Visual Studio using analysis services based report models is broken

Designing reports using a report model based on an Analysis Services database seems such an obvious and natural thing to do.

• Analysis Services provides a rapid querying engine
• The report model requires no development to generate
• Report developers can avoid having to learn MDX

Unfortunately this appears not to have been an area of focus for Microsoft. Prior to SQL Server 2005 SP2 it was workable but annoying, but now it is unusable.


"A connection cannot be made to the database. Set and test the connection string. Additional information: TODO - change code to use RsProxy object (Microsoft.ReportingServices.QueryDesigners)"

This error is thrown on the data tab of a Visual Studio 2005 Reporting Services project if:

• Your data source is a report model generated from an Analysis Services 2005 database via Report Manager
• You have SQL Server 2005 SP2 Client Tools installed on your workstation
• You have manually added Perspective xml to your rdl code in an attempt to work around a known issue (Perspective not specified automatically for a report created in Report Designer)

If you remove the Perspective xml then the data tab won't error, but the prior known issue will kick in with one of the following errors when you attempt to execute the query or preview the report:

"An error occurred while executing the query. Failed to execute query. Additional information: Failed to execute query. (Microsoft.ReportingServices.DataExtensions)"

"The ‘PerspectiveID’ custom property for the ‘query’ perspective is either not set or is not set to the string data type."

Plenty TODO if you ask me.