Reporting Services 2008: export instead of regenerate ?

Question

Is there some way to cache a generated report in the reporting services, so that I could later export it to some other format ?

I.e., currently, I'm generating an HTML version of the report (throught the webservice) and if the users asks for an excel file, I generate it again, this time in excel. The problem is, that the data can potentialy change during this time and the HTML and excel versions may differ. Another obvious drawback is that the report is being regenerated, when just a change of format would suffice.

So the question is, whether reporting services support some sort of caching mechanism for the generated data and a later export to a specified format ? I'm currious, how is the "Export" button implemented in the report viewer control - does it actually regenerate the report, or does it somehow export it ?

Answer 1

If it's the same as SSRS 2005 then under each individual report on your report server portal there will be a "Properties" tab and one of the options under this tab will be "Execution".

The first execution option is to work from the most recent data but a sub option allows you to cache the report for a certain amount of time on a schedule.

The second option allows you to auto generate the report from a snapshot, again with scheduling options.

I can't see why they would change this for 2008 but then I can't see why Microsoft do a lot of things...