Deploying Existing SSRS Reports in Test

In the past I've usually refreshed the ReportServer and ReportServerTempDB databases along with impresario and impresario_cci when doing a Live-to-Test copy. I'm not on RAMP, so can't say for sure, but couldn't they do this for you as well?

I thought our Live to Test copies covered reports but I've been told they don't.  I check on this, though.  Thanks! 

I was just informed that Tessitura doesn't refresh the ReportServer and ReportServerTempDB databases on RAMP as part of a Live to Test copy.  

If there's anyone on RAMP who's dealt with deploying custom reports in Test, I'd love to hear from you.  The only additional information I've received from Tessitura is 'to deploy them in Test with the proper connection info' but since we're on RAMP, I'm not sure what the proper connection info is.

Shereen,

I'm assuming that RAMP did the initial setup of your BIDS environment (as they did for us). 

In the Visual Studio Editor, there should be a dropdown menu in the top toolbar (just next to the green Arrow icon).  This drop down has your different environments in it.  

• Release = Live
• Debug = Test

Choose which environment you want and then right click your report in the solution explorer and choose Deploy.  You should see some status messages scrolling by.  Pay attention to the server names there to make sure you are deploying the report to the environment you want.

The Live to Test copy does bring over your report setup and SQL scripts, but you will need to deploy custom SSRS reports to the Test environment at least once to have them work.

Let me know if you have any questions!

- Levi

Unknown said:

The Live to Test copy does bring over your report setup and SQL scripts, but you will need to deploy custom SSRS reports to the Test environment at least once to have them work.

Strange. As long as I copy the impresario and ReportServer dbs to Test at the same time, my custom SSRS reports work fine w/o deploying again. Is it a RAMP requirement of some sort? Sorry to misinform if so...

I'm not completely familiar with the RAMP architecture, but I assume that it's due to the fact that they have completely separate instances running for SSRS in each environment.  When I deploy to Live it is hitting a different server than when I deploy to Test.  While I do have only one copy of the SSRS RDL files, the deployed reports live on separate machines for Live and Test.

For Infomaker reports there are actually separate copies of the PBL files for live and test since the reports in the PBLs are the actual files being executed against when the reports are run.  For SSRS the deployed reports are not the same files as the RDLs in the Project.

That usually is an issue with parameters or you changed a column name and need to do a refresh.  Double check that all parameters are there and refresh your fields.

Unknown said:

I'm not completely familiar with the RAMP architecture, but I assume that it's due to the fact that they have completely separate instances running for SSRS in each environment.  When I deploy to Live it is hitting a different server than when I deploy to Test.  While I do have only one copy of the SSRS RDL files, the deployed reports live on separate machines for Live and Test.

Me, too. Completely separate Live & Test servers with Tess and a ReportServer living alongside each other on both. The sprocs and deployed reports copy with everything else when I refresh the Test dbs from Live. I wonder if in the case of RAMP they won't/can't copy the ReportServer when doing refreshes because they are sharing the report server(s) among multiple RAMP clients in some way that makes a typical db refresh difficult? In that case I would think a re-deploy would be a logical way around that.

Shereen -

In case your issue is not resolved at the field or tablix level...

While we are not on RAMP, we do have separate instances of SSRS running for Live and Test, so if what Levi says is true, our setup might be still comparable. You might be able to deduce what you have and what you don't have from a browser using Microsoft IE Report Manager interface - that has really helped me clarify what I have in Live and Test, and help troubleshoot things like this. Try going to http://<servername>/Reports - try both your test and live servernames in there, and compare the two setups. (You do need a server login, though, to access this, and maybe that is something that RAMP folks don't have...?)

I wonder if you might not have a Data Source deployed to your test environment, since you also didn't have any reports deployed there. If your report/tablix is pointing to a dataset that does not live within a data source in the test environment... maybe...?!? I had something similar once when I made a new view or sproc or something that hadn't been pushed out as an SSRS data source the first time...

Beth