Overview of SQL Server Reporting Services 2012 Architecture, Features, and Tools - Learning SQL Server Reporting Services 2012 - page 152

Subscriptions and delivery
In order for a report to be delivered to you by some means you should arrange for a
subscription, a standing request to get a report at a specific time, in a specific format.
If you are not scheduling you could also view a report on demand, by actively
selecting the report from the server.

Subscriptions allow you automate scheduled report deliveries. Subscriptions
are processed on the Report Server and are distributed using delivery extensions
deployed on the server. By default, you can get reports to a shared folder, or to an
e-mail address. In case of a Report Server installed in SharePoint Integrated mode,
you can get delivery of the report to a SharePoint library.

Out of the box, the following subscription and delivery options are supported but
extensions can be used to create custom subscriptions as well:

Scenario Description

E-mail reports E-mail reports to individual users and groups. Create a

subscription and specify a group alias or e-mail alias to receive
a report that you want to distribute. You can have Reporting
Services determine the subscription data at run time. If you
want to send the same report to a group that has a changing list
of members, you can use a query to derive the subscription list
at run time.

View reports
offline

Users can select PDF, Microsoft Excel, or Web archive formats
in a subscription. These formats are recommended for viewing
reports offline. Reports that you want to archive can be sent
directly to a shared folder that you backup on a nightly
schedule. Large reports that take too long to load in a browser
can be sent to a shared folder in a format that can be viewed in
a desktop application.

Preload cache If you have multiple instances of a parameterized report or a

large number of report viewers, you can preload reports in the
cache to reduce processing time used to display the report.

Data-driven
reports

Use data-driven subscriptions to customize report output,
delivery options, and report parameter settings at run time. The
subscription uses a query to get input values from a data source
at run time. You can use data-driven subscriptions to perform a
mail-merge operation that sends a report to a list of subscribers
that is determined at the time the subscription is processed.