Create a Report Server Project for Visual Studio ALM

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You can track your team's progress by using SQL Server Report Designer to create reports. Before you can base these reports on data from Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (TFS), you must first create a Report Server project in Visual Studio.

For an overview of Report Designer, see the following page on the Microsoft Web site: Designing and Implementing Reports Using Report Designer. For more information about how to create reports in Report Designer, see Create a Detailed Report using Report Designer and Create an aggregate report using Report Designer and the Analysis Services Cube.

Requirements

  • You must have Visual Studio and SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio installed on the same computer.

    To install Business Intelligence Development Studio, run the Setup program for SQL Server, and select the Client Components check box when you specify the components to install. To install the most recent service pack for SQL Server, see the following page on the Microsoft Web site: How to obtain the latest service pack for SQL Server 2008.

  • You must be a member of the TfsWarehouseDataReaders security role in the Analysis Services database on the data-tier server of Team Foundation Server. For more information, see Grant permissions to view or create reports in TFS.

  • You must be a member of the Team Foundation Content Manager role in SQL Server Reporting Services. For more information, see Set administrator permissions for Team Foundation Server. 

To create a Reporting Server project

  1. In Visual Studio, open the File menu, point to New, and then choose Project.

    The New Project dialog box appears.

  2. Under Project types, choose Business Intelligence Projects.

    If Business Intelligence Projects does not appear in the list of project types, you must install SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio. For more information, see the Prerequisites section near the start of this topic.

  3. Under Templates, choose Report Server Project.

  4. In the Name box, typea name for the project, and then choose OK.

To create the Tfs2010ReportDS and Tfs2010OlapReportDS data sources

  1. On the Project menu, choose Add New Item.

    The Add New Item dialog box appears.

  2. Choose Data Source, and then choose Add.

    The Shared Data Source dialog box appears.

  3. In the Name box, type Tfs2010ReportDS.

    Important

    If you do not use the name specified in this step, the procedures for deploying your reports will not work properly. This procedure creates local copies of the data sources that you will use as you develop your reports. These copies are equivalent to data sources that TFS has created on the server that is running SQL Server Reporting Services. When you deploy a report, TFS will use the data source on the server that has the same name as your local copy of the data source in your project.

  4. In the Type list, click Microsoft SQL Server, and then click Edit.

  5. In the Connection Properties dialog box, type the name of the server and instance (DataWarehouseServerName/InstanceName) that runs Analysis Services, and then choose Use Windows Authentication.

    Note

    In a typical configuration, use the name of the data-tier server. However, the warehouse can also be hosted on a separate server.

  6. Choose Select or Enter a database name, and then choose Tfs_Warehouse.

  7. (Optional) Choose Test Connection to verify that the connection works as defined, and then choose OK to return to the Shared Data Source dialog box.

  8. Choose OK, and then choose OK to create the data source.

  9. Repeat steps 1-7 to create another data source. Specify Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services for the type of the data source, and name it Tfs2010OlapReportDS. Specify Tfs_Analysis for the database name.

    Even though you might have installed or upgraded to TFS 2013, these names, which were assigned to the data sources for TFS 2010, are in use.

To set the project's properties so that you can deploy reports

  1. On the Project menu, choose Properties.

  2. For the value of the OverwriteDataSources property, choose False.

    Note

    If you set this option, you can publish your reports without overwriting the data sources on the server with those that you defined in this project.

  3. For the value of the TargetDataSourceFolder property, type /.

  4. For the value of the TargetReportFolder property, type the path of the folder where you will deploy the reports from this project. If you will deploy the reports to a specific team project, use the name of the team project.

  5. For the value of the TargetServerURL property, type the URL of the Reporting Services server. For example, you can type http://ReportingServicesServerName/reportserver.