SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

I'm in the middle of debugging and enhancing a group of Reports using SQL Server Reporting Services.

Overall I like the product a lot. It's got a very slick designer.  The one-touch deployment is outstanding.  It isn't lacking for much in the way of features. I still think the reports out to have a managed event-driven code-behind, but I'm able to work around that in most cases.  The webservice API is fairly easy to use. I was able to use it to implement my own custom navigation and parameter UI fairly rapidly.

There is one major drawback that should be mentioned though. You cannot use SQL Server Security to access it. It relies on Integrated Windows Security. In the Enterprise Edition you can implement a custom Security extension, which will allow you to basically use any kind of security you can code.  This is not available in the Standard version, however.

This creates a problem for me because the app I am working on is a LAN app that uses SQL Server Security. This means that each user has to be set up in a SQL Server role AND their Windows Account name as be set up in the same role--argh!  As if security wasn't complex enough!  Since our app is a web app, it also means that if a user to to another machine, logs into our app using their SQL Server Credentials, they still view reports in Reporting Services as if they were the logged into the Windows Account.

Am I the only one that finds it strange that an alleged “bolt-on“ to SQL Server can't use SQL Server Security? Does Analysis Services have the same security model?

Again, overall I think this product is outstanding, especially for a first effort. I just question the security model.

UPDATE

Roman writes: “What you have to remember is that RS is a combination of SQL Server and IIS components. SQL Server supports both Windows and SQL Authentication but IIS supports only Windows Authentication. If you wanted to avoid administering dual groups, you would have to switch from Standard to Windows in your other application and set up RS to use Windows Authentication in report data sources.”

You know, I get that.  I really do. I guess I expected to be able to allow anonymous access to the Report Manager via IIS, and have the Report Manager query the user for SQL Server credentials when they access the reports.  Since Microsoft has a graduated licensing model for Report Access, I guess that wasn't a viable solution for them.

Comments

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Thursday, March 04, 2004 9:31 PM by Kent Tegels

Sorry, but that's just wrong. As a matter of fact, it's Windows authentication that's the problem. WIA usually fails because people can't get forward delegation or kerberos working right. Books OnLine for RS is specific about this: Use Standard Logins.

The better choice is to give a collection of reports a SQL login. Let IIS and the Report Service worry about authenticating the user, let SQL Server worry about serving up the data.

# SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Thursday, March 04, 2004 11:28 PM by TrackBack

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Friday, March 05, 2004 8:04 AM by Chris McKenzie

This is the message that I got from one of the dev's on SSRS:

"With Standard edition, you would not be able to support a custom user store.
You would have to map your users to Windows accounts/groups."

The only context in which Kent's comments make sense to me is if he's talking about the DataSource object that each report uses to talk to SQL Server.

This may be true, but that's not the subject of my post--I'm talking about assigning end-user browsing rights to various report groups. Again, there is no way to assign those permissions using SQL Server Security.

Kent, please correct me where I'm wrong. Thanks,
Chris

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Friday, March 05, 2004 4:32 PM by Roman Rehak

You are right, RS doesn't use SQL Authentication for report access security at all. What you have to remember is that RS is a combination of SQL Server and IIS components. SQL Server supports both Windows and SQL Authentication but IIS supports only Windows Authentication. If you wanted to avoid administering dual groups, you would have to switch from Standard to Windows in your other application and set up RS to use Windows Authentication in report data sources. But as Kent pointed out, there are some issues with forward delegation, a lot of people are having problems if all three components of RS (Report Manager IIS app, Report Server web service and RS SQL Server) are not on the same server.

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Thursday, May 27, 2004 10:23 AM by Aldo Ravizzini

Is there a way for using reporting service in a windows application??
Im a newbie in this, so any answer should do.
Thank, and sorry for my english. Im argentinian.

Thanks

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Thursday, May 27, 2004 1:02 PM by Ryan Blair

Hi Aldo

The only way to use Reporting Services in an application is to insert a browser window into your app and view the reports through that. That is one of Reporting Services downfalls, it can only be implemented online and must be connected to accordingly.

Hope this answers your question.

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Thursday, May 27, 2004 3:23 PM by Aldo

Thanks you very much Ryan, you helped me a lot

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Thursday, May 27, 2004 4:14 PM by Aldo ravizzini

Hi again,
How can i, on an aplication in execution time, select the records that the report will show?

because once a deployed the report i don't know how to change the sql expresion

Thanks

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Thursday, May 27, 2004 4:39 PM by Ryan Blair

Hi Aldo

Now to select records during execution, there is only one way that I know of to implement that, and that is to make some paramter queries in the report before you deploy it. This way it will ask the user for some input before the report is created.

Unless you are asking that they actually build the sql expression at runtime, which would be creating an ad hoc report, which I do not believe Reporting Services supports. But otherwise the parameter queries should hopefully be the answer to your question.

Hope this will solve your problem

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Friday, May 28, 2004 2:29 PM by Aldo Ravizzini

Yes!! it works great, Thanks again Ryan, you saved me one more time.

Another question: is the a way to print reports other than exporting to another format and then print the exported document?

Thanks again!!!

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Monday, May 31, 2004 10:44 AM by Ryan Blair

With Reporting Services the only way to print is to export. The will supposedly be changed in the next version that comes out with SQL Server 2005.

The one thing that really kind of sucks with having to export to print is that the user has to have a browser that is at least HTML 4.0

If they don't, the export feature is disabled, and the only way they can print the report is off the browser which may have less than favourable results.

Hope this helps you once again...

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Monday, May 31, 2004 10:47 AM by Ryan Blair

I guess the other thing that should be noted is that when a document is exported in Excel format, it is only compatible with Excel XP and 2003, not Excel 2000. This will supposedly be fixed with the first service pack.

# Accessing SQL Reports on internet or LAN

Tuesday, June 01, 2004 1:00 AM by Hozefa

Hi
I have created reports using sql reporting services and have embedded them in webforms, it is working fine and can be accessed on LAN too but every time a user calls the webform, it asks for windows security authentication which I want to eliminate, I tried to check uncheck authuntication is IIS security for the web application, report server and reports virtual directories but it is not helping me to remove the window authentication, pls help to solve this problem.....
Regards

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Tuesday, June 01, 2004 12:03 PM by Ryan Blair

Now with Reporting Services you may be having difficulties with Windows Authentication because that is what it uses to verify its users. I am not positive, but I think you have to turn this off from within the Report Manager. That may work, but I am not positive.

Of course when you turn this off, you will no longer have security on your reports.

Hope this helps you

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Thursday, June 03, 2004 9:04 AM by Aldo Ravizzini

Hi...
Could you explain me how to configure the Report server for email delivery?

Thank you, one more time Ryan

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Thursday, June 03, 2004 10:09 AM by Ryan Blair

You have to make sure that the server is has a connection to a SMTP mail server, this can be on the same machine through IIS I believe. Once you have that connection, you have to set up the report server to use the mail server for e-mail. Now I know you can do this during install, but since I do not have a SMTP server hooked to my testing box I skipped that step. Now I was trying to find the way to fix it, but can't seem to so far. I think it may be quicker just to uninstall and reinstall Reporting Services and point at the mail server during install.

Hope this helps out...

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Thursday, June 03, 2004 12:30 PM by Aldo Ravizzini

Thanks man...

mmmm... you say that you haven't tried Email delivery... well I'll ask you anyway.

I manage to make an email subcription, but if I try to make it send a web file, it respond me with an error configuration message. But if I use the link option only it works just fine.

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Thursday, June 03, 2004 2:10 PM by Ryan Blair

Hmmm... I have heard of that issue popping up around some of the other forums, though I can't remember where exactly. What is the error you are getting exactly? Is it when you try to retrieve the report through your email client or is it when you are actually sending the report that it occurs?

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Thursday, June 03, 2004 2:16 PM by Ryan Blair

Oh, and what email client are you using?

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Thursday, June 03, 2004 2:39 PM by Aldo Ravizzini

The error message is: Failure sending mail: The Report Server has encountered a configuration error; more details in the log files

I see it on the Report Administrator Page (more exactly in the Subscription Page). The mail isn't delivered. The error happends when de report server try to send it.

I'm using Outlook Express.

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Thursday, June 03, 2004 2:45 PM by Ryan Blair

Hey Aldo

Try out this site.. they have a couple of solutions depending on the error thrown, maybe one of these can help you out.

http://www.google.com/groups?q=authz+group:microsoft.public.sqlserver.reportingsvcs&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&selm=ODE70opMEHA.268%40TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl&rnum=4

Hope it works for ya

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Saturday, June 19, 2004 4:26 PM by Aaron

My application is a internet web application. Data source and report server is on separate machine.

How to make my report secure if I use URL access?

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Tuesday, July 06, 2004 8:40 AM by Jerry

"I guess I expected to be able to allow anonymous access to the Report Manager via IIS, and have the Report Manager query the user for SQL Server credentials when they access the reports."

This may be a stupid question, but in the Data Source menu of Report Manager, if I choose

Connect Using:
The credentials supplied by the user running the report

then what credentials would these be? SQL Server credentials or Windows authentication?

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Tuesday, July 06, 2004 1:55 PM by Chris McKenzie

If you use "The credentials supplied by the user running the report," it's SQL Security. When you use this model, the username and password is supplied to the connection string by the user. You can use SQL Server Security on the reports themselves, but not for <i>access</i> to the reports or the Report Manager in general.

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Thursday, July 08, 2004 7:46 AM by Jerry

Thank you.

Now I have another dumb problem. My IIS settings are currently

Enable anonymous access
User Name: <computername>\IUSR_<computername>
Password:
Allow IIS to control password: disabled
Integrated Windows authentication: enabled
Basic authentication: enabled

And i'm using Windows NT Integrated security on the reports.

When I log on to http://localhost/reports everything works fine, but when I log onto http://<localipaddress>/reports I can't do anything. There's no My Reports or anything, just "Home / My subscriptions / Help".

If I try http://<localipaddress>/reportserver I get the following error message:

The permissions granted to user 'TOON\Guest' are insufficient for performing this operation. (rsAccessDenied) Get Online Help

Shouldn't it be saying something like "The permissions granted to user 'TOON\IUSR_TOON' are insufficient"?

If I Allow IIS to control password and disable Integrated Windows authentication, I get My Reports both in localhost and IP address, but I can't access the reports themselves. I get an error message about not having permissions to execute the queries.

Any idea how I should go about this?

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Wednesday, August 04, 2004 11:08 AM by sharon

Hi all,
I've found this forum very helpful, so thanks for that.

My question is: Is there a way to print the reports without having to export them? Maybe with an extension or something like that... I've been trying with the Printer delivery sample extension but I can't get it to work.

Thanks in advance for any suggestion!!

(sorry for the english, I'm from uruguay... :) )

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Thursday, August 05, 2004 3:07 PM by John

Yes,
check out this site

http://www.csharphelp.com/archives3/archive545.html

PrimeQuote Insurance Services
PrimeQuote.com

Now, Here is my ques, I am using web services to access reporting services. Everything works just fine but when I click on Export, I get file not found error msg!

John

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Thursday, August 05, 2004 3:08 PM by John

Now, Here is my ques, I am using web services to access reporting services. Everything works just fine but when I click on Export, I get file not found error msg!

http://www.primquote.com

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Friday, July 13, 2007 3:43 AM by santy

Last few days are very frusting days for me because of sql server2005 report server configurtion. I have a web application which is using report sever situated on different machin and report server database is present on the third machin.

I want to access my web application from fourth client machine. So i want infoarmation regarding what type of security model(different account settings ) I should use to access reports from my application.

I am confuse about following account settings

IIS virtual directory:

1>which account should i use for report server application pool (network service or domain account).

2>Should i enable the anonymous access if yes then which account should i use for it so that not every client need to add on report server

3>Should i check the integrated authentication on for reports server virtual directory

Report server

1>if I would using anonymous access then should I need to add anonymous account user on report server and also will this account need permission on report server folder

2>Will this work for both type of authentication for datasource

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Monday, November 05, 2007 2:15 AM by Prasanna

I designed reports using windows authentication in sql server 2005 express edition. when i am trying to deploy it is prompting for username and password.

i uploaded reports manually by using http://localhost/reportserver

i got view of report, but when i use report name in reportviewer in webform page not found error coming.

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Tuesday, March 11, 2008 10:33 PM by Jenni O'brien

Hi

I' have SQL RS previously configured using NT Authority\network service account. This works fine on LAN, I want to publish this site using SSL, is this possible. At present the RS configuration is on 2 servers, one db server and the RS server with no SSL configured. any help would be great. When Certs are setup in IIS, I get a page not found error. when SSL taken off the users can view the reports again. many thanks

Jenni

# re: SQL Server Reporting Services experiences

Monday, September 15, 2008 3:11 AM by arun

when two user hits same information for viewing using sql 2005 report server it works only for one user.the other user cannot view the content and he can able to view only after refreshing..can anyone provide me solution for this problem plz..?

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