Report Builder is a report authoring tool and the basic procedure for authoring a report consists of the following steps:

• Report planning
• Connecting to a source of data
• Extracting a dataset from source
• Designing the report and data binding
• Previewing the report

Although deploying the report is not included in the above, Report Builder can deploy the report as well. It is not always necessary to deploy a completed report, as any part of a report definition file can be deployed. This makes modifying a report on the server very flexible.

In the following sections, the various parts of the Report Builder interface will be described starting at the very top and going to the bottom of the interface.

The menu for file operations

Report Builder 2.0 can be accessed from Start | All Programs | Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Report Builder| Report Builder 2.0.

This brings up the Report Builder Interface 2.0 as shown with the design area containing two icons: Table or Matrix and Chart. Each of these will launch a related wizard which will step you through the various tasks. The Report Builder 2.0 interface is very similar to Office 2007. More than one instance of Report Builder can be launched.

At the very top of the following screen shown you have the undo and redo controls as well as a save icon.

When you click on the save icon the Save as Report window gets displayed as shown. Here you provide a name for the report. The default save extension is *.rdl and it will be saved to the report server. It may also be persisted to a folder on your machine.

Clicking on the Office button (top left) opens a drop-down window shown in the following screenshot:

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