based application (http://computername/Reports) that

in turn interacts with Report Server Web Services. As the name indicates Report Manager
allows you to manage reports in terms configuring security access, organizing them into
folders (non of these folders map to physical directories but are stored as details in Report
Server Database), subscribing to them, etc. One can also create reports (see next point as to
how) and deploy them to Report Server Database using Report Manager. This is handy for
some restricted user / production scenarios, though most developers prefer to do the deploy
reports from BI studio. As discussed earlier with SSRS 2008 this component is bundled with
ReportServer windows service.
3) Report Designer: There would be few guys in your team whom you may want to
designate as Report Designers. Report Designers can design reports using VS.NET Business
Intelligence projects (Report Server Project). Report Designers create data sources (normally
a shared data source (.rds) thats used across a set of reports), create the dataset (using
queries / stored procedures on top of data source), define relevant report parameters
(mapped to datasets for value retrieval via Report data window), field formats (using
properties window with pervasive VB expressions e.g. formatting a textbox to display
currency decimals) and create layouts (e.g. Grouping). Once they are done with designing
their reports (.rdl files described later) they can test (preview) them and publish them via
Report Server (this is done by providing the Report Server URL in project properties and
SSRS there creates a specific folder for your project). Once published these reports are
available for end user consumption. Advance scenarios like interacting with Excel may require
a third party product like OfficeWriter.
There are few other important aspects of SSRS which one should be familiar with.
Report Builder is a another tool which is targeted at business users who want to generate
custom reports on fly. Report Builder is a ClickOnce application, intuitive and easy to use but
doesnt support all the options available with VS.NET. Its also possible to install
ReportBuilder as a standalone application.
Report Model is the base for report creation with Report Builder. Its a simplified view of
relational database targeted at business users for ad hoc report creation. Report models are
created using BI Development Studio (Report Model Project .smdl files). A report model is
built on top of a Data Source View (.dsv) that defines a logical model based on one or more
data sources. Models generated mainly consist of entities (relational tables), fields (attributes
of a relational table) and roles (entity relationships 1-1, 1-*, *-1). Models also contain other
attributes like aggregate values that would help ease the reporting for end users. Post
creation report model has to be deployed in similar way as reports. You can also use Report
Model as a data source for generating reports via Report Designer. While its easy to deploy
Report model from BI development studio, to deploy report model manually e.g. in production
requires you to merge the .smdl and .dsv files.
RDL this is another term you would run into while talking about SSRS. RDL stands for
Report Definition language. This is an XML file which stores query information, data source
information, etc. which are required to generate report. There is another type of report
definition RDLC (Report Definition Language Client-side) which dont store any of above
configurations. RDLC is a client side component (VS.NET Application Projects) to which you
can pass data (e.g. via DataSet) coming from any of data sources. RDLC can be useful for
scenarios like implementing custom pagination (SSRS 2005 pagination by default is client
side pagination).
SSRS Security is primarily windows based. When a user accesses the Report Manager
Application or ASMX Web Services he has to authenticate with a valid domain username /

password. On successful login SSRS determines the role of the user (custom or built-in ones
like Browser / Content Manager, etc.) and displays only those reports / folders to which user
has access. There are few variations in the security implementation I have come across that
dont rely on Windows Authentication. Some projects tend to control role like content manager
for pushing reports (.rdl files) to production with help of rs.exe. All users have an implicit role
of a Browser and application layer security determines which reports the user should have
access to. In case you want go ahead and roll out your custom authentication that flows
security all the way down, SSRS allows you that too. If you are generating reports by
connecting to remote data sources for accessing images, etc. you might have to configure
Unattended Execution Account.
If u want some more details regarding this follow this link http://msdn.microsoft.com/enus/library/bb522673.aspx
Drill Down Report- Means navigate the summary level to detail level in the same report.
Drill Through Report- Navigation from one report to another report.

27. What is report Manager?Ans:

Report Manager is a Web-based report access and management tool that you use to
administer a single report server instance from a remote location over an HTTP connection.
You can also use Report Manager for its report viewer and navigation features. You can use
Report Manager to perform the following tasks:

View, search, print, and subscribe to reports.

Create, secure, and maintain the folder hierarchy to organize items on the server.

Configure role-based security that determines access to items and operations.

Configure report execution properties, report history, and report parameters.

Create report models that connect to and retrieve data from a Microsoft SQL Server Analysis
Services data source or from a SQL Server relational data source.

Set model item security to allow access to specific entities in the model, or map entities to
predefined clickthrough reports that you create in advance.

Create shared schedules and shared data sources to make schedules and data source
connections more manageable.

Create data-driven subscriptions that roll out reports to a large recipient list.

Create linked reports to reuse and repurpose an existing report in different ways.

Launch Report Builder to create reports that you can save and run on the report server.

8) Explain Reporting Lifecycle ?

Ans:

1. Report Designing- It is done in V.S Report Designer.

2. Report Processing- Bringing the report definition with data from the report datasource. It
performs all grouping, sorting & filtering calculation.
3. Report Rendering- Report rendering start by passing the report instance to a specific
rendering extension (HTML or pdf formats) As a final step, the report is rendered to a specific
output document.
9) Ways to Tune Reporting Services?
Ans:
1. Expand the server or utilizing the report service of the another database.
2. Replication of data continuously: - Using no-lock, the issue of locking can will be resolved and
the performance of the query can be improved. This can be done by using dirty read at the
time of duplicating the data is unavailable.
10) What is the extension of SSRS reports?
Ans:
rdl(RDL stands for Report Definition language). This is an XML file which stores query information,
data source information, etc. which are required to generate report.

1.

You want to include an image in a report. How do you display the Image
Properties dialog box?
When you drag an image item from the Toolbox window to the Report Designer, the Image
Properties dialog box automatically opens.

2.

You want to configure an amount to display the value in a currency format. Which
property do you use?
To configure an amount to display a value in a currency format, select the report item, and
then set the format property to C or c.

3.

What are data regions?

Data regions are report items that display repeated rows of summarized information from
datasets.

4.

You want to generate a report that is formatted as a chart. Can you use the
Report Wizard to create such a report?
No, the Report Wizard lets you create only tabular and matrix reports. you must create the
chart report directly by using the Report Designer.

5.

You want to use BIDS to deploy a report to a different server than the one you
chose in the Report Wizard. How can you change the server URL?
You can right-click the project in Solution Explorer and then change the Target-Server URL
property.

6.

Which rendering formats are affected by the PageSize properties?

Because only the Adobe PDf file, Word, and Image rendering extensions use physical page
breaks, they are the only formats that are affected by the PageSize properties.

7.

Can you use a stored procedure to provide data to an SSRS report?

Yes, you can use a stored procedure to provide data to an SSRS report by configuring the
dataset to use a stored procedure command type. However, your stored procedure should
return only a single result set. If it returns multiple result sets, only the first one is used
for the report dataset.

8.

You want to use a perspective in an MDX query. How do you select the
perspective?
Use the Cube Selector in the MDX Query Designer to select a perspective.

9.

Can you use data mining models in SSRS?

Yes, you can use the DMX Designer to create data mining queries for SSRS reports.
However, do not forget to flatten the result set returned by the DMX query.

10. You want your report to display a hyperlink that will take users to your intranet.
How do you configure such a hyperlink?
Create a text box item, set the action to Go To URL, and then configure the URL.
11. You want a report to display Sales by Category, SubCategory, and Product. You
want users to see only summarized information initially but to be able to display
the details as necessary. How would you create the report?
Group the Sales information by Category, SubCategory, and Product. Hide the SubCategory
group and set the visibility to toggle based on the Category item. Hide the Product
category group and set the visibility to toggle based on the SubCategory item.
12. You want to create an Excel interactive report from SSRS. In SSRS, can you
create the same interactive experience in Excel that you would have on the Web?
No, you cannot create the same experience with SSRS. you can, however, use Excel to
create such an experience.
13. What is the main difference between a Matrix report item and a Table report
item?
The main difference between a Matrix and a Table report item is in the initial template.
Actually, both report items are just templates for the Tablix data region.
14. When you do not use report caching, is it better to use parameters to filter
information in the query or to use filters in the dataset?
From a performance perspective, it is better to use parameters because they let SSRS pull
filtered data from the data source. In contrast, when you use filters, the queries retrieve
all data and then filter the information in an additional step.
15. How do you configure a running aggregate in SSRS?
You can use the RunningValue function to configure a running aggregate.

16. What is the main purpose of a report parameter?

The main purpose of a report parameter is to add interactivity to your reports, letting
users change the report behavior based on options they select.
17. What is the main purpose of a query parameter?
The main purpose of a query parameter is to filter data in the data source.
18. You want your users to select a parameter from a list of values in a list box. How
should you configure the parameter?
You should create a data source that contains the possible values and then bind the data
source to the parameter.
19. What is the main benefit of using embedded code in a report?
The main benefit of using embedded code in a report is that the code you write at the
report level can be reused in any expression in the report.
20. What programming language would you use to create embedded functions in
SSRS?
An SSRS report supports only visual Basic .nET embedded code.
21. How do you reference an embedded function in a report expression?
Use the Code prefix and the name of the function to reference an embedded function in a
report expression.
22. Which of the following are valid options for deploying a report? (Choose all that
apply.)
a. With BIDS
b. With the Computer Management console
c. With the .nET START command
d. With SSMS
e. With Report Manager
The correct answers are a and e, BIDS and Report Manager.
23. Why should you not overwrite a shared data source in production?
You should not overwrite a production-shared data source because the administrator has
probably already changed some connection string properties.
24. Can you edit a report that an end user created by using Report Builder in BIDS?
Yes, if an end user created a report by using Report Builder in BIDS and saved the report
definition file, you can open the file in BIDS and edit it.
25. How can you manage reports from your application if the report server is
deployed in SharePoint integrated mode?
Use the ReportService2006 endpoint of the SSRS Web service if your report server is
deployed in SharePoint integrated mode.

26. In which processing mode of a report viewer control can you use the full
functionality of your report server?
You should use the remote processing mode to use the full functionality of your report
server.
27. What types of roles are available in SSRS 2008, and what are their purposes?
Item-level roles and system-level roles are the two types of roles available in SSRS 2008.
An item-level role is a collection of tasks related to operations on an object of the report
object hierarchy of SSRS 2008. A system-level role is a collection of tasks related to
operations on server objects outside the report object hierarchy of SSRS 2008.
28. Can a user or group belong to more than one item-level or system-level role?
Yes, in SSRS 2008, a user or group can have more than one association to a system-level
or an item-level role.
29. When storing the credentials of a data source in the server, are those credentials
safe?
Yes, the data source credentials are safe because Reporting Services encrypts them and
stores them in the ReportServer SQL Server database.
30. What happens if you do not specify a parameter value in a subscription and the
parameter does not have a default value?
If you do not specify a parameter value in a subscription and the parameter does not have
a default value, the execution of the report will fail.
31. You want to create a subscription to a report. However, when you right-click the
Subscription subfolder of the report, you notice that the new Subscription option
is dimmed. What is wrong?
When the new Subscription option is dimmed, the report probably does not use stored
credentials for accessing the data. SSRS needs these credentials stored in its own
ReportServer database to execute a report on a schedule.
32. What can you do if your query with properties for a data-driven subscription does
not provide values for all of the subscription properties?
If your query with properties for a data-driven subscription does not provide values for all
of the subscription properties, you can use text and default values instead. These values
are then used for parameters of all subscriptions you get from the query.
33. What mechanisms do you identify to reduce the overhead of Reporting Services
data sources?
Snapshots and cached reports can help reduce the processing pressure on data sources
and improve report response time.
34. Can you always create a cache of a report?
No, you can create a cache of a report only when certain requirements, such as having
credentials stored in the Report Server, are met.

35. Can you edit the .rdl code associated with a linked report?
No, because a linked report has no .rdl code of its own. It refers to the .rdl code of the
base report.
36. Which of the tools and utilities described in this lesson can change or create the
virtual directories for the report server and Report Manager after installation?
Only Reporting Services Configuration Manager can enable and name the virtual directories
for the report server and Report Manager.
37. What is the file name extension for an encryption key backup?
Encryption key backups have an .snk file name extension.
38. What are the three SSRS command-line utilities and their primary functions?
RSConfig.exe is used to define the connection properties from the SSRS instance to the
Report Server database; RSKeyMgmt.exe performs encryption key operations and scaleout deployment setup; RS.exe runs Report Server Script files that can perform report
deployment and management operations.
39. If you want to disable one of the rendering options in the Save As drop-down list
when viewing a report through Report Manager, where do you do that?
The visibility property for any of the rendering devices can be changed by modifying the
RSReportServer.config file and locating the <ExtensionName="RenderDevice"/> tag for the
specific device.
40. Difference between snapshot and cache?
41. Defference between subscription and data driven subscription.