SSRS/Visual Studio Login Confusion

I know that in order to deploy to the Report Manager, you need to configure Report Manager so your desired user has access. 

Start your browser
Type in your Report Manager URL (http://<<reportservername>>/reports).

The Report Manager now renders the Home folder with the Contents and Properties tabs

Click on the Properties tab.

Click on the New Role Assignment button

Assign your account domain/user_name to the Content Manager role.

Click on the Ok button to save the new user-role

 

Click on the Site Settings link located at the top-right of the browser's window

Click on its Security option located on the left pane

Add yourself to the System Administrator and System User roles.

Click on the Ok button to save the changes

 

Hope this was helpful.

From: Nick Reilingh <bounce-nicholasreilingh4883@tessituranetwork.com>
Sent: 3/20/2014 9:18:49 PM

Hi folks,

I've nearly got my head wrapped around SSRS integration, but have reached a brick wall when it comes to authenticating Visual Studio to SSRS for the purposes of report deployment. I was looking for a T-Cast about initial setup that appears to have been taken down, but the replacement Custom Report Setup document doesn't seem to cover setup of SSRS in general (which was purportedly present in this T-Cast). Also, I'm one degree removed from the person who actually installed all of our server infrastructure, so I am not completely sure if the configuration and user permissions were done in the right way. Things seem to work, at least, but the custom report integration piece is causing some confusion.

My understanding is that Visual Studio can be used to edit a solution that has two different build configurations, pointing to the TEST and LIVE SSRS servers. The Data Sources deployed on each server will point to the appropriate database using the common name "TessituraDB", but since the datasource in the solution can only maintain a single configuration, after doing the proper data source deployments to each server, the "Overwrite Data Sources: False" setting will prevent the single persistent configuration from ever overwriting the incorrect one. However, after defining different destination SSRS servers for the two build configurations, I am unable to find where the logins for each of these servers should be configured. When I first attempted to deploy to my TEST server, a credential window popped up, but now when I am attempting to deploy to my LIVE server, the deploy fails outright with:

The permissions granted to user 'TESSIDB01\nreiling' are insufficient for performing this operation.

Right now, I CAN deploy an SSRS report to LIVE by launching Visual Studio as administrator on the database server. However, I would like to be able to develop my reports on my local workstation, and I am presuming that I shouldn't need to launch VS as Administrator in the first place if everything is configured correctly. Strangely enough, the error message above appears when deploying from my local workstation, even though that username was never input and doesn't even match my user login on the machine itself. I do have stored credentials for that server, however, that I suppose could be getting picked up when VS tries to authenticate for SSRS deployment.

One component that I really don't understand much about, nor have I seen configuration for anywhere is where user permissions and roles are configured with regard to SSRS. There is a specific login that is used for SSRS administration (I can log into /Reports_ in a web browser), but I am COMPLETELY baffled as to how this is managed. I know it is configured in TIM as "SSRS: Windows Domain User", but the same appears nowhere in SSRS Configuration Manager, the Windows user is a member of no group but Users, and it doesn't even exist as a DB login on TEST (it does on LIVE, though, strangely enough). I can find no other place to manage security and logons for SSRS -- using the Windows Domain User to log in to the web interface still reaches a "You do not have permission to access this page" error when attempting to access security on a folder (presuming this is even remotely relevant), there are no buttons for Site Settings or Properties on those pages, and evidently elevating my personal domain logon to server administrator when running VS on our live database server was enough to enable access to deploy an SSRS report to that server.

So, I can think of a few possible explanations here:

1. I should be trying to find this dialog box which displayed when I was deploying to the TEST SSRS instance the first time.
2. The permissions and/or stored credentials set on/for the SSRS instances differ, and LIVE is allowing a connection from my stored domain user credential that doesn't have sufficient permissions, whereas TEST was denying my domain credential outright prompting me to log in using the proper SSRS user.

I would love for someone to drop even a tiny bit of knowledge to confirm or clarify any of what I've written above. I feel like if only I could get back to that SSRS Login dialog box for the LIVE server I'd be all set, but the documentation only tells you what it does, not where to find it.

Some notes about our environment:

• We have no AD server so passwords are manually synced across different servers when necessary -- I have a high level of confidence that this doesn't cause an issue, but could be seen as odd.
• We are running SQL Server and SSRS 2012 on Windows Server 2008 R2. Perhaps my inability to see the Properties/Site Settings buttons in the SSRS Administration page is due to a difference in SSRS 2012, or maybe that's a permissions issue in itself?
• BIDS has been superseded by "SQL Server Data Tools" as of SQL Server 2012, so this is what is installed in VS 2010 on the database servers, and in VS 2012 on my local machine. There appears to be no functional differences for the SSRS features we use--just a graphical overhaul.

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