SSRS Tip: Adding a Pipe-delimited option to SSRS Export Destinations

End users are very fond of running reports in SSRS and exporting the results to a variety of formats. Excel is probably the most popular, but invariably there will be other formats needed.

Unfortunately, in SSRS the list of other formats is limited. In particular, a pipe (|) delimited format is not available. But you can, if you are willing to update your SSRS configuration, add this yourself. The following approach has been tested through SSRS 2012. It may work in SSRS 2014+, but we have not yet confirmed it on that platform.

As always, before you update a configuration file, make a backup!

1. On the SSRS server, find the RSResportServer.config file. It is probably in… \Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.n\Reporting Services\ReportServer.
   
   
2. Start a text editor like Notepad, Notepad++ or Textpad As Administrator. NOTE: Do not use Wordpad or Word as they will add control characters and formatting to the file, rendering it unusable.
   
   
3. Find the<Render> tag. It should be about 2/3 of the way down the file.
   
   
4. Add the attached code inside the <Render> tags:
   

   <Extension Name="PIPE" Type="Microsoft.ReportingServices.Rendering.DataRenderer.CsvReport,Microsoft.ReportingServices.DataRendering">
                  <OverrideNames>
                        <Name Language="en-US">TXT (Pipe delimited)</Name>
                  </OverrideNames>
                  <Configuration>
                    <DeviceInfo>
                        <FieldDelimiter>|</FieldDelimiter>
                        <FileExtension>txt</FileExtension>
                    </DeviceInfo>
                  </Configuration>
   </Extension>

5. Now restart the SSRS Manager service to pick up the change in the config file.

Upside:

Your users can now export to pipe-delimited text files. You can add other custom delimiters, as needed.

Downside:

The RSReportServer.config file will need to be checked and/or modified every time SSRS is installed or updated.

If you need more help…

Our Report Writing team can help you fix reports, create new ones, make old ones faster, and much more. Simply reach out to your Iatric Systems Account Executive or our NPR report writing team at reportwriting@iatric.com to discuss how we can help support your team!