What does that mean for us going forward?
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Us long time users will have to re-rewrite our reports yet again is my guess. Crystal > SSRS > next.
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Crystal or a 3rd party tool like DevExpress.NET Reporting or Telerik .NET Reporting would be nice. Move away from SSRS type reports. Unfortunately 3rd party solutions involve licensing. So realistically theyâll gone where ever Microsoft does.
@timshuwy mentioned this in the âWhatâs New in 2025.1?â webinar yesterday. He said he couldnât mention any details yet (
), but hinted that Epicor is looking at a solution that will be easy for them (since they have a library of SSRS reports) as well as easy for the user base. To me, that sounds like there wonât be a big rewrite effort. 
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Haha, that sounds like Power BI Report Server. .rdl isnât going anywhere. PBIRS is effectively SSRS, except that SSRS is free and PBIRS is not.
Iâd be extremely surprised if Epicor jumped the .rdl ship. Migrating all of the canned reporting would be a substantial undertaking, never changing canned reporting is a core canonical feature, and PBIRS is SSRS with a little opex on top.
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So, converting to like PowerBI Report Server (PBIRS)? I donât think anything else uses RDLs.
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PBIRS is now will be free.
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Only starting in SQL Server 2025 which isnât GA yet. But yes, it will be free.
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free being the other core feature Epicor will utilize.
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Hope youâre right. I canât imagine the time/expense that would be incurred to rework all custom outputâŚlet alone the base reports. Had to tackle a smaller-scale disaster at Y2K. Our previous-previous ERP was on an iSeries. Canned reports were largely intactâŚbut the forms designer/output piece was kaput. Good times.
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A customer asked us about this today as well.
Consider inquisitive mind piquedâŚ
Has anyone ever actually tried PBIRS, Power BI Report Server, with Epicor Kinetic?
Just uninstalled SSRS from a working machine and installed PBIRS, the installer and configuration are near identical.
Reconfigured Epicor App in the admin console, where the only thing i had to change was the Report Server location to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Power BI Report Server\PBIRS\ReportServer
From there everything i tested worked as it currently does with SSRS. print previewing Standard report, copy report style, download, modify in report builder, upload, print preview custom report styleâŚ
Not saying there isnt issues but non i hit from an initial install and test.
Note, this is with an SQL 2022 back end for Kinetic 2025.1.6 and the Report Server Db. However it is with the latest version of PBIRS.
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Nice Ben!
I thought Iâd seen that itâll only be available in paid SQL Server and Power BI? I suppose it could be technically possible that those people on the internet were not well informed about what they were booing at microsoft about. 
Yep, itâs at least as easy as SSRS to set up. Consuming reports can be a lot nicer, if youâre self hosted. Curious to see how that plays out for SaaS users.
Epicor is surely paying for SQL, no?
I do hope they go this route and hope they take the opportunity to cloudify the RDD bits.
Correct. Only in paid versions.
Yes, they pay for SQL Enterprise. Theyâd have to. Thereâs no way to not pay for SQL Server and run Epicor. Itâs too big of a dB.
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Thatâs sort of expected. Glad to see it actually works that way. Microsoft indicated that if youâre using .rdls youâd be able to directly move those reports. They are essentially just merging standalone SSRS into PBIRS. And only going to maintain one code base in the future. It makes sense.
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Iâm sorry, thatâs what I meant. Free with paid SQL Server.
Wait, SSRS was under âmaintenanceâ? They havenât really done anything to SSRS or itâs Report Designer in years.
What? I meant they arenât going to maintain SSRS as a standalone product going forward. They are rolling it into the PoweBI Report Server. They are investing heavily in PowerBI. They havenât touch SSRs in years.
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