SSRS Show Loading...gif when clicking Drillthrough link to subreport

Question

I have a summary report with detail drillthrough report. Users are complaining that drillthrough is not working. It is working but in some cases, the render takes more than a few seconds. And there is no indication that the subreport has been called and is 'loading'. So they end up clicking multiple times, etc.

When users click the action link and nothing seems to be happening. Although the report is called and generating. There is no 'Loading' gif displayed as they are used to seeing when they click 'View Report'.

Users access a ReportBuilder type page, where they can call canned reports and select parameters and view reports.

Is there a way to get the action link to display the 'Loading' message when clicked? As is the case from clicking View Report.

Answer 1

No, not directly in the language. You would have to involve other frameworks to do such a thing as SSRS Web Service and the hosting does not do this. You could try two other things but they are more advanced.

1. POP OUT a report instead of using the action to drill down. You hack some javascript into the mix and you can POP OUT the window instead of drilling through. This will then show the other report loading. The site I got this off of is down but it may come back up: http://tavislovell.com/wordpress/how-to-make-ssrs-reports-in-a-performancepoint-dashboard-pop-out-or-open-in-a-new-window-2/

I believe it is similar to this:

javascript:void(window.open('http:// (ServerName)/ReportServer/Pages/ReportViewer.aspx?%2F(PathToReport)&Impacted=true', '', 'width=1000, height=800, top=0, resizable=yes'))

Essentially you hack your service to have javascript open a window to your report SEPERATE from the existing report. This works great but I am unsure if I captured all the correct single quotes for the example. I use an expression so I was decoding it from that.

1. Handle everything through an ASP.NET or HTML site and just make the forms do all the work through calls. Some people do not like the SSRS front end so they make up their own sites and merely call the web service. This is A LOT of work though so only if you are willing to spend the time should this be done.

Some final thoughts are to remember that SSRS has some definitive limitations compared to other more flashy charting options. It does what it does well but not much more than that. It is really not that great for doing real time dashboards, or layered reporting. It does shine at handling SQL Server data fast compared to some other reporting options and can be highly optimized for speed. If you want to do things like showing users loading screens, real time event driven actions, or layered reporting SSRS is going to dis appoint you.