Reporting Services and SharePoint MOSS Configuration Woes

In my current position, it always helps to take a small step back and do something else for a little while. I'm working on a simple problem involving building a reporting services report (SSRS) from a SharePoint task list. It will involve building the report against a dataset that was created programmatically. I've looked and can find no secure way of reporting directly against a list of data within the current user's context. Once complete I'll post how I did it. That's not the problem.

The problem is that I could not see the reporting services web sites after setting them up using the SSRS configuration manager UI. It said they were there but I couldn't get to them. So, since I'm doing a brief 15 minute intro to data abstraction next month at a local user group, I figured I'd fire up the latest Beta of the VS 08 VPC and dink with EDM for a while. I only got as far as extracting the VHD's before I fell asleep so more on that later too.

So, firing back up my MOSS dev VHD this morning I looked back at IIS and realized that the "normal" installation of MOSS involves stopping the default web site. Looking into the default web site I find the ReportServer and Reports web apps. Duh!

So I went back to SSRS Config and put them under the Portal web site. Then I get this:
- Parser Error Message: Cannot use 'partitionResolver' unless the mode is 'StateServer' or 'SQLServer'.

Whoops. A quick Google and a this forum post led me to believe there was a conflict with MOSS.

So, I'd recommend doing the following when you're firing up SSRS on a MOSS box, at least in a development environment. (Caveat Emptor)

  1. Create a new virtual directory off \inetpub\wwwroot\
    • Give it a specific port number
    • I used RS / 8090
  2. Configure (in SSRS) a new "Report Server Virtual Directory"
  3. Configure (in SSRS) a new "Report Manager Virtual Directory"
  4. Go wo Web Service Identity and click the New button next to Report Server
  5. Create a new App Pool for RS to run within
    • I used ReportingServicesAppPool
  6. Set the authenticated user for the new app pool to the SQL Server Service account you used to set up MOSS.
    • This should have all the SQL permissions you need to run SSRS (I hope...)
  7. Set Report Server and Report Manager to the new app pool and click Apply

After making these changes I can go to the following URL's and get big love:

http://MOSSPlaySet:8090/ReportServer/
http://MOSSPlaySet:8090/Reports/

Now I can continue to configuring everything to actually use the Report Web Part. Hope this helps some.

Incidentally, what I'm hearing from the business community (faintly and very far away) is that BI, Agile Reporting and Custom Workflows are the pieces that really draw in the clients around here for SharePoint consulting engagements. Reporting seems easiest to me so off I go...

JJ

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