CHAPTER 9 RENDERING REPORTS FROM .NET APPLICATIONSWeb Services Method Categories
The Report Server Web services can control every aspect of the report server and consists of several
categories of methods, as listed in Table 9-6.
The Report Server Web services uses many of these methods to control aspects of SSRS 2012 that
aren’t directly related to controlling reports, so we won’t cover them in this chapter. However, you
should be aware of the level of control your custom application can have over SSRS 2012 and the types of
functions that can be performed, because you might want to provide a user interface to them from your
application. Keep in mind that Microsoft built the main SSRS 2012 report manager application using
ASP.NET and these Web services.
For the SSRS Viewer RVC, you are using the Report Viewer control to render the report, but you want
to provide a custom Windows Forms–based user interface to allow users to enter their report
parameters. The rest of this chapter concentrates on using methods from the report parameters category
listed in Table 9-6. You’ll use these methods to obtain a list of the parameters that the report expects and
also to find the possible values for those parameters.
Table 9-6. Categories of the Report Server Web Services Methods
Category Manages
Namespace management Folders and items on the server and their properties
Authorization Tasks, roles, and policies
Data source connections Data source connections and credentials
Report parameters Setting the retrieval parameters for reports
Models Managing model creation, removal, modification and policies
Rendering and execution Report execution, rendering, and caching
Report history Snapshot creation and history
Scheduling Shared schedule creation and modification
Subscription and delivery Subscription creation and modification
Linked reports Linked report creation and management
You’ll use this information to create and populate combo boxes that allow the users to enter their
choices from a Windows Forms dialog box.
Creating the GetParameters Form
You already have a form (ViewerRVC.cs) to render and display the report in the embedded Report Viewer
control. You’ll now add a second form to the project that you’ll use to display the report and rendering
parameters and to allow the users to make their selections.