Model Designer is a Reporting Services tool used within the Business Intelligence Development Studio to define, edit, and publish report models that are used in Report Builder. A report model is a business description of the underlying database. It describes the data in terms of entities, attributes, and relationships (roles), which can then be used by Report Builder users to help them build ad hoc reports. The model describes the underlying database in familiar business terms that end-users can understand. You can launch Model Designer and start designing a model directly using a data source or you can automatically generate a model using a predefined set of rules. Model Designer can help you design models that are based on SQL Server databases and Oracle databases running version 9.2.0.3 or later. You can automatically generate models based on Analysis Services databases using a predefined set of rules by using Report Manager. For information about models generated from Analysis Services cubes, see Generating Models Using Report Management Tools.

To learn how to create a basic model, follow the tutorial Tutorial: Creating a Report Model. To learn how to optimize a report model, follow the Tutorial: Refining a Report Model in Model Designer.