After Visual Studio 2015 upgrade, how do I open VS 2005 report projects?

Question

Full disclosure, I had a minimum level of comfort with designing reports in VS 2005 (just enough to get the job done) and recently my computer was changed and I now have SSMS 2016 and VS2015 instead of SSMS 2008 and VS2005.

I can't seem to open my reports, .rdl isn't even a listed file extension. If I go to the directory where the .rdl files are, I can click on them and open with vs 2015, but it just gives me the xml code. So is there any way to import my old reports into VS 2015? I don't even see a place or tool bar to edit/create reports.

I tried to change the installation to include MS SQL Data Tools, but I could not find the package (maybe I have to get it online?)Presumably, I could then edit the design and layout. But right now, I don't even understand what most of the tool bar options are.

So, as for a question - Where do I start? Once I get SQL Data Tools installed, can I edit the layout/design of existing, VS2005 reports and deploy them to our existing Report Manager as I have done in the past with VS 2005? Thanks for helping!

Answer 1

You definitely need to install SQL Server Data Tools for Visual Studio 2015. It looks like this is now available. Without having SSDT installed VS2015 will have no concept of what an RDL file is.

I personally have no experience with VS2015. VS2013 though can open VS2005 reports, and you can deploy them as before,.

Personally I found the old reports now looked a bit messy and I had to reformat a number of them (thought this may not have been necessary - I might just have not liked the way the guy before had coded them)