Can I generate Excel reports from a standard, multi-sheet Excel template using Reporting Services?

Question

I currently have SQL queries developed that fetch me the required data from my shared data source. Using reporting services, I'm displaying web reports with this data.

My requirement is to populate this data in an empty Excel template, and auto-mail these reports to a specific mail id, without clicking on Export to Excel. These reports are generated each day.

How do I do this? Is this even possible through Reporting Services?

Answer 1

You can tack on the format of the report in reporting services to the end of the report server link. For instance, for PDF you can do:

rs:format=PDF

The example link would be:

http://myreportSERVER/reportserver/NameOfReport&rs:Command=Render&rs:format=PDF

For excel it would be rs:format=EXCEL

For emailing you can either use the rs web service to e-mail the reports or use the reporting services object model to deliver reports using the "subscriptions" section. This article may be a good start for you: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc188712.aspx