Deploying Reports to a Production Environment
Deploying Reports to a Production Environment
Once you have designed and tested a report or set of reports, you use Report Designer to publish the reports to a production report server. The process for publishing to a test server and to a production server is the same.
Publishing Multiple Reports
When you deploy a report project, you publish all reports in that project. Report Designer supports multiple project configurations. Report Designer provides three configurations by default: DebugLocal, Debug, and Production. You can use the DebugLocal configuration to view reports in a local preview window, the Debug configuration to publish reports to a test server, and the Production configuration to publish reports to a production server. You can also add additional configurations. For example, you can add a configuration that publishes reports to a test server.
Each project configuration contains properties. There are several properties that you can set for a report project.
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| StartItem | A debug property that contains the name of the report to display in the preview window or in a browser window when the report project is run. |
| OverwriteDataSources | A deployment property that indicates whether to overwrite an existing data source on the server. Set this to False if you do not want to overwrite the existing data source. Set it to True to republish the data source information to the server. |
| TargetFolder | A deployment property that contains the name of the folder in which to store the published reports. By default, this is the name of the report project. |
| TargetServerURL | A deployment property that contains the URL of the target report server, for example, http://servername/reportserver. Before you publish a report, you must set this property to a valid report server URL. |
There are three ways to debug or deploy reports in a project:
- By clicking Start on the Debug menu.
- By clicking the Start button.
- By pressing F5.
Two Configuration Manager properties in each project determine how Report Designer runs a report project: the Build property and the Deploy property The following table describes the way each property affects how a report project is run.
| If... | Then... |
|---|---|
| Build is selected | Report Designer builds the report project and reports errors in the Task List window. |
| Build is not selected | Report Designer does not build the project; errors are only detected by the report server or preview process. |
| Deploy is selected | The reports in the project are published to the report server as defined in the Deployment properties for the project. |
| Deploy is not selected | Report Designer displays the report in a local preview window. |
All project properties can be accessed through the project property pages. To access these properties, in Solution Explorer, right-click the report project and then click Properties. To open Configuration Manager, click Configuration Manager.
For more information about publishing reports, see one of the following topics:
Publishing a Single Report
If you do not want to publish all reports in a project, you can choose to publish a single report. To do this, select a configuration that deploys the report (for example, the Production configuration), right-click the report, and then click Run. The target server URL and folder must be configured as explained earlier in this topic.
Build and Deploy
In addition to running a project or report as described previously in this topic, you can also choose to directly build or deploy the project or report. These options are available when you right-click a report or project, or on the Build menu for the solution or project. The following table describes these options.
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Build | The project or reports are built, but not deployed or displayed. This option can be used to check for errors in the report. |
| Deploy | The project or reports are built and deployed. If the current configuration builds the reports but does not deploy them, a report is displayed in the preview window. If the current configuration deploys the report, the report or reports are published to the report server. The difference between Deploy and Start (or Run) is that a browser window is not opened when you use Deploy. |
