Using SSRS Reports (Reflection in Report Definition/RDL)

This article can be helpful for customers using SSRS reports, not replacement reports (Query reports). The action described is not required if replacement reports (Query reports) are used as a source for the Lasernet reports.

Note

Microsoft ® is planning to discontinue a method (reflection) that is used by Lasernet Connector (older versions than 6.2.0) in the report definition (RDL) when fixing an SSRS report. Although Microsoft ® is going to support the existing method until May/June 2021, it is still crucial to re-fix all SSRS reports on - at least - Lasernet Connector 6.2.0, before deprecating the method (reflection) by Microsoft ®. Otherwise, the SSRS reports will fail.

The process is required for fixing SSRS reports in Lasernet FO Connector. In addition, it is also necessary to only re-fix the reports if a replacement is not used as an origin for the Lasernet reports.

Previous Versions

When a report was fixed in the previous version, the following placeholder was added to the RDL definition of the report. A placeholder such as the following was added for all the detail sections:

Placeholder: =IIF(Globals("RenderFormat").GetType().GetProperty("Name").GetValue(Globals("RenderFormat"), Nothing)="XML","#LACRecId#"+CStr(Fields!RecId.Value)+"#LACRecId#","")

Version 6.2.0

In Lasernet FO Connector 6.2.0, the following expression is added. It contains no reflection when fixing/re-fixing a report.

Expression: ="#LACRecId#" + CStr(Fields!RecId.Value) + "#LACRecId#"

Lasernet FO Connector uses the same naming convention as in the previous versions when performing a Fix of a report and adds the LAC_Fix prefix to a copy of the SSRS report. It allows overwriting any existing replacement report to ensure that a discontinued reflection has not been used.

In Lasernet FO Connector 6.2.0, the same model extension is used (or created) as in the previous versions of Lasernet FO Connector. The model name being used is shown on the last step of the Fix wizard.

Validate Report

Validating a report in version 6.2.0 (or later) provokes a warning related to the reflection if the report was fixed using an older version of Lasernet FO Connector.

Warning

Lasernet report SalesConfirm.Report Validating report RDL (SSRS report definition) Fixed report LAC_Fix_SalesConfirm.Report RDL definition contains reflection (Globals("RenderFormat").GetType().GetProperty("Name").GetValue(Globals("RenderFormat"), Nothing)), which will not be supported in upcomming versions of SSRS. Please remove fixed report version and re-run report fix wizard on your develpment environment. This will require re-deploy of reports.

The warning is removed by re-running the Fix report functionality for the reports.