Categories: Power BISSRS

Connect to Power BI Report Server with SSMS

Sometimes you want to connect to a report server instance using Management Studio, for example to create a new security role or modify an existing one. Recently I tried to log into our newly installed Power BI Report Server (March 2018 edition). I was greeted with the following error:

The Reporting Services instance could not be found.

When your search for this error, you typically get the feedback “your SSRS instance is not configured properly”. In my case, it is configured correctly. After a bit more searching, I found the following thread. It suggests to treat the PBIRS server as a SSRS-instance configured in SharePoint mode (the horror). Instead of using the instance name, you need to use the web service URL. You can find this in the Web Service URL tab (what’s in a name) of the SSRS configuration manager.

Like this:

Et voila:

It’s possible you have to register the server before this works (in my case this wasn’t necessary though). In SSMS, click on View and select Registered Servers.

A new tab will open. Go to Reporting Services, right-click Local Server Groups and choose New Server Registration.

Enter the web service URL in the Server name box. Click on Save to finish.

Hope this helps and thanks for reading.


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Koen Verbeeck

Koen Verbeeck is a Microsoft Business Intelligence consultant at AE, helping clients to get insight in their data. Koen has a comprehensive knowledge of the SQL Server BI stack, with a particular love for Integration Services. He's also a speaker at various conferences.

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