I recently needed to query report execution statistics for a SQL Server Reporting Services instance where the number of rows were quite large. So I decided to use Excel 2013 and PowerPivot to analyze the data. This would allow me to directly pull all of the data into an Excel sheet and then perform analysis on the extracted data without having to query the Report Server database repeatedly.

The first thing to do is to create a connection to your Report Server database table. That can be done using the PowerPivot tab in Excel 2013. Click on the Manage button (Screenshot 1).

Once you are PowerPivot window, you will need to establish a connection with your Report Server database. This can be done using the From Database drop-down list with the From SQL Server option (Screenshot 2).

Create a connection to your SQL Server instance which hosts the Report Server database using the Table Import Wizard. In the Choose How to Import Data screen, select the second option i.e. Write a query that will specify the data to import. Once you click Next, provide a friendly name for the query and copy-paste the query shown below.

 select
b.Name,a.UserName,
CASE(a.RequestType)
WHEN 0 THEN 'Interactive'
WHEN 1 THEN 'Subscription'
WHEN 2 THEN 'Refresh Cache'
ELSE 'Unknown'
END AS RequestType,
a.Format, a.InstanceName,
CASE(a.ReportAction)
WHEN 1 THEN 'Render'
WHEN 2 THEN 'BookmarkNavigation'
WHEN 3 THEN 'DocumentMapNavigation'
WHEN 4 THEN 'DrillThrough'
WHEN 5 THEN 'FindString'
WHEN 6 THEN 'GetDocumentMap'
WHEN 7 THEN 'Toggle'
WHEN 8 THEN 'Sort'
WHEN 9 THEN 'Execute'
WHEN 10 THEN 'RenderEdit'
ELSE 'Unknown'
END AS ItemAction,
a.TimeStart,a.TimeEnd,a.TimeDataRetrieval,a.TimeProcessing,a.TimeRendering,a.[Status],a.ByteCount,a.[RowCount]
from dbo.ExecutionLogStorage a
inner join dbo.[Catalog] b
on a.ReportID = b.ItemID 

Now data obtained from the query will be imported into the PowerPivot table. Now I create a new PowerView sheet in the Excel workbook. Add a new column to add the TimeDataRetrieval, TimeProcessing and TimeRendering columns so that the total report duration is available at a single glance.

Now save the PowerPivot data and add a new PowerView Excel sheet called “Execution Stats”. This would allow you to create a view as shown in Screenshot 3.

Leverage PowerView’s interactive capabilities to view the Report execution statistics, the report processed status (failure or success) and the processing, rendering and data retrieval times for each report.

I have uploaded the file to SkyDrive which would allow you to connect to your own Reporting Services database and use the same report format for analysis. Stay tuned for additional PowerView sheets to give you various slicing and dicing options on report execution statistics.

Excel File Download Link: http://sdrv.ms/17ZmbK0 (Filename: SSRS_Exec_Stats.xlsx) Works with Excel 2013 only.