7.
On the Execution
page, click-select the radio button to the immediate left of Always run this
report with the most recent data, if necessary.
Our intent is to configure the report to run “on demand,”
from the cache, as we shall see with our next settings, where we
schedule the expiration of the cached report, using each of two
possible options.
To make the cached copy expire after a particular
time period:
8.
Click Cache
a temporary copy of the report. Expire copy of report after a number of minutes.
9.
Type the
number “30” in the selector box to the
immediate right.
Our
settings on the Execution page for a half-hour expiration of the cached
report appear as shown in Illustration 6.
Illustration
6: Settings for Expiration of Cached Report after a Specified Time Period
To make the cached copy expire on a schedule:
10.
Click Cache
a temporary copy of the report. Expire copy of report on the following schedule.
11.
Click Configure.
The Create Custom Schedule page appears.
12.
Within the Schedule
details section atop the page, to the left of the Daily Schedule box,
ensure that the Day radio button is selected.
13.
Within the Daily
Schedule box, click-select the radio button to the immediate left of Every
weekday.
14.
Leave the Start
time, in the setting at the bottom of the box, at 2:00 AM.
15.
Within the Start
and end dates section of the page, type / select today’s date in the
selector box that appears to the right of the label Begin running this
schedule on.
The Create Custom Schedule page
appears, with our settings, as depicted in Illustration 7.
Illustration
7: Create Custom Schedule Page with Our Settings
The
settings above dictate a custom schedule for expiration of the cache
of this specific report. Using such a fixed schedule is ideal in many
scenarios, where we want to mandate Report Server processing at a
specific time. An example might be setting the execution cache to expire
at 2:00 AM every Monday morning, in a
situation where, say, we update sales data and refresh our cubes by midnight each Sunday for reporting the following week.
This means, of course, that the newly updated sales data is reflected when
information consumers begin requesting reports after the opening of business on
Monday morning.
16.
Click OK
to accept our settings input, and to dismiss the Create Custom Schedule
page.
We are
returned to the Execution page, where a summary of our new settings
appears as shown in Illustration 8.
Illustration
8: Execution Page Displaying Our Settings for Scheduled Cache Expiration ...
Finally,
an additional setting, Report Execution Timeout, lies at the bottom of
the Execution page. Here we can set a limit on the amount of time
allowed for report processing – one of several “governor” properties we can set
surrounding our reports to prevent “runaway conditions,” as well as perhaps to
minimize the risk of overtaxing system resources in other ways. Our options
for timeout default settings include:
-
Use the system
default setting -
directs the Report Server to use the default report execution
timeout value as it is globally defined for the Report Server (which, as
we learned in Report Execution Caching I, we specify within the Report Server
properties, on the Server Properties dialog, Execution page, as
depicted in Illustration 9).
Illustration
9: Execution Page of the Server Properties Dialog – Global Timeout Default
-
Do not
timeout report execution - directs the Report Server to impose no limitations on
report execution time.
-
Limit
report execution to the following number of seconds - timeout value is defined as a
specific number of seconds (with the defaulted selector value the same as the global
default setting that is defined in the corresponding Server Properties setting,
as noted in the Use the default setting option above).
17.
Click the View
tab to depart the Execution page, leaving all settings at their original
positions.
18.
Exit Report
Manager when ready.
Conclusion
In this
article, we continued a three-part subseries surrounding caching options
in Reporting Services 2005. We began by briefly
reviewing the three types of caching that Reporting Services 2005
offers. We then resumed our examination of the second of these three, Report
Execution caching.
As a part
of our examination of Report Execution caching, we reviewed the general
purpose of this second caching type. We next reviewed details about how
Report Execution caching is accomplished in Reporting Services
2005. Finally we explored the settings involved in putting Report
Session caching to work, within the Report Manager interface
(having addressed similar settings from a SQL Server Management Studio
perspective in the first half of this article, Report Execution Caching I), including system
defaults for those settings. Throughout the various sections of the article, we
discussed other information about Report Execution caching in an attempt
to assist in selecting or discarding this option for use within our own
business environments.
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