CODEWITHSUNDEEP
reporting-servicesbusiness-intelligencessrs-2012
aluncob
aluncob

Reputation: 87

Is it possible to build a fully interactive web app on top of SSRS?

I'm new to MS BI tools and after reading a bit, I feel that SQL Server + SSIS + SSAS would fulfill my needs on the modelling and analysis side.

However, on top of it, I would like to build a web application that allows the user to select what to present on columns, rows, which filters to apply and which kind of chart to represent the data into. (drag and dropping or whatever, using HTML). Of course, after modelling the data on SSAS. So it should be somehow like exposing the report builder inside a web app.

I was wondering whether there's a possibility to do so consuming the Web Services that I've read SSRS exposes, because for sure building such a solution by hand-coding would be quite complex. Or are those WS, in contrast, just made for displaying reports already created using Visual Studio enablers? Also I've read of creating RDL reports and then rendering them, is this somehow possible and connected to what I'm looking for?

If it's not possible, what would be the alternative, if any?

Thanks

Upvotes: 1

Views: 998

Answers (1)

Kalim
Kalim

Reputation: 485

If you have a look at the SSRS Web Service methods (find this here https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms155071.aspx) you will see that none of the methods allows for the functionality of creating a report from scratch.

Most if not all, of the methods are used to interact with existing reports. For example if you want to retrieve metadata of the report or of the report manager as a whole e.g retrieve a list of reports, retrieve a list of report paramaters.

You can also execute administrative tasks programatically using the web services, such as executing a schedule, moving reports from one location to another in report manager etc.

Putting a web interface on top of these functions seem suitable.

However to build an actual report from scratch through web services alone doesn't seem possible. The only way i can think of doing that would be to build up the XML structure of an RDL programmatically. To do that will be quite an undertaking and to be honest you are better off creating the reports manually.

As an alternative I'd consider moving to a self service BI tool such as Power BI/Excel (if you are stuck on the MS BI stack) or alternatives such as qlikview or tableau. In which case all you need to do as a developer is create the data model or dataset required for analysis and leave it up to the user to visualise a report.

Upvotes: 2

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