Manage Reports

  • Article

You can analyze the progress and quality of your project by using the reports in SQL Server Reporting Services.

The Report Reports node in Team Explorer provides a tree view of the various reports in your team project. If you double-click a report in Report Viewer, the report opens. If you right-click the Reports node, a series of commands appear, and you can use them to open the Report site, add a folder, paste a copied folder, refresh the node to update the list of reports, or display the node properties.

Note

The Reports node appears only when the team project collection that contains your team project is provisioned with Reporting Services and your team project is enabled to display reports and dashboards. For more information, see Access a Team Project Portal and Process Guidance.

The Report Reports node for your team project displays the reports and organizes them under a set of folders. The default set of reports are based on the process template that was used to create the team project. All of the reports that appear under the Reports node are built with and stored in Reporting Services.

The reports are provided with the process templates for Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF). These reports provide a view of the current state of your project by aggregating and summarizing the metrics from such things as work items, version control, test results, and builds. You can use the default reports, or you can customize each report to fit your specific needs.

Most of these reports provide filters that you can use to specify contents to include in the report. Filters include time period, iteration and area paths, work item types, and work item states. The questions that they answer relate to all types of work items such as user stories, test cases, tasks, and bugs. For more information about the purpose, layout, or use of each report, see Reports (Agile) or Reports (CMMI).

Team project reports are stored in Reporting Services, and you can access them through Team Explorer, Team Web Access, or the team report site. As the number of reports listed under the Reports node increases, you may want to create subfolders for grouping or organizing the reports. Also, you can use your My Favorites folder to store shortcuts to the reports that you use most frequently.

You can use either Team Explorer or Report Manager to manage reports and report folders. To access the team report site from Team Web Access, on the Home page, click Report Reports.

In this topic

  • Viewing a Report

  • Uploading a Report

  • Adding a Report Folder

  • Moving, Copying, or Deleting a Report or Report Folder

  • Renaming a Report or Report Folder

Required Permissions

To run and view a report, your View project-level information permission on the team project must be set to Allow. You must also be a member of the SQL Server Reporting Services Browser role.

To upload a report or to modify the report folder structure, you must be a member of the Contributors group for the team project. You must also be a member of the SQL Server Reporting Services Team Foundation Content Manager role. For more information, see Team Foundation Server Permissions.

Note

If you are running Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista, you might have trouble opening Web pages or sites from Team Explorer. For example, you might not be able to open the project portal by right-clicking a team project in Team Explorer and then clicking Show Project Portal. For more information about access issues that may occur with Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista, see the following page on the Microsoft Web site: User Account Control.

Viewing Reports

To view a report from Team Explorer

  • In Team Explorer, expand the team project node, and then expand the Reports node.

Note

If a red X icon appears on the Reports node in Team Explorer, you might not have permissions to access the reports, or Team Explorer might have lost communication with the server that hosts Reporting Services. In these instances, check with your project administrator to make sure that you have permissions to access the reports node and that the server that hosts Reporting Services is running.

A red X icon might appear on the Reports node if both of the following conditions are true:

  • Team Explorer is running on the same computer as Reporting Services.

  • You are not logged on as an administrator, or enhanced security is enabled for Internet Explorer.

To correct this issue, log onto your computer as an administrator, or open Internet Explorer, open Internet Options, click the Security tab, and clear the Enabled Protected Mode check box.

  1. Right-click the report, and then click Open.

    The report appears in a browser window within Visual Studio.

  2. At the top of the report, specify the appropriate parameters, and then click View Report.

  1. Right-click the report, and then click Open.

    The report appears in a browser window within Visual Studio.

  2. At the top of the report, specify the appropriate parameters, and then click View Report.

To view a report from Report Manager

  1. In Team Explorer, click the team project node.

  2. On the Team menu, click Show Report Site.

  3. In Report Manager, click the Contents tab.

  4. Click the report that you want to open.

  5. At the top of the report, specify the appropriate parameters, and then click View Report.

Uploading a Report

To upload a report to Reporting Services for your team project

  1. In Team Explorer, right-click the Report Reports node for your team project, and then click Show Report Site.

  2. In Report Manager, on the Contents page, click the folder to which you want to add the report, and then click Upload File.

  3. Click Browse to specify a file to upload.

    You can upload a report definition file, an image, a document, or any file that you want to make available on the report server.

  4. Type a name for the item.

    An item name can include spaces but not the following characters, which are reserved: ; ? : @ & = + , $ / * < > |.

  5. If you want to replace an existing item with the new item, select Overwrite item if it exists.

  6. Click OK.

Adding a Report Folder

To add a report folder

  1. In Team Explorer, right-click the folder above where you want to add the folder, and then click New Folder.

  2. Type a name for the folder, and then press ENTER.

Moving, Copying, or Deleting a Report or a Report Folder

To move or copy a report or a report folder

  1. In Team Explorer, right-click the report or folder, and then click Cut or Copy.

  2. Right-click the target folder, and then click Paste.

To delete a report or report folder

  1. In Team Explorer, right-click the report or folder, and then click Delete.

    If you delete a report in Team Explorer, you also delete the report from Report Manager.

    Warning

    Deleting a report is permanent and cannot be undone. If you find later that you need the report, you must re-create it.

  2. Click OK.

Renaming a Report or a Report Folder

To rename a report or a report folder

  1. Right-click the report or folder, and then click Rename.

  2. Type a new name, and then press ENTER.

See Also

Tasks

Access Frequently Used or Recently Viewed Work Items, Queries, and Reports

Concepts

View, Organize, and Configure Reports Using Report Manager for Visual Studio ALM

Working with Team Foundation Clients

Other Resources

Reports (Agile)

Reports (CMMI)

Creating and Managing Reporting Services Reports for Visual Studio ALM