Professional Microsoft SQL Server 2016 Reporting Services and Mobile Reports

Chapter 16Extending Reporting Services

WHAT'S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• Leveraging extensibility options
• Reasons for extending SQL Server Reporting Services
• Creating custom extensions
• Installing custom extensions

When I teach Reporting Services and work with teams to build reporting solutions, I find that certain analogies help put topics into perspective. When the average person buys a car, only a small fraction of that group would consider swapping out the engine or putting in a different exhaust system. Such endeavors require a lot of time and patience. I am not a serious grease monkey but I have disassembled and installed my fair share of car components, and learned quite a lot in the process. Likewise, learning how reporting extensions work internally will give you a better understanding of the core SSRS product. With respect to Reporting Services, if you are a serious mechanic and need to retrofit your reporting solution; this chapter is for you.

NOTE

Before you get into this topic, I will give you some context. In even the most serious, large-scale reporting solutions, developing custom extensions for Reporting Services is quite rare in practice. I will caution you to approach this option only if absolutely necessary, after you have achieved a firm understanding of the native capabilities in the SSRS platform.

As you learned in previous chapters, Reporting Services is a robust and scalable product for enterprise report processing. In addition, Microsoft has created ...