If the organizations you’ve worked with are anything like the ones I’ve had the pleasure of working with, then they probably had or have thousands of SSRS reports spread out all over the place. And back around the time a majority of companies were gearing up to migrate to SQL 2008 from 2005, getting a grasp on the number and complexity of these reports was quite a challenge.

This is just the scenario where BI Documenter really shines. Besides being able to document your SQL databases, SSIS packages, and SSAS cube, BI Documenter can also document your SSRS reports and shared data sources, all the way down to the XML behind the scenes in case your reports are lost.

Let’s walk through creating the documentation we need to understand how many and how complex the reports are that are being considered for migration. For the sake of this example, just pretend my SSRS 2008 reports are actually 2005 ;).

Open BI Documenter, click Add a New Solution. Give the solution a name and description and then click Create Solution.

After clicking Next, click Add Reporting Services Server on the next screen.

The reports you wish to document can exist either on the SSRS server or on a SharePoint Server. In my case, my reports are on my local SSRS instance so I’ll select Native for my Server Mode. Key in the server and any credentials. Click the hyperlink at the bottom of the screen to verify BI Documenter can reach the SSRS server. Click Next.

Give a name and description of the Report Server and click Finish.

Now that we’ve add the Report Server to our documentation solution, we need to create a snapshot. On the Filter tab, check the boxes next to Reports and RS Data Sources.

Click Next a couple times. All we need to do now is finalize the documentation. You can output the documentation in HTML format or in a .CHM file. Select the output destination.

On the last tab, Reporting Objects, make sure the box is checked to document the Report Definition. This is a great tool if you reports are lost. With a little work, the documentation of the Report Definition can be used to recreate the reports. Click Next. Once the process to create the documentation is finished, click Finish.

Now we have a precise and detailed document outlining all the reports living on our SSRS server. I can view the .rdl’s for my reports, the parameters, data sources, and data sets. I can even view the data set queries.

The great thing about this feature of BI Documenter is that I can easily document all my SSRS reports as long as I know the Report Server. Head here to download the free trial.