Build tool to convert SSRS projects report RDL schema from 2016 to 2008 version

Question

I have a number of SSRS reports that are currently in 2016 schema and need to be converted to 2008 R2 schema upon build.

Does anyone know how I can achieve this? Is it actually possible to do this? Does Microsoft provide a tool for this purpose?

It is difficult to find information on this, so any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks all!

Annulate

If you mean you want to deploy to a 2008R2 server, then I think you can just change the Target Server Version in the project settings in Visual Studio. – Diathermic

@AlanSchofield is correct; to expand this slightly, when you're building the project and have set the Target Server Version as required, the actual RDL build artefacts file(s) with the 2008R2/2012/2014 schema will be available in the project bin folder. This assumes that there are no 2016 specific features in the report or the build/deploy will fail. – Harvison

Seems like about the same issue as #38902537 – Dioxide

Answer 1

You can convert 2016 rdls to 2008 r2 version by following below simple steps :

• Update Version 2016 to 2008 in first line.
• Delete two lines of both opening and closing part of the ReportSection and ReportSections.
• Delete complete ReportParametersLayout part.

Shotwell

As for the last step it was ReportParametersLayout in my case (notice plural for ParameterS), but it worked at the end, so thanks a lot! – Dioxide

Works sometimes. The other answer below works 100%.. – Viscometer

Answer 2

Using Visual Studio 2017.

1. Right click on Project then Go to Properties.

2. Change TargetServerVersion to any of the following then click OK

   SQL Server 2008

   SQL Server 2008 R2, 2012 or 2014

3. This step is crucial. when you are done with the design.

   • Right click RDL or project and click Build.

depending on build configuration you should have rdl file created for you in the follwing path.

\bin\Release\report1.rdl

\bin\Debug\report1.rdl

Guru

Thanks for sharing this. This is much easier than messing around manually editing the RDL structure as some other answers suggest. – Apollonius

This is the best solution. Modifying the XML is terrible and doesn't always work. – Viscometer