SSRS - Visual Studio - How to use existing shared data source

Question

We are doing shared administration of a reporting server and the reporting server web interface has the .rdl and data sources published on the webserver.

Is there a way I can add the existing shared data source from the web server into visual studio? Now I can probably create a new data source and overwrite the existing one but I am afraid I may not set it up properly and break things a bit.

On the "Add Existing Item" I can't browse to the reporting services website properly to add it and the data source does not have a "download" button....Any ideas ? I feel like there should be an easy way to do this

So I found this previous question :: How to import SSRS shared datasets and data sources directly into BIDS 2008?

Report Builder allows you to but visual studio does not ?!

Answer 1

Short answer, not possible.

There are one of two workarounds. 1. Create a similar named Datasource in your project. Within the properties of the project make sure to set "Overwrite DataSources" to false. When you deploy you won't overwrite what is already on server. 2. Have the other party (one you are sharing with) send you the .rds file and import it. Again change the "Overwrite DataSources" to false.