Custom report items

Reporting Services provides a rich set of tools for building and publishing enterprise reports, managing security and subscriptions, and extending the reporting functionality through a comprehensive API. Reports are defined using an XML-based language called Report Definition Language (RDL). RDL provides a set of instructions that describe layout, query information, and item types for a report. It's possible to extend RDL by writing a custom report item. The custom report item consists of a run-time component, which is called by the report processor at run time, and a design-time component, which allows the custom report item to be available in Report Designer.

For a sample of a fully implemented custom report item, see SQL Server Reporting Services Product Samples.

Custom report item scenarios

Developers who need to integrate Reporting Services into their applications might require functionality that isn't natively supported in RDL. Examples of items might include: map controls, horizontal lists, columnar lists, and repivotable matrixes. A run-time custom report item component can be developed and distributed with an application to fill this need.

In addition to providing functionality that isn't natively supported, some developers might want to extend existing functionality with alternative versions of controls that are already included with Reporting Services. In this scenario, a developer could provide three components: a run-time component, a design-time component, and a design-time report item conversion component that converts an existing report item into a custom report item on demand.

In this section

Custom report item architecture
Describes the components that make up a custom report item.

Custom report item implementation requirements
Describes prerequisites for creating a custom report item.

Creating a custom report item run-time component
Describes how to create a custom report item run-time component.

Creating a custom report item design-time component
Describes how to create a custom report item design-time component.

How to: Deploy a custom report item
Describes how to deploy a custom report item.

Custom report item class libraries
Describes the custom report item infrastructure classes and managed wrapper classes in the Microsoft.ReportDesigner namespace.

Related content

Technical reference (SSRS)