I was recently tasked with diagnosing a slow performing report in Microsoft’s SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS).  The report was intended as a dashboard with multiple charts and tables showing various trending business performance metrics.  Conceptually, the report was sound.  The charts and tables showed exactly what the business users required.  The problem was the dashboard rendered itself slower than the business desired.

My investigation showed the single dashboard viewed by users was actually multiple subreports rendered together as a single SSRS report.

SSRS supports the inclusion of subreports in any SSRS report; a subreport is simply an independent SSRS report embedded into another SSRS report.  In Visual Studio BIDS, you simply drag the Subreport component from the SSRS Toolbox to the Design tab and complete the Subreport Properties.  Using a subreport is easy.