Importing data from SSRS (Reporting Services)

I must admit I can't see why you'd ever want to do this, but for the sake of completeness (and in case - as is likely - I'm missing the point), here's how to import data from a tablix item in an SSRS report.

The first thing to do is to create a report:

My modest report, listing the animals in the MAM database.

Now deploy your report:

You'll need to enter your target server URL as usual before deploying.

Your report should show up in Report Manager:

You can see I've done a bit more furtive editing before I deployed ...

You can then choose to import data into your model:

Double-click on your model to edit it, then choose this menu option.

Choose Report (it's near the bottom):

Scroll down to find this option.

If you can't see the report you're looking for, type your report server URL in the Name box:

Here I've deployed my report to this URL.

Find and double-click on the report whose data you want to import:

I might have renamed this report before deploying it too!

SSAS Tabular shows what your report looks like:

I might have sneakily snuck a matrix into the report too before deploying it ...

As ever, specify who you want to impersonate:

I'm going to be myself ...

You can now specify which tablix items on the report you want to import data from:

I'm importing my animal table and my weird matrix at the bottom of the report.

The good news is that an imported table looks sensible:

Although it would have been quicker to get the data from the underlying SQL Server database ...

My weird matrix data, on the other hand, looks ... weird:

Importing data from a matrix.

And that completes my look at importing data from SSRS reports.  Time to look now at SSRS's sibling - Analysis Services - and show how to import data from either a cube or a tabular model.