Designing considerations for Reporting Services integration (SSRS) in Exact Synergy Enterprise

Posted on 08. Apr, 2010 by André van de Graaf in Exact Synergy

In the blog article: Insight in your daily business, Exact announced the integration of Microsoft SQL Server Reporting services (SSRS) in Exact Synergy Enterprise. Before we started the design of this project, we defined next requirements: 

• Multi browser support.
• Support of latest SSRS versions and features.
• Reports built with the Microsoft report building tools.
• Easy management of deployed reports.
• Support for Web parts.
• Deployment and access to reports via Synergy roles.  

Multi browser support.
In March 2010 Exact announced the start of the project: Multi-browser support of Exact Synergy Enterprise. This requirement made the answer to the next question relative easy to made: Will we retrieve and render the data on the web server or on a Reporting Services report server? Retrieve and rendering of reports on the web server can be done with the Report Viewer control. This has some advantages however it conflicts with our goal to support multiple browsers.  This means that Exact Synergy Enterprise will render all SSRS reports on a Reporting Services report server. You have a license to use reporting services as long as the reporting server is installed on your database server. If you install a seperate reporting server you require an additional license. More information about SQL 2008 licensing can be found here.  

Support of latest SSRS versions and features.
In every new version of SQL server, new features will be added to Reporting server. Especially in SQL 2008 R2 a lot of nice reporting features are added like 

Maps, Sparklines, Databars and Indicators.  

Reports build with the Microsoft report building tools.
Microsoft made excellent tools to build reports and make use of the new features. For instance:  

• Report Builder 2.0  for SQL 2008
• Report Builder 3.0  for SQL 2008 R2. At this moment availabel in the CTP version. As of June with the launch of SQL 2008 R2 commercial availabe.
• SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio.

Easy management of deployed reports.
After building a SSRS report, you should deploy the report to the reporting server. The deployment of SSRS reports can be done via the Synergy user interface. This includes deletion of deployed reports and the re-deploy of reports to a new or additional reporting server. 

Support of web parts.
Web parts are a nice way to build your own dashboard. As of Exact Synergy Enterprise we support web parts on the home page of a user. 

Deployment and access to reports via Synergy roles.
To deploy reports via Synergy you should have the role Report manager. To access a report you should have the role which are linked to the reports. This can be existing roles but also new created roles.

I hope you will enjoy the integration of Reporting services in Exact Synergy Enterprise.

Photo credits: SOCIALisBETTER

Related posts:

• What’s new on the menu for Reporting Services Integration in Synergy?
• How to use drill through SSRS reports in Exact Synergy Enterprise release 243
• Growing number of standard HRM reports in Exact Synergy Enterprise
• Exact Synergy Enterprise Certified for Windows Server 2008R2
• Rafiki’s Corner – Exact Event Manager 1.6 – A Bag of Tricks

Tags: Exact Synergy Enterprise, Reporting Services, SSRS