8 Top Reasons Why You Should Consider Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS)

Companies collect and store large amounts of data, and many times it is difficult to present that data in a meaningful way and provide insight into what is going on in the business to make relevant and timely decisions for the company.

To be able to make effective business decisions, all types of users across the company need to have easy access to informative and intuitive reports that combine data from the many sources throughout the organization. That’s where Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS), in conjunction with SQL server database, will help. If your company has an Enterprise, Standard or Express edition of Microsoft SQL Server running, you already have SSRS available to you; there's no need to shell out extra money for purchasing SSRS.

So if you’re a current Dynamics ERP user, you can start using SSRS to your advantage! SQL Server Reporting Services combines the benefits of a centrally-managed reporting system with the flexibility and on-demand nature of desktop and web-based applications. It’s designed to support a wide variety of reporting needs including managed enterprise reporting, ad-hoc reporting, embedded reporting, and web based reporting to enable organizations to deliver relevant information wherever it’s needed across your entire organization.

As a Microsoft Dynamics GP partner, we work with many organizations to help them realize the benefits of SSRS whether it’s through deployment, implementation and/or customization of SSRS. Here are some top advantages our clients experience with SSRS:

1. Easy to deploy - SSRS is a comprehensive reporting platform whereby reports are stored on a centralized web server. Because reports are centralized, users can run reports from one place and having centralized reports also means that report deployment is quite simple.
2. Easy export for further analysis with multiple file formats - Users need to be able to access and share reports in the format with which they are most familiar. SSRS supports rendering to most common file formats including HTML, PDF, CSV, XML, and Image (TIFF) and also offers complete rendering in Microsoft Office Word and Microsoft Office Excel.  Reports in Microsoft Office formats are fully editable, enabling users to create custom documents based on these reports.
3. Ability to develop a Reporting Portal - Enables organizations to embed reports directly into business applications and web portals, enabling users to consume reports within the context of their business process. Organizations are able to bring all business critical data, structured as well as unstructured, from across the company together in one central location providing one common experience for information access so that users can see key business performance information at a glance.
4. Make a report run based on your timing via Report Subscription – SSRS supports standard as well as data-driven subscriptions, enabling the automatic delivery of reports to the right users by pushing them directly to each user via email or by sending them to a file share from where users can pull the reports.  Users can use standard subscriptions to have reports delivered to them based on a custom schedule and specified report parameter values.
5. Interactive sorting capabilities - Applying sort capabilities to a report enables users to sort the data by any of the columns of the report in ascending or descending order. For example, a user viewing a report containing a list of sales might sort the data first by date, and then by sales amount.
6. Drilldown reporting - Without any customization or programming, users can seamlessly drill through any combination of data in the database.
7. Intuitive display options – Users have different requirements and expectations when viewing and interacting with reports, and a report format that works well for one kind of data might not be appropriate for other kinds of data. SSRS supports a number of display options, enabling you to create reports that display data in the most suitable layout for the users including a list, chart, table, or matrix format.
8. Windows Security - In today’s world, security of data is important and SSRS provides enough security measures to ensure the safety of company data. SSRS implements a flexible and a role-based security model to protect reporting resources. This ensures that every employee is allowed access to data which the user role is entitled to.

As you can see, Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is an excellent vehicle for tapping into your data in a meaningful way across the entire organization and providing better insight into what is going on in your business. For more details on how you can tap into all the benefits of SSRS for your organization, feel free to contact the certified SSRS experts at Borek Business Solutions.

By Roger Borek, Borek Business Solutions, Microsoft Dynamics GP Implementation and Services, Oregon