Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services
| Like most things in SSRS, subscriptions can be managed with either Report Manager or SQL Server Management Studio. Report subscriptions are managed just like any other property of a report. To view, modify, or delete subscriptions from Report Manager, navigate to the report, open it, and select the Subscriptions tab. From here, the Report Manager shows all the subscriptions for a particular report, including the description, how it is triggered, what the current status is, and when it was last run. Users can sort on any one of these fields to help find the subscription they are looking for. If a subscription does not exist, it gives you the option to create one. To modify any particular subscription, click the Edit button on the data grid. To delete a subscription, check the check box on that row of the data grid and click the Delete button. Click OK on the confirmation prompt. All of these actions can be accomplished through SQL Server Management Studio as well. The concept is the same as usual. Using the SQL Server Management Studio's Object Browser, navigate to the report. Underneath the report is a Subscriptions folder. From here, the rest of the steps are pretty much the same as for Report Manager. Right-click on the Subscriptions folder to create a new subscription. Right-click on a subscription to modify or delete it. My Subscriptions
One feature that is unique in Report Manager is the My Subscriptions link next to the Site Settings. This link consolidates all the subscriptions a user has created across the entire catalog. This provided end users and administrators a single place to manage all of their subscriptions. The My Subscription page allows users to sort by Report, Description, Folder, Trigger, Last Run, and Status. Just like the subscriptions page for any other report, the Edit button allows users to modify the subscription. To delete the subscription, check the check boxes on the rows corresponding to the subscription to be deleted and click the Delete button. Click OK on the confirmation prompt. Unlike the subscriptions page for any report, you cannot create a subscription. The My Subscriptions page is shown in Figure 19.5. Figure 19.5. My Subscriptions page.
Monitoring Subscriptions
As mentioned previously, the individual subscription pages for a report, as well as the My Subscriptions page, have a Status column on them. The Status column is crucial for monitoring the execution of a subscription in case the subscription runs into a processing error. If the Report Server detected a delivery error, the error is reported in the server's trace log. One case in which an exception might not be logged is if the trigger fails to occur, such as when a snapshot fails, or a scheduled event does not run. The Report Server service logs (located in C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.3\Reporting Services\LogFiles ) include any information about delivery statuses. For example, if the delivery extension is email, these logs should include records from processing and delivery. The log does not tell you if the email was opened. Deleting/Inactivating Subscriptions
When a subscription fails to process, it is referred to as "inactive." These subscriptions should be taken care of or fixed immediately. The following are some common causes of inactive subscriptions:
When an event occurs that causes a subscription to later be inactive, the effect might not be immediately known. For example, if a scheduled subscription were to run on Sunday night, and the data source was changed to the next Friday, it would not be until the following Sunday that the subscription would become inactive. When the subscription does become inactive, a message is attached to the subscription to explain why and possibly what steps can be taken to resolve the issue. |