Creating a Basic SSRS Report

As of Aptify 5.5.4, Aptify supports the use of SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) reports. This topic discusses the guidelines you should use when creating a basic client-specific SSRS report that users can run from Aptify. 

Aptify recommends that you follow these guidelines when creating SSRS reports for Aptify:

• Aptify strongly recommends that you use the base views in the entity definition database (typically, Aptify) as the source for SSRS reports rather than the base tables.

• Aptify reports are list-driven. When you run a report, the system first creates a List that contains the records from the specified view. The system then uses this List as the source for the SSRS report. Therefore, to display the correct records in the report, you must add the vwListDetail base view as a data source for the report and link the vwListDetail.RecordID field to the ID field of the report's service.

  If you create an SSRS report that does not include vwListDetail as a data source, the report will display all records in the service rather than only those displayed in the selected view.

• Do not define any Record Selection filters within SSRS reports, or attempt to create a report from a specific set of records from the selected view . Any filtering of the records should be done in the selected view.
• Aptify provides two sample SSRS reports, Person Roster_SSRS (for Persons) and Invoice_SSRS (for Orders), with the baseline Aptify product. You can use either of these reports as a starting point for your custom reports.
• Your SSRS report file (*.rdl) should be stored in a folder on the SSRS report server. 
• Create an Object Repository Object record for your SSRS report. See Creating Object Repository Objects for more details.
  • SSRS report entries in the Object Repository should point to the Report Server URL (such as https://<ServerName>/<SSRSServerName>?/<ReportsFolderName>), which you can specify when installing 5.5.4, as described in Installing Aptify 5.5.4 Server Software. See Setting Up Aptify to Use SQL Server Reporting Services for information on setting up SSRS after installation.
     
• Add the new SSRS report to an entity as described in Adding Reports to an Entity.
   

Microsoft Visual Studio includes an add-on tool (SQL Server Data Tools – Business Intelligence (SSDT-BI)) to write SSRS reports. You can find tutorials on creating SSRS reports using SQL Server Data Tools at the following URL:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb522859.aspx

You find more information on Reporting Services (SSRS) at the following URL:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms159106.aspx