This post is an extension to a popular post Reporting Action in Analysis Services on this blog . In this post, I explain the steps to deploy a report action using Analysis Services Deployment Wizard. By using the Analysis Service Deployment Wizard, Report Actions can be deployed effortlessly without hard coding the report URLS in your Analysis Services project. So here we go.

1. Build the Analysis Service project to create the files required by the Deployment Wizard. These files – .asdatabase, .configsettings, .deploymentoptions, .deploymenttargets are usually created in the \bin folder of your Analysis Service project during the build process.

2. Run the Deployment Wizard from Microsoft SQL Sever →Analysis Services → Deployment Wizard. The Deployment Wizard is usually located at  Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\Binn\VSShell\Common7\IDE\Microsoft.AnalysisServices.Deployment.exe

3. Proceed to deploy the cube by following the prompt. That means

•  Select the .asdatabase as Database File.
• Specify the Server and Database Name.
•  Choose how the partitions and roles would be deployed. There is no hard and fast rule here, but I would prefer to Retain Partitions and Retain Roles and Members so that the existing partitions and security is not affected by this deployment.

4. When you get to the Specify Configuration Properties screen, that’s where you configure the Report Actions. After you modify the database connection string and impersonation info, scroll down to the node Report Actions Server and Folder. Its here you specify the report server, report folder and even report name (if it’s different from your development environment) as shown in Figure 1

5. Follow the prompts and complete the deployment. Remember to grant necessary permissions on the report server, if required.

As you can see Analysis Services Deployment Wizard eliminates the need to hardcode report URLs and avoids manipulating XMLA files to deploy the Report Actions.

BENNY AUSTIN