How Do I Move CRM 4.0 Reports To A New SQL Report Server?

I don’t know that you would need to move reports yet, now that you are on Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 – but may come up some day.  So – how do you do it?  I’ll do my best to tell you how.

With CRM 3.0, you may have needed to move reports off the CRM server – or just move them to a new SQL Reporting Services box (maybe you upgraded to SQL 2005 and SRS 2005?).  To accomplish this, you would typically:

1.       Run DownloadReports.exe, to download the reports to .rdl files

2.       Change the Report Server URL

a.       Launch Deployment Manager on the CRM 3.0 Server

b.      Choose “Server Manager”

c.       Right-click the CRM Server, choose “Specify Report Server URL”

d.      Enter url of the new report server (http://servername/reportserver)

3.       Run PublishReports.exe, to publish the .rdl files to the new SQL Report Server

a.       DownloadReports.exe and PublishReports.exe are typically located in \Program Files\Microsoft CRM\Report

4.       An alternative way to change the Report Server URL is to change the SQLRSServerURL value under HKLM\Software\Microsoft\MSCRM, use Regedit

5.       You may need to do an IISReset for the change to take effect

Not too terrible of a process.  But it’s getting easier with 4.0.  To change the report server with CRM 4.0!  For out-of-the-box reports, they are now stored in the MSCRM database along with the Reportserver database.  So – if you want to change the report server with CRM 4.0:

1.        Disable the organization in Deployment Manager, that you want to change the report server for

2.       Right-click disabled org, choose “Edit organization”

3.       Modify the Report Server URL

a.       There will be a diagnostic process, that will determine if reports can be moved to the new URL

b.      If the diags pass, the reports will be published to the new report server

c.       Note – there is a similar process for moving CRM databases to a new SQL Server

4.       Re-enable the organization

Now – this will not work for custom reports.  Microsoft is working on a tool that will be similar to the 3.0 DownloadReports.exe tool.  Until then – you can manually download them from the user interface, then publish them after you have made the changes note above.

This post is as-is, no warranties.  Try it in Dev first.  But it worked for me!