So I've been using this tool for years and I have a few things I'd like to say about this product. For folks that aren't familiar with SSRS, it merely an application that allows you to produce reports in a pinch. It's been around for years and has engrained itself into multiple organizations that demands fast turnaround. Today I'll share some of my opinions about SSRS and how I feel about it.

Lets start with the setup, you Microsoft heads probably appreciate the way things changed with installation. Remember Visual Studio back in 2008? Yeah I cried too. So getting things up and running on a server is still straight forward, not much has changed there but on the client side it's a whole new world. Unless you were using the built-in report writer you would've had to go the Visual Studio route with the add-ins which isn't that bad right? Just have to make sure the versions are good if you're upgrading but maybe that'll change in the future who knows.

How about the interface when navigating reports? I'd say it looks a lot more modern but the functionality is still a bit lagging. For instance, the ability to copy the path of a report without having to click into it sometime leaves me wondering why. Also did you notice that scheduling is still kind of far from being self maintained as far as creating them? I would assume at some point they would make it to where users are submitting subscriptions and the admin approving. I'm definitely not complaining about such small problems although this tells us where Microsoft is putting their efforts.

This leads me to the elephant in the room, Power BI. Microsoft has made strides to beefing up SSRS but in what ways? Well now you have the ability to embed Mobile and KPI's to SSRS but you're going to need to fork up enterprise money to do that. If your company has the means then you're going to have fun with startling the users with fun new measures on SSRS including the ability to view reports neatly on your phone on the go. I mean you could view SSRS reports on the phone as well but good luck zooming in and out. What I believe might be occurring is more development towards Power BI and less SSRS because what you currently have is a powerful reporting tool where you change the smallest thing and you know how specific it can get am I right Microsoft heads?

I'll say this, I've grown to love the methodology of creating reports through SSRS and it's been actually useful across other reporting tools. Many tools that serve the same purpose more or less gets the job done but in a different flavor. The type of flavor SSRS is in, well lets just say it just needs a little bit of salt.