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Prevent Reporting Services from caching data
By default SSRS will create files with extension .rdl.data to cache data. This blog gives two and a half ways to ensure you're always seeing the latest data in a report.

Posted by Andy Brown on 01 October 2012

In this blog

The Problem: Data is Cached
Solution 1 - Just Refresh the Screen
Solution 2 - Delete the Cached Data
Solution 3 - Change your SSRS Configuration

Preventing Data Caching when Developing SSRS Reports

How can you be sure that you're seeing the latest copy of any data? The answer: disable report caching. This blog explains what the problem is, then gives two-and-a-half possible solutions.

The Problem: Data is Cached

So - you run a report listing out various films from a Movies database, and get:

The first couple of films from our report.

You decide that Jurassic Park was too long (that scary bit with the T. Rex should be cut), and make a change to your data:

The owl's cut: 1 hour 40 minutes should do it.

You then rerun the report, and nothing has changed:

The film length hasn't changed in the report, even though the underlying data has.

This problem comes about because SSRS is trying to speed up your reports. Whenever you run a report using exactly the same combination of parameters (where there are any) as for the previous time you ran the report, you'll see cached data.

Solution 1 - Just Refresh the Screen

A simple solution is just to refresh the data for your report:

Click on the icon shown to see the latest data for your report.

Solution 2 - Delete the Cached Data

A second solution is to delete the cached data file:

Find the file with extension .rdl.data in your project in Windows Explorer and delete it - you'll then get the latest data when you run your report.

This isn't a great solution: you have to keep doing it again (as the file shown is recreated whenever you run the report); there's always the risk you'll delete the report itself by mistake; and you have to delete the report through Windows Explorer, as it doesn't show up in Solution Explorer in Visual Studio.

Solution 3 - Change your SSRS Configuration

You can - in theory - prevent report caching by changing your configuration settings - but first you have to find them! The folder path will be something like:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\ Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies

Once you've found this folder, you can double-click on the file called RSReportDesigner.config to edit it: