An Overview of SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS)

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SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) is a set of reporting tools provided by Microsoft that allow you to work with structured data on your SQL server. SSRS enables you to prepare and deliver various interactive and printed reports. With SSRS, you can create tabular, summary, graphical, dashboards and many more types of reports.

How SSRS Works

Simply put, SSRS does as its name suggest: it’s a service that helps you generate and manage reports. It uses SQL Server to store report definitions (the instructions for building a report) and retrieve the data required for the report. The SSRS service then uses this information to build the report and deliver it to the end user.

For example, a basic SQL code structure for accessing database in SSRS would look something like the following:

Components of SSRS

SSRS includes several components, each with specific roles:

Report Server:

This is the main component that hosts and processes reports in different formats such as HTML, PDF, Excel, CSV and more.

Report Builder:

Report Builder is a tool for designing reports. A typical example of T-SQL code that could be weaved into a report structure might be:

Report Designer:

This is a publishing tool that is used to publish reports to report server.

Report Manager:

This is an administrative tool for managing the Report Server.

SSRS Benefits

Perhaps the biggest advantage of SSRS is that it is included with SQL Server. It’s a feature-rich reporting platform that includes a complete set of tools to create, manage, and deliver reports, and APIs that enable developers to integrate or extend data and report processing in custom applications. SSRS reports are also an easy way to create a great variety of reports and go beyond traditional reporting to include interactive functionalities, such as drill-down features.