In our previous article, we explained to you the creation of a Report Execution Snapshot. In this article, we will show you the steps involved in creating a Report History Snapshot in SSRS with an example.
The Report History Snapshot in SSRS will store a copy of it in the Report History tab at a specified time (scheduled time).
Before we start creating a Report Snapshot in SSRS, Let me open my Report Manager to show the existing reports on our server. For this demonstration, we are going to use the previously created report called Page Breaks Example 2, so please refer to the same to understand the Report data.
Create Report History Snapshot in SSRS
To create a Report History Snapshot in SSRS, Click the down arrow beside the Page Breaks Example 2 report to open the menu items. Please select the Manage option from the menu items.
Once you select the Manage option, the Report Manager will navigate you to a new page with the following tabs. You can use this page to manage the advanced setting of this report. Under the properties tab, it will show the Report Created user, created and modified dates, and the size.
Let me show you the default settings of the SSRS Report History Snapshot options page.
- Allow Report History to be Created Manually: It allows you to create a report history.
- Store All report snapshots in history: If you want to store the snapshots in Report History, then please checkmark this option.
- Use the following schedules to add snapshots to history: This option allows you to configure the schedule options.
And under the Select the number of snapshots to keep:
- Use Default Settings: This will use the master settings.
- Keep an unlimited number of snapshots in report history: This will keep all the report snapshots from the beginning date to the end date. You have to delete the unwanted snapshots to reduce the memory manually.
- Limit the copies of report history: This will limit the number of copies stored in the report history. By default, it is 10, which means 10 report snapshots will be saved.
We check-marked all three options and then limited the report snapshots to 10. Now, click on the Configure button to schedule the report snapshots.
Once you click on the Configure button, the report manager will navigate you to a new page. We already explained these settings in our previous article. So, please refer to the Snapshot article to understand the same.
For the SSRS Report History Snapshot demonstration purpose, let me schedule this for 1 minute, and stop time as of August 2nd. In real-time, it might be hourly, or Daily, etc.
Click OK to close the snapshot schedule, and Click Apply to close the Report History Snapshot in the SSRS configuration.
Once you click on Apply, the following pop-up window (Message from Webpage) will display. Click OK to close it. Let me show you the Report History tab.
As you can see, there is a report snapshot at 12:15:06 PM. Let me click on the SSRS Report History to view the snapshot
As you can see, the report preview comes from the report snapshot history.
Whenever you schedule something in Report Manager, a new Job will automatically be created at the Server level. This Job will automatically execute as per our schedule. Let me right-click on the Job and select the properties option from the context menu.
It will open the following window. Please navigate to the Schedules tab to check the Job schedules.
As you can see, it is showing the schedule properties that we defined in the Report Manager.
Let me show you the log file of the Job. As you can see, it executes every minute.
Again, let me show you the report history. As you can see, there are 7 report snapshots.
