Reporting Services – A collection of work-arounds

If you have any reporting beyond trivial needs, I urge you to avoid Sql Server Reporting Services.  For example, if you want

• A templating mechanism (like a “Master Page for reports”…Data Dynamics has this)
• A Theming/styling mechanism
• The need to have reports dynamically pull from different databases
• The need to have available report parameter values dynamically pull from different databases
• Need data items in headers/footers
• Want a viewer that is’nt [broken and..] married to the workflow of creating reports
• An API for the report definition language

Then go buy a solid reporting technology (some of this may be alleviated with Sql 2008, but many will not).  I suggest looking at Data Dynamics.

Wrapping layers of abstraction (huh?)..

It turns out wrapping the SSRS Report Viewer and forcing it into playing nice within a reporting framework is a challenge, but possible.  There’s just something extra twisted about wrapping an already abstraction-laden black hole like the Report Viewer.