When deploying a new SSRS instance that is running SQL Server SSRS 2014 and lower you need to make sure that the users of the SSRS Server are able to install and run reports. Contrary to what many IT admins believe you can automate this process in 2 different ways. The way we used to run it was to automatically create a package to copy the required dlls and cab files to the destination computers. This works well in most cases but during a Service Pack upgrade to the SSRS server you will need to reapply the latest dlls again. Our plan here is to automate this process so we do not need to worry about pushing out these dlls to all the machines.
- Identify the SSRS Servers that you wish to automatically deploy the Active X plugin to in our case this url is: https://Server4.yourdomain.tld/ which is running a SSRS in the following location https://Server4.yourdomain.tld/Reports
- Open up Group Policy and Navigate to the following location: Computer Configuration > Adminstrative Templates > Windows Components > ActiveX Installer Service
- Under the Approved Installation Sites for ActiveX controls choose Enabled and place each one of the desired SSRS sites in field.
- Place both the server name and full fqdn in the field
- https://server4
- https://server4.yourdomain.tld
Hopefully you are using newer versions of SQL Server Reports that leverage HTML5 so that this is no longer needed.