I have a reportviewer (Microsoft.ReportViewer.WebForms) control on my page. All my reports use one data source. I want to be able to let my reports run on a different database when started from my UAT enviroment. So the location of the reports is the same, but the data comes from a different db. I cannot seem to find how this is done, is it even possible?
EDIT: They are server reports on SQL Server . I know you can set the dataset programmaticaly but I just want the reports to point to a different db and leave the rest of the report intact.
2005
TIA,
John
Did you want to pass a full connection string to the report as a parameter? You can do it but sometimes SSRS gets funny and make sure you delete the report off the server before you deploy a new copy when doing this…
1. Make a parameter – let’s call ours connectionStr. Make it not null, not blank, single select and text as the data type. Eventually, you will want to hide this parameter but for testing please leave it visible.
2. So the value you will be using as the connection string… (for testing I set this as the default for the parameter, with nothing put under the available values section)
Data Source=MySQLServerName;Initial Catalog=MyDatabaseName;Persist Security Info=True;User ID=MyUserNameForTheServer;Password=MyPasswordForTheServer;MultipleActiveResultSets=True
3. You need an unattended execution account on your report server or you get this: unattended execution account is not specified. (rsInvalidDataSourceCredentialSetting).
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms156302.aspx I can’t provide more details because my boss had to do this part for me.
4. Under your datasource properties in SSRS… check Embedded Connection, select the type (mine is just a normal MS SQL Server), for the connection string, open the expression box and put: =Parameters!connectionStr.value and then click credentials and make sure the last option for no credentials is selected.
5. Your datasets for that datasource will no longer be happy when you try to edit them in design view but you can switch the datasource connection properties back to how they were, not using the parameter based connection string, for editing them.
My reports are on different servers, with different instances of the Report Server, too. On some servers, they need to get their data from various databases depending on whatever, stuff. This way, with the connection string as a parameter, I can use the same reports everywhere and just deploy them to the different servers. If you are having to pass this connection string around your app or to a report viewer, I suggest using encryption.
Like I said… SSRS get’s funny when you start doing this, though. Your reports should always work in preview mode after doing this, if they don’t even when provided with the correct connection strings, then you have an issue that won’t be solved by just deploying to the server. Trouble shooting problems with this once they are on the server but not working include checking permissions, making sure the report receives the correct connection string and making all your stored procedures and functions within the SQL database are all the same.
If you want to just pass the database name and everything else is the same (server name, username, password) then just set the connection string parameter equal to your database name and for the datasource expression value use
="Data Source=MySQLServerName;Initial Catalog=" + Parameters!connectionString.value + ";Persist Security Info=True;User ID=MyUserNameForTheServer;Password=MyPasswordForTheServer;MultipleActiveResultSets=True"I needed to pass the whole thing in, and you can play around with the credential settings – you might be able to save the server username/password info in there for each report so that the unattended execution account is not needed.