This is always recommended to use the custom SSRS templates specially when we are working at enterprise level and there are many SQL Reporting projects going on within an organization. Using custom Templates helps to make sure the basic look and feel of the all the reports are same, export to pdf, print report etc… is working fine across without spending additional time in each and every report to fix all these common issues.
Also we can deploy our custom Templates in Visual Studio so that any time when we add a new report file (RDL), we can choose our custom templates which we have already created. In order to deploy these custom templates we need to make sure our custom files ate available in the below location
“C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies\ProjectItems\ReportProject”
Once this is done we will able to choose our custom template any time when add the new rdl file from Report project using Business Intelligence Development Studio.
I created two custom report templates
1. Landscape
2. Portrait
Here are the details on what all exist in above two report files.
1. The header and footer are already being added in both the reports.
2. The header section has a text box which would show all the selected parameters in the report. To do this we do not need to modify anything in the Header section and we just need to give parameter names in a hidden parameter.
3. The header section contains company logo in it.
4. The footer part will print the userid of the person who is running the report and page number.
5. The landscape report is used when we need to print the report in landscape format.
6. The portrait report is used when we need to print the report in the portrait format.
7. Both the reports would ensure that export to pdf and print works fine without making any changes.
We should not change the report layout or the size of the report but there always can be exception when we need to increase the width of the report if all the contents are not fitting in the template report.
At last once again I would recommend using the SSRS custom templates while working on SQL Report projects, this helps in saving some time and make sure all the reports are consistent across within an organization.
I hope this helps, please leave comments if you have any questions or thoughts on this.
Also we can deploy our custom Templates in Visual Studio so that any time when we add a new report file (RDL), we can choose our custom templates which we have already created. In order to deploy these custom templates we need to make sure our custom files ate available in the below location
“C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies\ProjectItems\ReportProject”
Once this is done we will able to choose our custom template any time when add the new rdl file from Report project using Business Intelligence Development Studio.
I created two custom report templates
1. Landscape
2. Portrait
Here are the details on what all exist in above two report files.
1. The header and footer are already being added in both the reports.
2. The header section has a text box which would show all the selected parameters in the report. To do this we do not need to modify anything in the Header section and we just need to give parameter names in a hidden parameter.
3. The header section contains company logo in it.
4. The footer part will print the userid of the person who is running the report and page number.
5. The landscape report is used when we need to print the report in landscape format.
6. The portrait report is used when we need to print the report in the portrait format.
7. Both the reports would ensure that export to pdf and print works fine without making any changes.
We should not change the report layout or the size of the report but there always can be exception when we need to increase the width of the report if all the contents are not fitting in the template report.
At last once again I would recommend using the SSRS custom templates while working on SQL Report projects, this helps in saving some time and make sure all the reports are consistent across within an organization.
I hope this helps, please leave comments if you have any questions or thoughts on this.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteIt is really good article.Can you please provide me screen shot how you will achieve?