The Report Services FAQ, day one
Well, it's proving to be an interesting excercise to compose this FAQ. I've been finding myself repeat these seven "Golden Rules" over and over again:
- Thou shall remember that the more you want to "stretch" Report Services, the more custom programming thou shall be expected to do for yourself.
- Thou art allowed exactly one Reporting Services instance per SQL Server 2000 license you have.
- Thou may share a Reporting Services metadata database between one or more Reporting Servers, provided you have that many SQL Server licenses + 1.
- Thou shall have the power, within Reporting Services, to use the results of any query supported by the data store you are reporting against so long as that query and those results are not munged by the data provider you are using.
- Thou shall honor the Report Definition Language (RDL) and hold it in high reverence for it as it is truly an awesome and powerful thing. Thou shall also remember that Report Definition Files (RDF) are merely XML files conforming the RDL schema. Neither has any “magical powers” until the Report Service use an RDF to run and render a report. Period.
- Thou shall not expected Reporting Services to be a "Silver Bullet" nor that it is blessed with any special "magic" to make your databases, database providers, queries, hardware, software or networks work any better.
- Thou shall anticipate that if you plan to use stored procedures – and thou should – thou may have to redo some of them to work will well with Reporting Services "one result set and only that result set" design.
There's probably going to be more, but this seems like a good start.
So far my favorite Q has been
Q. Can I send parameters to a report by embedding them in an URL?
A. Yes, you can, but no, you should not. Such parameters would be traveling unencrypted over the wire, both parameter name and value. SSL doesn’t help because the URL isn’t in the encrypted payload. Thus parameters embedded in URLs are easily sniffed out – especially if you are exposing your Reporting Services over the Internet. Bad idea, very bad idea. Little Red Riding Hood going to Grandma’s House alone bad.