When our SSRS reports are exported to Excel, some columns are merged which is a problem for example if you want to sort the entries etc. The reason for this merging behavior is that the header of the report is in the body-part of the excel-file, and the excel-export tries to keep the same look as in the report (which messes up the columns). Because of this, I want to remove the header from the body-part of the excel-sheet.
I have tried to edit in the RSReportServer.config-file and set SimplePageHeaders to true as described for example here: Exporting from SSRS to Excel with no headers
However, I didn't get this to work, although I didn't get any error messages about my config-file-edits from the Event Viewer (it simply said "The RSReportServer.config file has been modified"). I also tried to redeploy the reports and restart Visual Studio. After a while, I found that it might be because we use Sharepoint to view the reports:
"The Extensions section appears in the rsreportserver.config file only for native mode report servers. Extension information for SharePoint mode report servers is stored in the SharePoint configuration database and is configured per Reporting Services service application."
Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms157273.aspx#bkmk_extensionsl (Under Extensions (RSReportServer.config file) Native Mode)
Now, I have tried to find the settings in "Sharepoint 2010 Central Administration" (That was my only idea as to where to start looking) but haven't found anything (I have been a little confused on where to look, so I might have missed it). Any ideas? Do you think I'm on the right track?
Any help is greatly appreciated!
Ps: Please note that reshaping the textboxes in the header of the report as suggested in other answers to my original problem is not a practical option. Pps: Let me know if you need additional details etc. Thanks again.
We managed to solve the problem by configuring the excel rendering extension in the Sharepoint Configuration Database using Powershell. Since we were in Sharepoint mode in Reporting Services 2012, the rsreportserver.config-files were apparently not read at all. More detailed info can be found here:
And here: