Internal Tooling
SSRS Vantage — Report Server Management Tool
A custom .NET Windows desktop application that replaced manual steps and legacy VBScripts for administering a law firm’s SSRS environment: promoting reports, exporting them, backing up report definitions, comparing versions and reviewing schedules and subscriptions.
A large SSRS catalog needs routine administration: moving reports from development to production, exporting PDFs for individual timekeepers or practice groups, keeping copies of report definitions, and knowing what is scheduled and who is subscribed. At Harper Grey these jobs were done by hand or with VBScripts.
What it solves
- Moving reports from development to production by hand, one at a time.
- Report definitions that existed only on the server, with no easy way to back them up or compare two versions.
- Exports for timekeepers, practice groups or the whole inventory that depended on scripts and manual effort.
- No clear view of shared schedules, what depended on them and which subscriptions carried risk.
Technology stack
My role
I designed and built SSRS Vantage for Harper Grey LLP’s report catalog.
Highlights
Check reports in the development folder, choose a destination folder and move them after an overwrite confirmation.
Export reports to PDF or Excel for selected timekeepers or practice groups, in bulk across the inventory, or download report definitions and data sources locally while preserving the server folder structure.
A side-by-side comparison of two report definitions shows exactly what changed.
Review, create, edit, disable, enable and export subscriptions. Review shared schedules with their usage, risk flags, linked subscriptions and cache plans.
Generate local Visual Studio report projects, and optionally a SQL Server Management Studio project, from content already on the report server.
Status indicators show whether the report server and databases are reachable from the current Windows session, and an offline help site opens at the topic for the active tool.
Key decisions
Each task is its own tool under a shared shell, so a new administrative need becomes a new tool rather than another script.
Server and folder settings live in a local configuration file rather than in code, so the application can be installed on another workstation without changes to the program.
Status
SSRS Vantage is in operational use for Harper Grey’s report catalog.
Outcomes
- Report moves, backups and exports are done from one application instead of scattered scripts.
- Report definitions can be backed up and compared before and after a change.