Reporting Services Report Models - Professional SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services - page 363

Building the model consists of checking expression syntax, validating the availability of files, verifying
IDs of related objects, and performing other types of validation activities. If the project is verified, the
process will continue with the deployment of the package.
To deploy the package, SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio invokes the Reporting
Services Web service. The Reporting Services Web service contains methods for publishing to the server.
When you are deploying a project, you are really deploying the smdl file. This file will be stored in the
ReportServer database in the Catalog table. Whenever users make a request for the model, Reporting
Services will simply read it back from the database. No file is actually stored on the server's file system.
To check that the project has deployed successfully, open SQL Management Studio and connect to your
Report Server. Under the home folder, you should see a Data Source and Models folder now created. If
you expand the Models folder, you will see your project listed.
Now that the Report Model has been created and deployed, you can move on to creating reports using
the Report Builder. Chapter 9 will walk you through using the Report Builder to allow end user devel-
opment of reports.
Building Report Models from Analysis
Services Databases
The bulk of this chapter discussed building Reporting Services Report Models using SQL Server. It
is also possible, and in my opinion much simpler, to create Report Models using Analysis Services.
Creating a Report Model from Analysis Services requires the initial creation of an Analysis Services
database. Creating Analysis Services databases is outside the scope of this text, so you will use the
Adventure Works DW Analysis Services sample provided with SQL Server 2005.
To create a Report Model from an Analysis Services database, you do not need to use the Business
Intelligence Development Studio. Most of the work that was done to create a Report Model from SQL
Server is the same type of work that is done to create an Analysis Services database. So, all you need to
do is create a connection to the Analysis Services database in Report Manager and then generate the
model from it. The first step is to open the Report Manager in the web browser. The default location is
http://localhost/reports .
From Report Manager, click on the New Data Source button to launch the New Data Source entry page.
In the New Data Source page, simply give the data source a name as connection string to the Analysis
Services database as illustrated in Figure 8-30. Make sure that you set the appropriate connection string
for your database and specify “Windows integrated security” for the Connect using setting. Once you
have entered the correct settings, click OK to create the data source.
Once your data source is created, edit it by clicking on it in the Report Manager page. If you used the
settings from Figure 8-30, the data source should be labeled “Adventure Works DW AS.” In the Data
Source edit page, you should be able to scroll to the bottom and see a Generate Model button, as illus-
trated in Figure 8-31.