looking into rdl file

Some business analysts would like to reverse engineer the ssrs .rdl files by looking into the field mappings and data sources. Do they have to install the client version of visual studio or there is an easier way?

TIA..

You can open the RDL files in Notepad and see that they are written in XML. You can find the query run by looking for the <CommandText> tag, and each field is listed under a <ReportItems> tag. The data source information is also listed in there, under the <ConnectionProperties> tag.

Hope this helps.

Jarret