Chapter 7. Report Builder

Report Builder is a client-side Windows Forms application launched from Report Manager. Report Builder provides a simple way to create reports based on predefined data sources, report models, and report templates. Report Builder insulates you from having to understand the underlying database, how to construct queries, how to create report definitions, and how Reporting Services works to publish, store, and deliver reports.

You create a report on a client computer and then publish it to the report server to make it available to users. This involves four steps: creating a data source, creating a report model, creating a report layout, and publishing the report.

You use Report Manager to define the data source and the report model that Report Builder needs. You then use Report Builder to create the report and publish it to the report server.

These steps are discussed in the following subsections: