Thursday, January 29, 2009

Installing SQL Server 2008 samples: Adventure works (Integrating Reporting Services 2008 with SharePoint 2007 Step 5)

Integrating Reporting Services 2008 with SharePoint 2007 Step 5 - Installing SQL Server 2008 Samples: Adventure Works

Introduction

 
 
2- Prerequisites
3 - Installation Overview

Notice that even you have installed Full Text Search feature you may have an issue because SQL Full-text Filter Daemon Launcher service is disabled and stopped.
Because I take into account that the issue may occur, the installation steps are:
  • Step 1 - Run Installation Wizard
  • Step 2 - Pass Welcome page
  • Step 3 - Accept License Agreement terms
  • Step 4 - Optionally change Custom Set Up
  • Step 5 - Select database Instance
  • Step 6 - Launch Installation
  • Step 7 - Optionally get Full Text Search Issue Message
  • Step 8 - Optionally enable and startSQL Full-text Filter Daemon Launcher Service
  • Step 9 - Optionally restart installation
  • Step 10 - Check Created Databases and Close Installation Wizard
If you are using SQL Server 2008 Express edition and had the SQL Full Text issue read this section

4 - Installation
4.1 Step 1 - Run Installation Wizard


1 - Open the file where you have stored the downloaded executable for SQL 2008 Samples installation (SQL2008.AdventureWorks_All_Databases.xXX.msi)



2 - Run Setup



4.2 Step 2 - Pass Welcome page
In the Wizard "Welcome" page click "Next"



4.3 Step 3 - Accept License Agreement terms
Accept the License terms agreement and click "Next"



4.4 Step 4 - Optionally change Custom Set Up



4.5 Step 5 - Select database Instance
In the drop down list select your Database instance and click "Next"



4.6 Step 6 - Launch Installation
Click "Install".



Wait while Wizard is creating the database samples



4.7 Step 7 - Optionally get Full Text Search Issue Message
You may see appear this issue pop up : "PrepInstance() failed for ... The following features are missing: Full Text Search Fix the problem and re-run setup."



4.8 Step 8 - Optionally enable and start SQL Full-text Filter Daemon Launcher Service
1 - Open the Services Microsoft Management Console.
In start menu point to Administrative Tools, click Services



2 - Locate SQL Full-text Filter Daemon Launcher Service



3 - Enable and start SQL Full-text Filter Daemon Launcher Service
Right click the Service row, enable it (automatic or manual) and start it.



4.9 Step 9 - Optionally restart installation
If you had Full Text Search Issue and had to re-start SQL Full-text Filter Daemon Launcher Service, re-start installation from Step 1.
4.10 Step 10 - Check Created Databases Close Installation Wizard
You can check databases creation with SQL Server Management Studio and close the Wizard




5 - SQL Full Text issue for SQL Server 2008 Express edition

This explanation of going through SQL Full Text issue for SQL Server 2008 Express edition was left by an anonymous reader as a comment of this post. Thanks you to him (her).

Prerequistes:

download this edition of SQL Server Express: Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Express with Advanced Services that is the version with the Full Text Search Service included.

Configuration:

1 - choose Microsoft Sql Server 2008, Configuration Tools, Sql Server Configuration Manager, Sql Server Services
2- then right click on SQL Full-text Filter.
You will notice that no start options are enabled.
3 - Choose Properties
4 - then choose the Service tab.
5 - Then change the Start Mode to Manual and then hit Apply.
6 - Then go back to right clicking the SQL Full-text Filter and the Start option will be enabled.
7 - Choose it then go back and download the databases again.


Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Integrating Reporting Services 2008 with SharePoint 2007 Step 4 - Configuring Reporting Services for SharePoint 3.0 Integration - Part 2

Step 4 - Configuring Reporting Services for SharePoint 3.0 Integration - Part 2: Operations performed in SharePoint Central Administration
(includes Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Add-in for Microsoft SharePoint Technologies Installation)

Introduction

This post is the fourth of a group showing how to use SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services with SharePoint 2007.
The previous steps are:
The next steps are I have chosen a Simple Farm Topology with SQL Server 2008 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on the same Virtual Machine. This machine has just Application Server role and not Domain Controller role, so the Service Accounts for both, SharePoint and SQL will be machine local accounts.
The VM runs Windows 2003 Server OS
The goal is to quickly allow someone to create reports and to discover SharePoint Integrated Mode features: deployment, Web Parts dashboards, subscription, snapshotings, etc..
Even planning for further deployments in a Farm environment with several servers and Active Directory, it may be usefull to have been familiarized with involved products installation, configuration and use, by having tested it in a Simple Farm Topology with one computer and local accounts.

1 - Environment Configuration

Number of Virtual machines: 1
Operating System: Windows 2003 Server
Server Roles: Application Server
Topology: Simple Farm
Service Accounts: SQL Server Service Account: Local Administrator
Setup user account: Local Administrator
Server farm account/Database access account: Local Administrator

2 - Referred Documentation

3 - Prerequisites
4 - Configuration Overview

Notice that Report Server Configuration for SharePoint Integrated Mode includes two main parts, performed with two different tools:
  • This previous post has presented the first part of Report Server Configuration for SharePoint Integrated Mode. This is the part you perform with Reporting Services Configuration tool.
  • This post presents the second part, performed in SharePoint Central Administration after having installed Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Add-in for Microsoft SharePoint Technologies Installation.
This part two of Report Server Configuration for SharePoint includes the following steps:
  • Step 1 - Download and install the Reporting Services Add-in for SharePoint Technologies.
  • Step 2 - Create a SharePoint Web Application and a Site Collection
  • Step 3 - Activate the report server feature if you did not install the add-in on a root site collection.
  • Step 4 - Use SharePoint Central Administration to configure report server integration.


5 - Configuration
5.1 Step 1 - Download and install the Reporting Services Add-in for SharePoint Technologies.
1 - Download Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Add-in for Microsoft SharePoint Technologies

2 - Open the file where you have stored the downloaded executable for Reporting Services Add-in Installation



3 - Run Setup



4 - Accept the License terms.



5 - Add registration information



6 - Click Install to launch installation



7 - Wait while the installation Wizard installs SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Add-in for SharePoint

It is quite long, between 7 minutes to 15 minutes depending on your system configuration, and it might fail.
you can find further information here, in OfficePoint blog.



8 - Click Finish

When installation is complete, click finish to close the Wizard



5.2 Step 2 - Create a SharePoint Web Application and a Site Collection
1 - Open Central Administration Web Site
In Start Menu, point to All Programs, point to Administrative tools, click SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration



2 - Click Application Management Tab



3 - Open "Create or Extend Web Application" page

In SharePoint Web Application Management Section click Create or Extend Web Application



4 - Open "Create New Web Application" page

In "Create or Extend Web Application" page, click Create a New Web Application



5 - Configure your new Web Application

In "Create New Web Application" page type the following:
  • Create a new IIS website --> description SharePoint - 81
  • Port --> 81
Let the security configuration default options



  • Configurable User Name --> Local Administrator login
  • Configurable Password --> Local Administrator password
  • database name --> WSS_Content_81
let the default options for other fields and choices.



Click OK

6 - Wait while your changes are processed



It will last 1 or 3 minutes depending on your system configuration.

Then you will see the "Application Created" Page



7 - Open "Create a new Site Collection" Page
In "Application Created" Page click on Create a new Site Collection link.



8 - Configure your new Site Collection

In "Create new Site Collection" page, configure your new Site Collection.

Type or select the followings:
  • Title --> testReportingServices
  • Select a template --> Team Site
  • User Name --> Local Administrator login
9 - Create your new Site Collection

Click OK
Wait while the page is refreshing and you will see the "Top-Level site successfully created" Page



10 - Display the top level site home page

In the "Top-Level site successfully created" Page, click on the link with the name of your just created site in order to display its home page.




5.3 Step 3 - Activate the Report Server Site Collection Feature.
1 - Open Site Settings page
Click on "Site Action" to drop down Site Action Menu. And Click Site Settings




The "Site Settings" Page displays



2 - Open "Site Collection features" page

In "Site Collection Administration" section, click "Site collection features" link.



3 - Activate the Report Server Integration Feature

Click on the Activate button corresponding to Report Server Integration Feature.

The status of the Report Server Integration Feature will become Active.



5.4 Step 4 - Check Report Server URL.
In the previous post, we performed the first part of Report Server Configuration with Report Server Configuration tool. As we used the default configuration for the Report Server URL, if you type in the address bar of your machine browser the following URL

http://yourMachineName/ReportServer
or
http://localhost/ReportServer

you may see the following page



Notice that the Report Server Web Service has found the previously created Site Collection and that you even will see the Team Site default document Library (Shared Documents) if you click the link.
5.5 Step 5 - specify report server integration settings in Central Administration
1 - Open Central Administration Web Site (if not already open) In Start Menu, point to All Programs, point to Administrative tools, click SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration



2 - Click the Application Management tab.

In the Reporting Services section, you should see the following links: Manage integration settings, Grant database access, Set server defaults. If you do not see the section or the links, the Reporting Services Add-in is not installed on the computer or the feature is not activated. For more information, see How to: Activate the Report Server Feature in SharePoint Central Administration .



3 - Click Manage integration settings.

4 - In Report Server Web Service URL, specify the report server site that you want to use with the current SharePoint site or farm. The URL can point to a single report server instance, or it can be the virtual server name for a set of load-balanced report servers that run in a scale-out deployment.



To get the URL, open the Reporting Services Configuration tool, connect to the report server, and click Web Service URL. Click the URL to verify it works. Copy the URL and paste it into Report Server Web Service URL.
The report server URL includes a server name and a virtual directory that you specified in the Reporting Services Configuration tool. The following examples illustrate how a report server URL might be constructed:
http://your-server-name/reportserver (this example might be used if the report server is on a different computer).
http://your-server-name:8080/reportserver (this example might be used if the report server runs on Microsoft Windows XP SP2).
https://your-server-name:443/reportserver.
Do not specify http://localhost for a report server URL that is used throughout a SharePoint farm. A URL address that specifies http://localhost will not be valid for SharePoint Web front-ends that are installed on remote servers.
If you installed the report server and the SharePoint technology instance side-by-side, check for virtual directory name conflicts. For more information about interoperability issues, see Deploying Reporting Services and Internet Information Services Side-by-Side .

5 - In Authentication mode, select either Windows Authentication or Trusted Authentication to specify whether the report server endpoint installed on the SharePoint server sends a header with a security token for an impersonated connection on the report server.
All requests that originate from a user action on a Reporting Services application page are forwarded by the report server endpoint on the SharePoint Web application to a report server for processing. Depending on the authentication mode, the request may or may not include a SharePoint user identity token in the header.
If the SharePoint Web application is configured for Windows Authentication and the Kerberos protocol is enabled, you can select Windows Authentication to connect through Windows integrated security. In this case, no user identity token is sent. Optionally, you can select Trusted Authentication to impersonate the trusted account and pass the SharePoint user information in the request header to the report server.
If the SharePoint Web application is configured for Forms authentication, the request header will always include SharePoint user identity and any value you specify for Authentication mode is ignored. For more information about server connections, see Security Overview for Reporting Services in SharePoint Integrated Mode .



6 - Click OK.

7 - In the Reporting Services section, click Grant database access. During this step, the service account information is retrieved from the report server instance. A database login and permissions are created for the Report Server service account. Integrating a Reporting Services report server with a SharePoint Web application requires that the report server be able to access the SharePoint configuration and content databases. The Report Server service must be able to connect as trusted users with read and write permissions.



8 - Specify the name of the report server. By default, this is the name of the computer.

9 - Specify whether the instance is the default instance or a named instance. If you are not sure, start the Reporting Services Configuration tool and connect to the report server. In the Connect to a Report Server Instance dialog box, expand Instance Name to view a list of the instances installed on the server. MSSQLSERVER is the name of the default instance. All other instances are named instances.

10 - Click OK.

The Enter Credentials dialog box opens.



11 - In the Enter Credentials dialog box, specify the User Name and Password to connect to the report server to retrieve the service account information. Be sure to enter credentials for an account that is a member of the local Administrators group on the report server computer.



12 - In the Reporting Services section, click Set server defaults.



13 - In Report History Default, set a site-wide default value for the number of copies of report history to retain. The default value provides an initial setting that establishes the number of snapshots that can be stored for each report. You can specify different limits in property pages for specific reports.



14 - In Report Processing Timeout, specify whether report processing times out on the report server after a certain number of seconds. This value applies to report processing on a report server. It does not affect data processing on the database server that provides the data for your report. The report processing timer clock begins when the report is selected and ends when the report opens. The value that you specify must be sufficient to complete both data processing and report processing.

15 - In Report Processing Log, specify whether the report server generates trace logs and the number of days the log is kept. You can specify whether the report server generates trace logs and the number of days the logs are kept. The logs are stored on the report server computer in the \Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.n\ReportServer\Log folder. A new log file is started each time the service is restarted. For more information about log files, see Report Server Service Trace Log.

16 - In Enable Windows Integrated Security, specify whether a connection to a report data source can be made using the Windows security token of the user who requested the report.

17 - In Enable Ad Hoc Reporting, specify whether users can perform ad hoc queries from a Report Builder report. Setting this option sets the EnableLoadReportDefinition property on the report server. If you clear this option, the report server will not generate clickthrough reports for reports that use a report model as a data source.
18 - Click OK.

Your Report Server Configuration for SharePoint Integrated mode is done.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Integrating Reporting Services 2008 with SharePoint 2007 Step 3 - Configuring Reporting Services for SharePoint 3.0 Integration - Part 1

Step 3 - Configuring Reporting Services for SharePoint 3.0 Integration - Part 1 : Operations performed with Reporting Services Configuration tool

Introduction

This post is the third of a group showing how to use SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services with SharePoint 2007.
The previous steps are:
The next steps are I have chosen a Simple Farm Topology with SQL Server 2008 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on the same Virtual Machine. This machine has just Application Server role and not Domain Controller role, so the Service Accounts for both, SharePoint and SQL will be machine local accounts.
The VM runs Windows 2003 Server OS
The goal is to quickly allow someone to create reports and to discover SharePoint Integrated Mode features: deployment, Web Parts dashboards, subscription, snapshotings, etc..
Even planning for further deployments in a Farm environment with several servers and Active Directory, it may be usefull to have been familiarized with involved products installation, configuration and use, by having tested it in a Simple Farm Topology with one computer and local accounts.

1 - Environment Configuration

Number of Virtual machines: 1
Operating System: Windows 2003 Server
Server Roles: Application Server
Topology: Simple Farm
Service Accounts: SQL Server Service Account: Local Administrator
Setup user account: Local Administrator
Server farm account/Database access account: Local Administrator

2 - Referred Documentation

3 - Prerequisites
4 - Configuration Overview

Notice that Report Server Configuration for SharePoint Integrated Mode includes two main parts, performed with two different tools:
  • This post presents the first part of Report Server Configuration for SharePoint Integrated Mode. This is the part you perform with Reporting Services Configuration tool.
  • The second part, performed in SharePoint Central Administration is available in:
    Step 4 - Configuring Reporting Services for SharePoint 3.0 Integration - Part 2: Operations performed in SharePoint Central Administration (includes Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services Add-in for Microsoft SharePoint Technologies Installation) (to be posted)
This part one of Report Server Configuration for SharePoint includes the following steps:
  • Step 1: Start the Reporting Services Configuration tool and connect to the report server instance.
  • Step 2: Configure a URL (Reporting Services Configuration).
  • Step 3: Create a Report Server Database
  • Step 4: Verify the part 1 of Reporting Services Configuration


5 - Configuration
5.1 Step 1: Start Reporting Services Configuration
1 - Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Microsoft SQL Server 2008, and then point to Configuration Tools.
2 - Click Reporting Services Configuration Manager



3 - In Server Name, specify the name of the computer on which the report server instance is installed. The name of the local computer appears by default, but you can type the name of a remote SQL Server instance if you want to connect to a report server that is installed on a remote computer. In our case, installation on a single machine we just have to let the default option.
4 - In Report Server Instance, select the SQL Server Reporting Services instance that you want to configure. Only SQL Server 2008 report server instances appear in the list. You cannot configure earlier versions of Reporting Services. In our case, default option can be used.
5 - Click Connect.



5.2 Step 2: Create a Report Server Database
1 - Click Database in the left menu to access the Database page



2 - On the Database page, click Change Database.
3 - Click Create a new database.



4 - Click Next.

5- Connect to the instance of the Database Engine that you will use to create and host the report server database:
For the current installation on a single machine we can keep default options



6 - Click Test Connection to validate the connection to the server.

7 - Click Next.

8 - Specify properties used to create the database.
The default option can be used, excepted the server mode

9 - Select SharePoint Integrated Mode.




10 - Click Next.

11 - Specify the credentials used by the report server to connect to the report server database.
Here also, default options are fine.



12 - Click Next.

13 - Review the information on the Summary page to verify the settings are correct.



14 - Click Next.

15 - wait while Report server Database Configuration Wizard configures report Server Database.




16 - Click Finish
Next figure shows the last page of Report Server database Configuration Wizard when configuration is complete.



5.3 Step 3: configure a URL for the Report Server Web service

1 - Click Web Service URL in the left menu.





2 - Look at default values.
Prerequisites:
  • Verify that IIS (if it is installed) does not have virtual directory with the same name you plan to use.
  • Verify that the Report Server Web Service URL is not already used especially by a SharePoint site.
In our case, with the current environment and topology, we can use default values.

3 - Click on Apply



5.4 Step 4: Verify the part 1 of Reporting Services Configuration

Verify the connection by clicking the URL on the Report Server URL page.

If a Web Page is launched as shown in next figure, the part 1 of your Report Server Configuration for SharePoint Integrated Mode is done.