SSRS OCF Connector: Overview

Alation Cloud Service Applies to Alation Cloud Service instances of Alation

Customer Managed Applies to customer-managed instances of Alation

The OCF connector for SSRS was developed by Alation and is available as a Zip file that can be uploaded and installed in the Alation application.

To download the SSRS OCF connector package, go to the Alation Connector Hub available from the Customer Portal. Go to Customer Portal > Connectors > Alation Connector Hub. Only Alation users with access to the Customer Portal can access the Alation Connector Hub. If you don’t have access to the Customer Portal, contact Alation Support.

This connector should be used to catalog SSRS as a BI source on Alation on-prem and Alation Cloud Service instances. It extracts and catalogs such SSRS objects as folders, datasources, datasets, and reports. After the metadata is extracted, it is represented in the data catalog as a hierarchy of catalog pages under the parent BI source. Alation users can leverage the full catalog functionality to search for and find the extracted metadata, curate the corresponding catalog pages, create documentation about the data source, and exchange information about it.

Team

The following administrators are required to install this connector:

  • Alation Administrator:

    • Install the connector

    • Creates and configures a SSRS data source in the Catalog

  • SSRS Administrator:

    • Creates a service account for Alation

    • Provides access to public folders to extract metadata

    • Provides the JDBC URI to access metadata

Scope

The table below shows what features are covered by the connector.

Feature

Scope

Availability

SSRS instance

The SSRS instance represented as a BI source

Yes

Folders

Folders and sub-folders in SSRS

Yes

Filter folders

Ability to include or exclude certain folders

Yes

SSRS reports and paginated reports

Reports and paginated reports in a folder

Yes

SSRS reports from different folders

Reports that are created from datasets from different folders

Yes

SSRS report object data sources

Datasets used by report objects

Yes

Datasource object lineage

Lineage of the datasource objects

Yes

Report object lineage

Lineage of a report to a datasource object

Yes

SSRS dashboards

Dashboards in a folder

Yes

SSRS datasets

Datasets

Yes

Datasets without reports

Datasets which does not have reports

Yes

Dataset fields

Fields of datasets

Yes

Report owner

Owners or authors who created a report

Yes

Image previews

Ability to preview thumbnail images of reports and dashboards

Yes

Popularity

Popularity of dashboards & reports. SSRS API does not provide this info

No

Folder description

Description of a folder

Yes

Filter reports

Ability to include or exclude certain reports.

No

SSRS Object Hierarchy

The following diagram shows the hierarchy of SSRS objects and how they are cataloged in Alation:

../../../_images/SSRSOCF_01.png

SSRS API Endpoints

The following table lists the SSRS APIs used by this connector to extract metadata from SSRS:

Type

API Endpoint

Description

Folder

ListChildren

Projects metadata extraction

Datasource

ListChildren

Datasource extraction

Reports, Sub Reports(Dashboards)

ListChildren GetItemDefinition

Report extraction

Dataset

ListChildren GetItemDefinition

Dataset extraction

Report preview(Image)

LoadReport SetExecutionParameters Render

Preview extraction