SSRS 2005 report with matrix in list displays data incorrectly on 2008 SSRS instance

Question

I've got a 2005 Reporting Services report that I need to deploy to both 2005 and 2008 instances of Reporting Services. On that report, I've got a matrix with a couple of row groups defined on it. That matrix is on a list that has a group defined on it, so that the matrix will display multiple times on the report. This works well on the 2005 instance of Reporting Services. Below is an example of how my data is displayed in 2005.

List_Group1
  Matrix_Group1  Matrix_Group3  Count
                                Amount
                 Matrix_Group4  Count
                                Amount                  
  Matrix_Group2  Matrix_Group3  Count
                                Amount
                 Matrix_Group4  Count
                                Amount

List_Group2
  Matrix_Group1  Matrix_Group3  Count
                                Amount
                 Matrix_Group4  Count
                                Amount                  
  Matrix_Group2  Matrix_Group3  Count
                                Amount
                 Matrix_Group4  Count
                                Amount

My problem comes when I deploy the report to our 2008 instance of SSRS. When I view the report, the data is displayed as below:

List_Group1
  Matrix_Group1  Matrix_Group3  Count
                                Amount
                 Matrix_Group3  Count
                                Amount                  
  Matrix_Group1  Matrix_Group3  Count
                                Amount
                 Matrix_Group3  Count
                                Amount

List_Group2
  Matrix_Group1  Matrix_Group3  Count
                                Amount
                 Matrix_Group3  Count
                                Amount                  
  Matrix_Group1  Matrix_Group3  Count
                                Amount
                 Matrix_Group3  Count
                                Amount

The fields for Matrix_Group1 and Matrix_Group3 get displayed multiple times for the same list group. The odd thing is that the counts and the amounts on the 2008 instance show up correctly. Anybody have any idea what's going on? If I get rid of the list and just have the matrix on the report, the matrix displays "correctly" in 2008, albeit without the list groupings.

Answer 1

Table and matrix objects in Reporting Services 2005 were replaced with Tablix objects in Reporting Services 2008 (in BIDS you still see Table and Matrix options but these are just different configurations of Tablix).

It sounds like you are deploying the 2005 version of the report to a 2008 server directly without opening it in 2008 BIDS and upgrading. In this scenario, the 2008 server will attempt to upgrade the report the first time it is run. It tries to upgrade once only and if the upgrade fails it will then run the report using a built-in "2005" rendering engine.

It sounds to me like something is going wrong with the conversion to 2008 after you have deployed the 2005 report to the 2008 server. I recommend copying the 2005 rdl file to a reports project in BIDS 2008 and opening it there - you should be prompted to upgrade the report to 2008. After this is done you can then inspect the new version of the report to see what has been done automatically when converting the existing matrix to a tablix.

You might be able to find a way to modify the 2005 report so that it renders on 2008 correctly as well, but since the 2005 matrix and 2008 tablix are different objects it might be that what you have created in 2005 simply can't be rendered in 2008 in the same way. In that case you might need to change your report or create a separate 2008 version of the report.