Microsoft SQL Server Reporting

Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Online Test: How it is structured and how it can help you hire your best candidate

Using our Microsoft SQL Server Reporting online assessment test will assure your candidate’s skills administering a SQL Server Reporting environment using 24 highly detailed questions.

All questions represent practical and general knowledge around SQL Server Reporting and should be known by strong report administrators.

The test is put together by the world-renowned SQLskills.com team. They’ve authored more than 65 in-depth Pluralsight courses on SQL Server, and have been providing the highest quality SQL Server training and consulting since 1995, and are intimately familiar with all aspects of SQL Server and the chapters in this test. They also have extensive experience interviewing SQL Server DBA/developer/ candidates for their clients.

The sub-chapters were picked after considering the broad scope of SQL Server report administration, and the SQLskills team has assessed the five most vital areas to evaluate the qualifications and practical experience of a specific candidate. See all chapters to the right.

By using our SQL Server Reporting online assessment test, recruiting talented report administrators will be easier. You will have a significantly higher chance of employing a strong candidate, as well as eliminating the risk of hiring an under-qualified candidate who lacks real-world experience.

How would you use this test?

This online assessment test has a number of use cases:

• Evaluate SQL Server report administrators on their understanding of SQL Server reporting fundamentals
• Filter out candidates for your work based on their ability to understand complex scenarios
• Make sure that candidates have real-world, practical knowledge of administering SQL Server Reporting Services and Power BI, instead of just book knowledge or having taken an administration ‘boot camp’

Which areas (chapters) will be covered in the test, and why was it chosen that way?

Report Server Installation/Configuration
One of the fundamental requirements for a good report server candidate is to understand the configuration for SQL Server Report Services and it can affect the performance and operation of Report Services. Candidates also need to be able to choose the correct physical layout when creating the report server database to maximize its availability and manageability.

Security
Security is a hot topic in the IT industry today and is essential for an SQL Server Report Server administrator to be familiar with. A strong candidate should have experience with the ability to properly configure users, logins, roles, and permissions for reports.

High Availability and Disaster Recovery
Nothing is more important than a company’s data and SQL Server and SQL Server Reporting Services has a variety of technologies to aid in preserving access to the data tier when disaster strikes. Candidates should be familiar with scaling out report server and options for HA for the ReportServer and ReportServerTempDB databases. Candidates should also be familiar with restore options for ReportServer and ReportServerTempDB databases.

Report Publishing
Probably the most important task of a Microsoft SQL Server Report administrator is creating and publishing reports. A strong candidate will know how to use the existing tools such as Report Builder, SQL Server Data Tools, and Power BI Report Server to publish reports, review statistics on reports, and schedule reports. They should also be able to explain the different stages of report processing and methods for exporting data.

Data Sources
There are numerous types of data sources that can be used when publishing reports. A strong candidate should be able to create and manage data sources and know when to the correct data source

Performance and Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting performance issues is critical to deliver a reliable and stable reporting solution for an enterprise. A strong candidate should know how to find poorly performing reports, methods to cache reports, and how to utilize the ExecutionLog. A candidate should know that the various Command line utilities are for troubleshooting issues and scaling out deployments.