How to Download All Your SSRS Report Definitions (RDL files) Using PowerShell

Here’s a short PowerShell script that :
1. Connects to your report server
2. Creates the same folder structure you have in your Report Server
3. Download all the SSRS Report Definition (RDL) files into their respective folders

In addition to backing up your Source Project, your ReportServer database, or good old RSScripter (see http://sqlserver-indo.org/blogs/mca/archive/2009/03/08/extract-and-transfer-rdl-files-from-ssrs.aspx) this is just another way you can “backup” or archive your reports.

#note this is tested on PowerShell v2 and SSRS 2008 R2
[void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Xml.XmlDocument");
[void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.IO");

$ReportServerUri = "http://yourreportserver/ReportServer/ReportService2005.asmx";
$Proxy = New-WebServiceProxy -Uri $ReportServerUri -Namespace SSRS.ReportingService2005 -UseDefaultCredential ;

#check out all members of $Proxy
#$Proxy | Get-Member
#http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa225878(v=SQL.80).aspx

#second parameter means recursive
$items = $Proxy.ListChildren("/", $true) | `
         select Type, Path, ID, Name | `
         Where-Object {$_.type -eq "Report"};

#create a new folder where we will save the files
#PowerShell datetime format codes http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee692801.aspx

#create a timestamped folder, format similar to 2011-Mar-28-0850PM
$folderName = Get-Date -format "yyyy-MMM-dd-hhmmtt";
$fullFolderName = "C:Temp" + $folderName;
[System.IO.Directory]::CreateDirectory($fullFolderName) | out-null

foreach($item in $items)
{
    #need to figure out if it has a folder name
    $subfolderName = split-path $item.Path;
    $reportName = split-path $item.Path -Leaf;
    $fullSubfolderName = $fullFolderName + $subfolderName;
    if(-not(Test-Path $fullSubfolderName))
    {
        #note this will create the full folder hierarchy
        [System.IO.Directory]::CreateDirectory($fullSubfolderName) | out-null
    }
    
    $rdlFile = New-Object System.Xml.XmlDocument;
    [byte[]] $reportDefinition = $null;
    $reportDefinition = $Proxy.GetReportDefinition($item.Path);
    
    #note here we're forcing the actual definition to be 
    #stored as a byte array
    #if you take out the @() from the MemoryStream constructor, you'll 
    #get an error
    [System.IO.MemoryStream] $memStream = New-Object System.IO.MemoryStream(@(,$reportDefinition));
    $rdlFile.Load($memStream);
    
    $fullReportFileName = $fullSubfolderName + "" + $item.Name +  ".rdl";
    #Write-Host $fullReportFileName;
    $rdlFile.Save( $fullReportFileName);

}

Enjoy!