Add reports to the process template
Azure DevOps Server 2022 - Azure DevOps Server 2019 | TFS 2018 - TFS 2013
When you create a project, the Reporting plug-in creates a Report site and specifies the folder structure and set of reports that will appear under the 
Reports node in Team Explorer. This plug-in requires that you have configured your on-premises TFS instance and project collection where you will create a project with SQL Server Analysis Services and SQL Server Reporting Services.
Important
When you create a project from the web portal, the ReportsTasks.xml
plug-in file is ignored. To add reports after you create your project,
see Add reports to a project.
Clients that support project creation vary depending on the TFS version.
For details, see Process template and plug-in files, Client support for project creation.
You specify two main tasks by using the Reporting plug-in. First, you create the reporting site by using the site element. Second, you specify the folder structure and the reports to be uploaded to the site by using the folder and report elements. The reports that you upload have an .rdl extension and are designed for use with Reporting Services. For an overview of the reports that the TFS process templates provide, see Reporting Services Reports.
After a project is created from the process template, you can add, remove, rename, and change the folder structure for reports. For more information, see View, upload, and organize reports.
Reporting plug-in name and location
The following table summarizes the names of the file, the folder, and the plug-in for the Agile and CMMI process templates.
File name: ReportsTasks.xml
Folder name: Reports
Plug-in name: Microsoft.ProjectCreationWizard.Reporting
Note
You can change the names of the XML file and the folder but not the plug-in. TFS doesn't include a mechanism for the deployment of client-side plug-ins, policies, or other modifications. If you want to deploy this kind of functionality, you must use your own distribution and installation program.
In the XML file, you specify one or more tasks and their dependencies. For an example of a task that specifies a set of reports, see the ReportsTasks.xml file in the Agile process template.
Reporting plug-in syntax structure
The Reporting plug-in file must conform to the schema definition for ReportingServices, which is defined in the Rosetta.xsd file, and be specified in its own file.
The following syntax shows the structure of the Reporting plug-in. For a description of each element, see ReportingServices child elements later in this topic.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?
<tasks
<task id="Site" plugin="Microsoft.ProjectCreationWizard.Reporting" completionMessage="Project Reporting site created."
<dependencies /
<taskXml
<ReportingServices
<site</site
</ReportingServices
</taskXml
</task
<task id="Populate Reports" plugin="Microsoft.ProjectCreationWizard.Reporting" completionMessage="Project reports uploaded."
<dependencies
<dependency taskId="Site" /
</dependencies
<taskXml
<ReportingServices
<folders. . . </folders
<reports. . . </reports
</ReportingServices
</taskXml
</task
</tasks
Create the Reports site
The first task is to create the reporting site. The reporting site will have a link to it on the project portal home page, and the link will be labeled Reports. Use the site element to create the site, as the following example shows:
<taskXml>
<ReportingServices>
<site></site>
</ReportingServices>
</taskXml>
Define the reporting folders
You use the folder element to create folders on the reporting site. Use the path attribute to specify the relative path name of the new folder. The folder appears on the project site and under the Reports folder in Team Explorer.
The following example creates four top-level folders and two sub-folders on the reporting site. The top-level folders are labeled Bugs, Builds, Project Management, and Tests. The two sub-folders are located under Project Management and are labeled Visual Studio and Visual Studio ALM.
<taskXml
<ReportingServices
<folders
<folder path="Bugs" /
<folder path="Builds" /
<folder path="Project Management" /
<folder path="Project Management/Visual Studio" /
<folder path="Project Management/Visual Studio ALM" /
<folder path="Tests" /
</folders
</ReportingServices
</taskXml
Specify the reports to upload
To add the .rdl reports to the reporting site, copy each .rdl files into a folder under the Reports folder in the process template. Then use the report element to describe the necessary properties and data sources for the report.
The following example specifies that the Remaining Work.rdl file will be uploaded to the Project Management folder. You must specify the ExplicitProject parameter and the data sources for each report. The data sources in the following example correspond to the names that are automatically assigned to the Analysis Services cube and data warehouse relational database.
Note
The names of the reporting services data sources are Tfs2010ReportsDS and Tfs2010OlapReportsDS. Even though you might have installed or upgraded to a later version of TFS, these names, which were assigned to the data sources for a TFS 2010 installation, continue to be used.
<taskXml
<ReportingServices
<reports
<report name="Remaining Work" filename="Reports\Remaining Work.rdl" folder="Project Management" cacheExpiration="30"
<parameters
<parameter name="ExplicitProject" value="" /
</parameters
<datasources
<reference name="/Tfs2010OlapReportDS" dsname="TfsOlapReportDS" /
<reference name="/Tfs2010ReportDS" dsname="TfsReportDS" /
</datasources
</report
. . .
</reports
</ReportingServices
</taskXml
ReportingServices elements
The following syntax shows the structure of the ReportingServices element and its child elements. You specify these elements within the taskXml container element and only for the Reporting plug-in.
<ReportingServices
<folders
<folder /
. . .
</folders
<reports
<report
<parameters
<parameter /
</parameters
<datasources
<reference /
</datasources
</report
. . .
</reports
</ReportingServices
The following table describes the elements that you use to specify a report to upload to a project and that can be accessed through SQL Server Reporting Services.
Element
Description and syntax
datasources
Required child element of report. Contains a collection of reference elements that each specify a data source that the report uses.
<datasources>
<reference />
</datasources>
folder
Required child element of folders. Defines the name of a folder to create under the Reports node for a project.
<folder path="FolderName" />
folders
Optional child element of ReportingServices. Contains a collection of folder elements that each specify the name of a folder to create.
<folders>
<folder path="FolderName" />
</folders>
parameter
Required child element of parameters. Specifies the name of a report parameter and the value to assign to it.
<parameter name="ParameterName" value="ParameterValue" />
Where each attribute has the following definition:
- name: The name of a parameter that you want to specify.
- value: The value to assign to the parameter. At a minimum, you must define the following parameter to make your report automatically use the project that contains your report:
<parameter name="ExplicitProject" value="" />.
parameters
Required child element of report. Defines a collection of parameter elements for a report.
<parameters>
<parameter />
</parameters>
properties
Optional child element of report. Provides the container element for property.
<properties>
<property />
</properties>
property
Required child element of properties.
<property name="PropertyName" value="PropertyValue" />
Where each attribute has the following definition:
- name: The name of a property that you want to specify. For more information, see View, organize, and configure reports using Report Manager.
- value: The value to assign to the property..
reference
Required child element of datasources. Specifies the names that are assigned in Team Foundation Server for the data warehouse relational database and the Analysis Services cube.
<reference name="RelationalDBName" dsname="OLAPDBName" />
Where each attribute has the following definition:
- name: The name of the TFS data source. For Team Foundation Server 2010 and later versions, this value is Tfs2010OlapReportDS for the Analysis Services cube or Tfs2010ReportsDS for the relational data warehouse.
- dsname: The name of the database resource. Specify TfsOlapReportDS for the Analysis Services cube, and TfsReportsDS for the relational data warehouse.
For more information about the names of reporting data sources, see Locate reports after the upgrade to TFS 2010.
report
Required child element of reports. Specifies the name of the report, the file that contains the .rdl definition, and folder to which the report is uploaded.
<report name="ReportName" filename="ReportFilePathName" folder="FolderName"
cacheExpiration="CacheDuration">
<parameters> . . . </parameters>
<datasources> . . . </datasources>
<properties> . . . </properties>
</report>
Where each attribute has the following definition:
- name: The name of the report to display on the reporting site and in Team Explorer.
- filename: A relative path under the local Reports folder from where to get the .rdl report file.
- cacheExpiration: The default number of minutes for which the report is cached.
reports
Required child element of ReportingServices. Contains a collection of report elements that each specify the name of a report file to upload.
<reports>
<report />
</reports>
ReportingServices
Required child element of the taskXml element for the Reporting plug-in. Describes the tasks that are required to define the reports and folders for SQL Server Reporting Services.
<ReportingServices>
<folders> . . . </folders>
<reports> . . . </reports>
<properties> . . . </properties>
</ReportingServices>
site
Required element for the Reporting plug-in. Specifies that a reporting site for the project will be created.
<site>
. . .
</site>