Is it possible to import existing SSRS reports in Visual Studio?

Question

When upgrading a machine, we lost the Visual Studio project that was used to create SSRS reports. The Data Sources and the Reports still exist on the server however. Is there a way to re-create the VS project using what it on the SQL server? Is there a way to create a new Reporting Services project and to import existing Data Sources and Reports in it?

I believe the reports were originally created using VS 2005.

Eb

Answer 1

You haven't lost much.

The data sources are not much: the connection string to a database, and possibly settings for caching and authentication. These should be easily recreated.

The report definitions (.rdl files) can be downloaded for each report type, and added to a new Reporting Services project. They will need to be pointed at the newly recreated datasources, but then should be fine.

To download the report files, go to the Reporting Services Report Manager (website.) For a default instance of SQL with default install options this is http://servername/reports/ If you have admin permissions, there you can browse through the reports. Go to the properties of a given report and click the Edit... button. This will download the .rdl through your browser. (In SSRS 2008, the Edit button was changed to "Download...")

You will need to find out what version of SSRS you are running: the different versions of Business Intelligence Developer Studio (BIDS, the SSAS and SSRS version of Visual Studio) create reports for specific versions of SSRS. The reports can be upgraded, but not downgraded or deployed to an older version of SSRS.

Coaptation

Thanks, this is helpful. We are using Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Version 9.00.4053.00. I am still trying to find out how to download these .rdl files though. I haven't used Reporting Services for many months, and I am still trying to remember how I set this over a year ago... – Islamite

@Jamie_F Thanks! This helped me a lot, and I was able to rebuild the solution. :-) – Islamite

Please consider moving the details of the comment for downloading/adding the data into the answer. This was the most valuable portion of the answer IMHO. – Endways

Answer 2

There's now a PowerShell module that will do a nice job of this.

out-rsfoldercontent -reportserveruri http://[reportserver name]/reportserver -RsFolder /[path you'd like to export] -Destination c:\test -recurse

Adjust the parameters to suit.

https://github.com/Microsoft/ReportingServicesTools

Cola

Answer 3

SSRS doesn't allow you to download all reports from a report folder in 1 go...

However I found and tweaked a simple piece of SQL I found on the net which we use to great effect on our system...

This is it:-

/*
People working on SSRS are well aware that “Report Manager” does not support downloading all the report files (.rdl files) at one go out-of-box.
However take this script, alter the xxx parameters to your bits. Its works great.
If you get a HOST Error - you need to set full permission to the SQL Server Group on your DOS Dir. 
on [Our_Prod_Server], this is: SQLServerMSSQLUser$NS226758$MSSQLSERVER

NOTE: You will find a RETURN; statement below, comment it out once you have altered the parameters.
*/

--Replace NULL with keywords of the ReportManager's Report Path,  
--if reports from any specific path are to be downloaded 
--select * from [ReportServer].[dbo].[Catalog] CL -- this gives you an idea of the Report Directories.
DECLARE @FilterReportPath AS VARCHAR(500) = 'xxx'  

--Replace NULL with the keyword matching the Report File Name, 
--if any specific reports are to be downloaded 
DECLARE @FilterReportName AS VARCHAR(500) = '' 

--Replace this path with the Server Location where you want the 
--reports to be downloaded.. 
DECLARE @OutputPath AS VARCHAR(500) = 'C:\Users\[uuuuu]\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\Report Skeleton\[Report DIR Name]\' 

--Used to prepare the dynamic query 
DECLARE @TSQL AS NVARCHAR(MAX) 

RETURN;

--Reset the OutputPath separator. 
SET @OutputPath = REPLACE(@OutputPath,'\','/') 

--Simple validation of OutputPath; this can be changed as per ones need. 
IF LTRIM(RTRIM(ISNULL(@OutputPath,''))) = '' 
BEGIN 
  SELECT 'Invalid Output Path' 
END 
ELSE 
BEGIN 
   --Prepare the query for download. 
   /* 
   Please note the following points - 
   1. The BCP command could be modified as per ones need. E.g. Providing UserName/Password, etc. 
   2. Please update the SSRS Report Database name. Currently, it is set to default - [ReportServer] 
   3. The BCP does not create missing Directories. So, additional logic could be implemented to handle that. 
   4. SSRS stores the XML items (Report RDL and Data Source definitions) using the UTF-8 encoding.  
      It just so happens that UTF-8 Unicode strings do not NEED to have a BOM and in fact ideally would not have one.  
      However, you will see some report items in your SSRS that begin with a specific sequence of bytes (0xEFBBBF).  
      That sequence is the UTF-8 Byte Order Mark. It’s character representation is the following three characters, “”.  
      While it is supported, it can cause problems with the conversion to XML, so it is removed. 
   */ 
   SET @TSQL = STUFF((SELECT 
                      ';EXEC master..xp_cmdshell ''bcp " ' + 
                      ' SELECT ' + 
                      ' CONVERT(VARCHAR(MAX), ' + 
                      '       CASE ' + 
                      '         WHEN LEFT(C.Content,3) = 0xEFBBBF THEN STUFF(C.Content,1,3,'''''''') '+ 
                      '         ELSE C.Content '+ 
                      '       END) ' + 
                      ' FROM ' + 
                      ' [ReportServer].[dbo].[Catalog] CL ' + 
                      ' CROSS APPLY (SELECT CONVERT(VARBINARY(MAX),CL.Content) Content) C ' + 
                      ' WHERE ' + 
                      ' CL.ItemID = ''''' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(MAX), CL.ItemID) + ''''' " queryout "' + @OutputPath + '' + CL.Name + '.rdl" ' + '-T -c -x''' 
                    FROM 
                      [ReportServer].[dbo].[Catalog] CL 
                    WHERE 
                      CL.[Type] = 2 --Report 
                      AND '/' + CL.[Path] + '/' LIKE COALESCE('%/%' + @FilterReportPath + '%/%', '/' + CL.[Path] + '/') 
                      AND CL.Name LIKE COALESCE('%' + @FilterReportName + '%', CL.Name) 
                    FOR XML PATH('')), 1,1,'') 

  --SELECT @TSQL 

  --Execute the Dynamic Query 
  EXEC SP_EXECUTESQL @TSQL 
END

Ditmore

Answer 4

I used this piece of code, but I had problems with the polish characters in SSRS 2008 R2. So I added some replaces with replace this "broken" convert:

    SET @TSQL = STUFF((SELECT
                  ';EXEC master..xp_cmdshell ''bcp " ' +
                  ' SELECT ' +
                  ' REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE' +
                  ' (REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(REPLACE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(MAX), ' +
                  '       CASE ' +
                  '         WHEN LEFT(C.Content,3) = 0xEFBBBF THEN STUFF(C.Content,1,3,'''''''') '+
                  '         ELSE C.Content '+
                  '       END), ''''Å'''', ''''l''''), ''''Ä™'''', ''''e''''), ''''l›'''', ''''s'''') '+
                  '     , ''''ć'''', ''''c''''), ''''l¼'''', ''''z''''), ''''lš'''', ''''s'''') ' +
                  '     , ''''ó'''', ''''o''''), ''''Ä…'''', ''''a''''), ''''l»'''', ''''Z'''') '+
                  '     , ''''sÄ'''', ''''S''''), ''''†'''', ''''C''''), ''''l‚'''', ''''l'''') ' +
                  '     , ''''Ó'''', ''''O''''), ''''Ę'''', ''''E''''), ''''lº'''', ''''z'''') ' +
                  '     , ''''Ä„'''', ''''A''''), ''''l¹'''', ''''Z'''') '+
                  ' FROM ' +
                  ' [ReportServer].[dbo].[Catalog] CL ' +
                  ' CROSS APPLY (SELECT CONVERT(VARBINARY(MAX),CL.Content) Content) C ' +
                  ' WHERE ' +
                  ' CL.ItemID = ''''' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(MAX), CL.ItemID) + ''''' " queryout "' + @OutputPath + '' + CL.Name + '.rdl" ' + '-T -c -x'''
                FROM
                  [ReportServer].[dbo].[Catalog] CL
                WHERE
                  CL.[Type] = 2 --Report
                  AND '/' + CL.[Path] + '/' LIKE COALESCE('%/%' + @FilterReportPath + '%/%', '/' + CL.[Path] + '/')
                  AND CL.Name LIKE COALESCE('%' + @FilterReportName + '%', CL.Name)
                FOR XML PATH('')), 1,1,'')

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