Reporting Services - deployment and global/shared configuration between reports

Question

Is it possible to add global variables that are shared among reports in SQL Server Reporting Services? I know it's possible to add variables for a report but I want the same variables to be used from many different reports.

Also, is it possible to have different configurations for different servers so that when reports are deployed they will use different settings? (like web.config for SSRS reports). The purpose is to have different settings for development, test and production environments. They way it is now, I have to change variables in the report properties before deployment.

(of course its possible to create a table in the database for report settings but I really don't want to mess up vendor databases or add new databases just for adding global report configuration)

Answer 1

You might want to look into using custom assemblies http://www.code-magazine.com/article.aspx?quickid=0701061&page=2

Answer 2

Personnally I use parameters for code purpose, but you can define these into the web interface.

When you ask the web service http://127.0.0.1:80/ReportServer/, just add the parameter like a get url, &param1=toto&param2=1986-09-29 12:30&param3=1

And you can also use a shared datasource, connectstring will be into a single file.

I recommend you also to use RssScripter http://www.sqldbatips.com/showarticle.asp?ID=62 in order to script the deploy.

Regards,