1. Fun with Reporting Services Tools

2. Agenda
Origin, History, and location of the tools

3. Agenda Origin, History, and location of the tools
System and Powershell Requirements

4. Agenda Origin, History, and location of the tools
System and Powershell Requirements
Ways to install the tools on your system

5. Agenda Origin, History, and location of the tools
System and Powershell Requirements
Ways to install the tools on your system
Help or how to get it along with the explanation of the limitations.

6. Agenda Origin, History, and location of the tools
System and Powershell Requirements
Ways to install the tools on your system
Help or how to get it along with the explanation of the limitations.
How to report errors on GitHub.

7. Agenda Origin, History, and location of the tools
System and Powershell Requirements
Ways to install the tools on your system
Help or how to get it along with the explanation of the limitations.
How to report errors on GitHub.
Review of most of the 28 new functions with a deeper dive into some of them

8. Agenda Origin, History, and location of the tools
System and PowerShell Requirements
Ways to install the tools on your system
Help or how to get it along with the explanation of the limitations.
How to report errors on GitHub.
Review of most of the 28 new functions with a deeper dive into some of them
Using Get-RsFolderContent and Write-RsFolderContent to simply backup and restore your SSRS environment.

9. Agenda Origin, History, and location of the tools
System and PowerShell Requirements
Ways to install the tools on your system
Help or how to get it along with the explanation of the limitations.
How to report errors on GitHub.
Review of most of the 28 new functions with a deeper dive into some of them
Using Get-RsFolderContent and Write-RsFolderContent to simply backup and restore your SSRS environment.

10. Reporting Services tools and PowerShell – Origins
The tools were released back in late 2016 by the Microsoft Reporting Services Team.

11. Reporting Services tools and PowerShell - Origins
The tools were released back in late 2016 by the Microsoft Reporting Services Team.
“This summer, the Reporting Services team experimented with new ways to engage our community. We realized that there was a strong need for a place where both the engineering team and community could come together to discuss and collaborate…Today, we are pleased to announce that our PowerShell for SSRS Project is getting a new home (

12. Reporting Services tools and PowerShell - Origins
The tools were released back in late 2016 by the Microsoft Reporting Services Team.
“This summer, the Reporting Services team experimented with new ways to engage our community. We realized that there was a strong need for a place where both the engineering team and community could come together to discuss and collaborate…Today, we are pleased to announce that our PowerShell for SSRS Project is getting a new home (
The team wrapped the tools into an easy to install package located at GitHub that can be downloaded directly onto your PowerShell environment on your system.

13. Reporting Services Tools - Requirements
Highly Recommended to have PowerShell 5+ when you deploy the tools. PowerShell 3 is supposed to work, but I had trouble with it. PowerShell 4 seemed to work ok.

14. Reporting Services Tools - Requirements
Highly Recommended to have PowerShell 5+ when you deploy the tools. PowerShell 3 is supposed to work, but I had trouble with it. PowerShell 4 seemed to work ok.
The Reporting Services Tools *WILL* work on SSRS 2008 R2 on up, but with limited results.

15. Reporting Services Tools - Requirements
Highly Recommended to have PowerShell 5+ when you deploy the tools. PowerShell 3 is supposed to work, but I had trouble with it. PowerShell 4 seemed to work ok.
The Reporting Services Tools *WILL* work on SSRS 2008 R2 on up, but with limited results.
All of the examples in this presentation were performed on a Windows 7 PC with SSRS 2014.

16. Reporting Services Tools - Requirements
Highly Recommended to have PowerShell 5+ when you deploy the tools. PowerShell 3 is supposed to work, but I had trouble with it. PowerShell 4 seemed to work ok.
The Reporting Services Tools *WILL* work on SSRS 2008 R2 on up, but with limited results.
All of the examples in this presentation were performed on a Windows 7 PC with SSRS 2014.
SSRS 2016 requires Windows 10 or Server 2012 – no exceptions.

17. Installing the tools
If you have PowerShell 5+, the install is very easy!

18. Installing the tools
If you have PowerShell 5+, the install is very easy!
Open up a PowerShell session *AS ADMINISTRATOR* and run the following command:

19. Installing the tools
If you have PowerShell 5+, the install is very easy!
Open up a PowerShell session *AS ADMINISTRATOR* and run the following command:
Install-Module –Name ReportingServicesTools

20. Installing the tools
If you have PowerShell 5+, the install is very easy!
Open up a PowerShell session *AS ADMINISTRATOR* and run the following command:
Install-Module –Name ReportingServicesTools
With older versions of PowerShell, you need to use the Invoke- Expression command

21. Installing the tools
If you have PowerShell 5+, the install is very easy!
Open up a PowerShell session *AS ADMINISTRATOR* and run the following command:
Install-Module –Name ReportingServicesTools
With older versions of PowerShell, you need to use the Invoke- Expression command
Invoke-Expression (Invoke-WebRequest

22. Checking The toolS
Get-Command –Module ReportingServicesTools

23. Installing over a old install
I had a copy of the original tools ( ) on my system

24. Installing over a old install
I had a copy of the original tools ( ) on my system
Even though I chose the –force option, it still installed side by side.

25. Installing over a old install
I finally went ahead and had to uninstall both installations.

26. Installing over a old install
I finally went ahead and had to uninstall both installations.
It was a bit of a pain, so be aware of this. If you don’t do that, PS will get confused about which version of the functions it is using.

27. Installing over a old install
I finally went ahead and had to uninstall both installations.
It was a bit of a pain, so be aware of this. If you don’t do that, PS will get confused about which version of the functions it is using.
You’ll need to use the Remove-Module command to get things gone.

28. Help or lack thereof
First of all, the SSRS PS team has done a great job getting these commands out.

29. Help or lack thereof
First of all, the SSRS PS team has done a great job getting these commands out.
Adding them to GitHub was a brilliant idea and it means fast support from the moderators.

30. Help or lack thereof
First of all, the SSRS PS team has done a great job getting these commands out.
Adding them to GitHub was a brilliant idea and it means fast support from the moderators.
But….remember the bit about SSRS 2016?

31. Help or lack thereof
First of all, the SSRS PS team has done a great job getting these commands out.
Adding them to GitHub was a brilliant idea and it means fast support from the moderators.
But….remember the bit about SSRS 2016?
It kind of makes things a little difficult if you *DON’T* have SSRS installed on your system.

32. Help or lack thereof
First of all, the SSRS PS team has done a great job getting these commands out.
Adding them to GitHub was a brilliant idea and it means fast support from the moderators.
But….remember the bit about SSRS 2016?
It kind of makes things a little difficult if you *DON’T* have SSRS installed on your system.
But, this is my opinion. All I know is the commands can be a little challenging…

33. More on help
First of all - *ALL* commands can be utilized by Get-Help <name of command>

34. More on help
But, you can also use Get-Help <name of command> -examples

35. More on help
Not necessarily help commands, but you have a number of flags you can set when running the PS commands.

36. More on help
Not necessarily help commands, but you have a number of flags you can set when running the PS commands.
-VERBOSE is one of the better ones. PowerShell will tell you what it’s doing.

37. Even more on help
-debug is another very useful command. They also work together.

38. Github – where to get the tool
The official page for the tool can be found at:

39. Github – where to get the tool
The official page for the tool can be found at:
Issues can be reported at:

40. Github – where to get the tool
The official page for the tool can be found at:
Issues can be reported at:
As with any trouble ticket, be clear and state your environment. The moderators are there to help, but help them.

41. Let’s see some functions!!!
I was unable to get all of these to work – some due to the fact that I don’t have a SSRS 2016 install, but some of them are just not very intuitive!!!

42. Backup-rsencryptionkey
This is a good start. Despite what the Get-Help said, you have to put in the ReportServerVersion for the command to work.

43. Backup-rsencryptionkey
This is a good start. Despite what the Get-Help said, you have to put in the ReportServerVersion for the command to work.

44. Reportserververion??
Simple enough – and the list is on the GitHub page
SSRS 2008 – Version 10 (not tested)
SSRS 2012 – Version 11
SSRS 2014 – Version 12
SSRS 2016 – Version 13
SSRS 2017 – Version 14

45. Get-RSFoldercontent
This command lists all catalog items under a folder.

46. Get-RSFoldercontent - RECURSE
This command lists all catalog items under a folder.

47. Get-rsdatasource
This command lists information about a specific data source.

48. Get-rsitemreferences
This command gets the item references for a dataset or report

49. Get-rscatalogitemrole
This command retrieves access on catalog items for users and groups
Using the credential command:

50. Get-rscatalogitemrole
This command retrieves access on catalog items for users and groups
Using the credential command:

51. Grant-accessoncatalogitem
Alias for Grant-RsCatalogItemRole

52. Grant-accessoncatalogitem
Alias for Grant-RsCatalogItemRole
I had a lot of fun with this one – some oddities

53. Grant-accessoncatalogitem
Alias for Grant-RsCatalogItemRole
I had a lot of fun with this one – some oddities
After sorting out the syntax, I found that it wouldn’t work if I had a browser session open!

54. Grant-accessoncatalogitem
Alias for Grant-RsCatalogItemRole
I had a lot of fun with this one – some oddities
After sorting out the syntax, I found that it wouldn’t work if I had a browser session open!
Also, it wouldn’t upgrade an existing role!

55. Grant-accessoncatalogitem
Just doesn’t work with the browser open.

56. Grant-accessoncatalogitem
Just doesn’t work with the browser open.

57. Initialize-Rs
This was one of the ones I could not make work. Could be due to not having SSRS It is supposed to take a brand new SSRS instance and perform the creation scripts that usually run from the SSRS Configuration application.

58. New-rsconfigurationsettingobject
The name is misleading. If you look at the actual code for the function, it is supposed to give you the name of the existing WMI object, not create a new one.

59. New-rsconfigurationsettingobject

60. New-rsdatasource
Creates a new data source for your SSRS environment.

61. New-rsdatasource
I found an interesting bug/oversight though.

62. New-rsdatasource I found an interesting bug/oversight though.
You can type in what you want in the connection, which is actually the same as in the gui.

63. New-rsdatasource I found an interesting bug/oversight though.
You can type in what you want in the connection, which is actually the same as in the gui.
Still, it makes for a funny error.

64. New-rsdatasource
Even the help is misleading or at least not very instructive

65. New-rsdatasource

66. New-rsdatasource

67. New-rsfolder
One of the simpler commands!

68. New-rsfolder
One of the simpler commands!
Use –VERBOSE!!!!!

69. New-rsfolder
One of the simpler commands
And you’re done…

70. New-rsrestsession Only works on SSRS 2016!!!
This command creates a session object to be specified for all subsequent calls to the REST Endpoint.

71. New-rswebserviceproxy
This command creates a new Web Service Proxy which is used to interact with the SOAP Endpoint.

72. New-rswebserviceproxy
This command creates a new Web Service Proxy which is used to interact with the SOAP Endpoint.

73. New-rswebserviceproxy
Fun party tricks you can do with this function…
Using a pipe from the output to get a list of SSRS subscriptions

74. New-rswebserviceproxy

75. New-rswebserviceproxy

76. Out-rscatalogitem
This command downloads an item

77. Out-rscatalogitem
But I couldn’t get it to work with a pipe… have to investigate

78. out-rsrestcatalogitem

79. Register-powerbi

80. Remove-rscatalogitem
This command neatly deletes a single item from a folder.

81. Restore-rsencryptionkey
This command restores a set aside encryption key. You need to know the password.

82. Revoke-accessoncatalogitem
Removes rights for a single user or group on all items found in a folder.

83. Revoke-accesstors
This revokes access at the system settings level, not the folder level.

84. Revoke-accesstors
This revokes access at the system settings level, not the folder level.

85. Set-rsdatabase
Changes the Report Server database

86. Set-rsdatabase
Changes the Report Server database

87. Set-rsdatabase
And it’s just as easy to switch back to the original database

88. Set-rsdatabasecredentials
This command configures the credentials to use when connecting to the database used by SQL Server Reporting Services

89. Set-rsdatabasecredentials
And it doesn’t seem to actually work… could be a SSRS dependency.

90. Set-rsdatasource
This command updates information associated to a data source. This one is buggy.

91. Set-rsdatasourcepassword
Sets the password for a datasource. Bug submitted but this one may be user error!

92. Set-rs settings
There are three of these, and they are supposed to be able to set the default account and SMTP server, but it is confirmed they are SSRS only.

93. Set-rs settings
There are three of these, and they are supposed to be able to set the default account and SMTP server, but it is confirmed they are SSRS only.
The three options are: Basic Auth, No Auth, and NTLM Auth

94. Set-rs settings
There are three of these, and they are supposed to be able to set the default account and SMTP server, but it is confirmed they are SSRS only.
The three options are: Basic Auth, No Auth, and NTLM Auth

95. Write-rscatalogitem
This command will write a report to a specified location

96. Write-rscatalogitem
You can also do fun tricks with pipes! Out-Grid View is fully interactive.

97. Write-rsfoldercontent
This command writes a whole folder

98. Examples and demos!

99. Thank you!!!
Michael Wall
@MichaelDWall1