Saratoga Technologies Microsoft CRM Blog

Redeployment Of SQL Reporting Services 2005 in CRM 3.0

A client came to us with a problem that their reports would not work in CRM. They requested help getting the reporting services to work properly and needed some custom reports built into Microsoft CRM. I thought this might make for a quick article on the re-deployment process of SQL Reporting Services for Microsoft CRM 3.0.

First, it is a good idea to take a backup of your published reports to Microsoft CRM. There is a great tool to do this that is provided along with the application. You can find it in your Microsoft CRM install directory in the \reports folder. In this folder you should see the following applications.

• DownloadReports.exe – App for downloading reports from server.
• PublishReports.exe – App for publishing reports to server.

You should also have a folder named MSCRM. This should contain a copy of all the reports in your CRM Installation. The files are normally named with *.rdl extensions. Ok now to use these files lets download all of our existing reports from our reporting services server. The syntax is as follows:

downloadreports.exe “CRM_Organization_Name” c:\FolderName

This will now download your reports into the designated folder you have named above. It should take just a few seconds to a few minutes to complete depending on how many new reports that you have created in the installation.

After you have a backup copy of the reports then you are ready to repair the Installation of Microsoft CRM. Before anything else make sure that you have a good backup of your Microsoft CRM MSCRM and METABASE databases in case you need them.

Next, Run the repair Microsoft CRM Process in add/remove programs. Now it is important to note that the repair process for CRM performs the following actions.

1. Restores all Microsoft CRM Program Files
2. Re-registers components within the Windows OS
3. Removes Custom Reports
4. Republishes all the default Microsoft CRM reports
5. Replaces Registry Keys as needed.

Important NOTE: This process must be completed while logged into the crmserver. Also, you must be logged in on the server as the original user who installed the Microsoft CRM server initially. 

It is also important to note that you make a backup copy of your \Microsoft CRM directory especially if you have some 3rd party applications that have been added to CRM. This process will overwrite your isv.config files so be safe and make a backup.

Next, simply run the Microsoft CRM Server Repair Process. Go to the control panel double click on add/remove programs. Then click in Microsoft CRM Server and click on change/remove. On the Microsoft CRM Server Maintenance page select repair, and then click next. The Microsoft CRM Repair Process will complete as shown below. 

Restore your .config files from your backup copy of your microsoft crm directory.

go to the command prompt and type iisreset to reset the IIS services. Then try to load your reports in Microsoft CRM. They should now work properly as they did as a fresh install.

 If you have reports that you need to re-publish this can be accomplished by using the publishreports.exe application in the following syntax.

publishreports.exe “CRM_Organization_Name” “Domain/ReportingGroup {GUID OF REPORTING GROUP}”

or for example:

publishreports.exe “Saratoga_Technologies” “SaratogaTech/ReportingGroup {57c58b84-da09-4589-s54d-602e0486174d}”

This will then re-publish all of your created reports on the server.

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