How to integrate management reporter reports into a SharePoint library

Publishing your Management Reporter 2012 reports to SharePoint is fairly straightforward to configure. This article describes how to integrate Management Reporter reports into a SharePoint library.

When you generate a report to your MR report library, you can also generate a link to a SharePoint site or another network location. The related report link can open the report in one of the supported report output types. (XPS, Excel, XBRL). Note: A lot of our clients ask for PDF reports and honestly, if you choose to use PDF’s you will be losing the rich drill down capability that XPS or Excel supports. MS Word and PDF file types can also be added using MR2012 CU8. As of this writing, CU10 was made available Sept 2014.

Each report library location can create multiple related report links. Security settings for the report library folder are applied when the related report link is opened.

NOTE: If you are using a computer that has Windows Server® 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2, you must have the Desktop Experience feature turned on in order to post a report to a SharePoint site. Open Server Manager, click Features, click Add Features, and then select Desktop Experience. This may require a restart. IE 10 is also a requirement.

SharePoint Configuration

1. On the Management Reporter server, go to Services and verify the name of the account that is running the Management Reporter 2012 Process Service.
2. On the SharePoint site, go to the document library that you want to publish reports into and add permissions for that Service Account with Contribute permissions.
3. On the SharePoint site, go to Library Settings > Advanced Settings > and check Allow Management of Content Types.
4. On the SharePoint site, go to Library Settings >Content Types > and add Link To Document as an available Content Type.

Management Reporter Configuration

1. In Report Designer, open the report to generate. Click the Output and Distribution tab.
2. In the Output name field, enter a name for the report after it is generated. This name does not have to be the same as the report definition name.
3. To view the report after it is generated, select the View report when generated check box.
4. Select Generate to multiple report library locations.
5. Click in the Report Library Location pane, and then enter the destination for the generated report. At least one report library location must be selected in order to generate a related report link.
6. Double-click in the Related Report Link Location pane, and then type an address to a network location or a SharePoint site. You can also click Browse to browse to a destination folder, and then click OK to add the location to the report definition. These address paths can also be copied into or from other report definitions.
7. Select the options to include in the report under the appropriate output heading. This Microsoft article describes options that are available for all report output types.
8. If you want this report to be automatically published to SharePoint, You can setup a report schedule in Report scheduler.

Viewing reports in SharePoint

When you click any report, you can have the option of viewing it in Excel, Report viewer or XPS document. You can also set a default view so that next time it won’t ask for a choice.

In MR version 2013 the reports will open automatically in the Web Viewer from SharePoint links. Please assure a minimum that IE10 is being used.

To not open automatically in WebViewer and have the user choose, in Management Reporter Report Designer if you go to Tools –> Options you can choose the check box to use the native MR Report Viewer.  If they don’t have the MR Client installed on the local workstation then the web would be the only option. If using version 2.1.1.1030.2 without RU6, this option is not available.

To find out more about this or other ways that RSM can assist you with your SharePoint needs, contact McGladrey’s technology consulting professionals at 800.274.3978 or email us

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