Report Delivery Options – Windows File Share
The second option on the Reporting Services subscription screen is “Delivered by:”, and you have two choices, E-Mail or Windows File Share. You can read about E-mail delivery here.
We’re going to focus on Windows File Share in this post. This option will save a file to a location you specify on your network. When you choose this option, this is the screen you will see:
Just like the E-Mail option, there are so many things you can do with File Share!
File Name: – This is the name the file will be saved as. Just as a note, you can’t use the same parameters that you can with email. I’ve tested it, and they just appear as @ReportName and @TimeExecuted in the file name. You can, however, use the parameter @timestamp. This will add the time the report was saved to the file name. This is useful for creating uniquely named files!
Add a file extension when the file is created – If this is selected, the file will be assigned a 3-letter extension corresponding to the file format you select. If this is not selected, the 3-letter extension isn’t assigned to the file, although it will still open in the selected format.
Path: – The location on the network the file will be saved to. The folder must already exist – Reporting Services won’t create it. Also, you must use the UNC format: \\servername\foldername\subfolder.
Render Format: – The file format the report will be saved in. The formats you can pick from vary based on your version of Reporting Services. This is the list of formats available in 2008.
- XML file with report data – the report is saved as an .xml file.
- CSV (comma delimited) – the report is saved as a .csv file.
- Acrobat (PDF) file – the report is saved as a .pdf file.
- HTML 4.0 – the report is saved as an .html file. Note: if there are images in your report, they will not show in this format.
- MHTML (web archive) – the report is saved as a .mhtml file.
- Excel – the report is saved as an .xls file.
- RPL Renderer – the report is saved as an .rpl file. What is .rpl? (I had to ask!) RPL (Report Page Layout Format) is a rending format used in newer Reporting Services version for forcing the client to share some of the workload of rendering viewer controls. This enhances performance in the loading process of reports. (Thank you, Ted (blog | Twitter), for finding this information for me.)
- TIFF file – the report is saved as a .tif file.
- Word – the report is saved as a .doc file.
Credentials used to access the file share: – This must be a network account, with access to the folder you are saving the file to.
Overwrite options: – These are options for what will happen if the report has previously been saved to the network location.
- Overwrite an existing file with a newer version – Just what it says! If a file with the same name and extension exists in that folder, it will be overwritten. If I save “Sales Report.xls” at 10:00 AM on Monday, then save “Sales Report.xls” at 10:00 AM on Tuesday, only the file from Tuesday will exist.
- Do not overwrite the file if a previous version exists – Again, this is just what it says! If a file with the same name and extension exists in that folder, the file will not save. If you look at the report subscription Status, you will see the message, “A file named “ReportName” already exists in the destination folder. To continue, do one of the following: remove the existing file, specify a different name, or set overwrite options to allow the replacement of the existing file with a newer”.
- Increment file names as newer versions are added – The first time the file is saved, it is as “Report Name.doc”. The next time, it is “Report Name_1.doc”, then “Report Name_2.doc”, etc. Another way to achieve the same effect is to use the @timestamp parameter in the File Name, and set the Overwrite option to “Do not overwrite…”
Windows File Share can be a very powerful, very useful tool. I hope you consider using it in your environment!
Read on to learn about Processing Options and Parameters.
