Excel file format for Standard Subscriptions

 

 

 

Each row below the orange background(see image below) is a subscription

For each delivery extension there are 4 sections

 

 

this is best explained with an example, below is a screen capture of an Excel file.

 

 

 

 

Note: do not delete any rows up to and including the titles row( shown in orange above) these rows are needed by the application.

 

 

Section 1

 

Version- the Excel format version for SSRS Subscription manager in a later version of the software data driven extensions will be used,also the format of the Excel file format may change in later versions. This version is used to identify the schema structure.

 

Default- the text representation for default value this is used in section 4 when defining a default parameter value for a subscription

 

Null- the text representation for null value this is used in section 4 when defining a parameter value for a subscription

 

 

Note there must be a blank column between sections 2 ,3 and 4

 

Section 2

 

Owner- the current owner of the subscription.

Description- the description for the subscription. Descriptions can also be modified in the Description tab, but this is the quickest way to modify multiple descriptions.

Status- this is for information only and gives the last status of the subscriptions, showing if there was an error.

EventType- this must always be "TimedSubscription"

matchData- The time(s) when the subscription will execute. It is stored as XML for a custom time or if a shared schedule stored as a GUID. If it is a shared schedule GUID value can be found in the Shared schedule worksheet.

 

Note: You can modify the matchData XML directly in the Excel worksheet but it is easier to do a bulk modification in the schedule tab, this also allows incremental times of report execution.

 

Section 3

 

These are items specific to each delivery extension.

 

If there is a username and password, you can define these in the excel worksheet or you can specify a username/password in the restore screen. For security reason you may not want to store username and passwords in the Excel file, the username and password can be entered when you do a restore. If different usernames and passwords are needed for each subscription then they will need to be stored in excel- it can allow for a different username and password for each subscription (each row), however note the password is not secure.

 

The Render Format, this is common across delivery extensions, for a list of possible values see the Render Format worksheet.

 

 

 

section 4 - Parameters

 

If this section does not exists it means there are no report parameters.

 

 

 

in the above picture the first 6 rows(highlighted in green) are for information only they show the properties of each parameter (the parameter name is in the orange background row)

 

for example in the above picture you can see the prmNameAnythingStr is:

 

a string type and it allows blanks.

 

 

Parameters are shown below the orange background row.

 

Notes:

 

•Parameters when backed up will be exported in quotes eg "1"  in the above example.

•Multi value parameters must be in quotes for example if a multi value is 1,2 this must be stored in the Excel cell as "1","2"

•Single value items do not need to be quoted this is optional.

•The default and null values are defined in section 1- see above.

•If a parameter name has changed simply change the parameter name in the orange background column.

•If a new parameter is to be added just add the new parameter name to a new column. The background color does not need to be changed to orange.

•If a parameter no longer exists simply delete the column.

•Subscription manager identifies there is a subscription on a row if the column match data is not blank.

 

 

Invalid Parameters

 

After section 4 you may see invalid parameters.