Generating Reports On-Demand

One possibility for generating reports from RDLs is to click on the RDL in report manager and export the RDL to ExcelWriter or WordWriter formats.

If you would like to use this functionality, you will need to add your property keys to:  C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\[SQL INSTANCE]\Reporting Services\ReportServer\web.config

SSRS Subscriptions

SSRS subscriptions allow reports to be generated from RDLs to a fileshare or delivered to users via e-mail on a schedule. However, it is important to note that SSRS subscriptions run in a different context and process from the rest of SSRS. The result is that you will need to add your property keys to a different configuration file for subscriptions than you will for generating reports on the fly.

If you would like to use this functionality, you will need to add your property keys to:  C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\[SQL INSTANCE]\Reporting Services\ReportServer\bin\ReportingServicesService.exe.config

Instructions for Adding Keys to A Configuration File

Here are the steps to enabling supported ExcelTemplate and WordTemplate properties to the above configuration files:

1. Open the configuration file you would like to modify. See above for which configuration file will enable the functionality you desire. You can add properties for reports generated on-demand, by subscription, or both.
2. Check to see if an appSettings section exists in the file: ie <appSettings></appSettings>
   1. If yes
      1. Add your keys to the existing appSettings section. The format is <add key=”[KEY NAME]” value=”[VALUE]” />
   2. If not
      1.  add an appSettings section before the closing </configuration> tag at the bottom of your file. It should look like: <appSettings></appSettings>
      2. Inside of the appSettings tags, add your keys in the <add key=”[KEY NAME]” value=”[VALUE]” /> format.

This is an example appSettings section in a configuration file