Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) :

BIDS is the tool that we use to develop reports.  It provides an interface based on Microsoft's Visual Studio product which has been used by developers for many years.  The SQL Server 2008 version of BIDS has some nice enhancements to the user interface for designing, developing and testing reports. 

BIDS is included with SQL Server.  When you are running the SQL Server installer, you need to click the Business Intelligence Development Studio checkbox in the Shared Features section in order to install BIDS.  You probably want to select all of the items in the Shared Features section.  After completing the installation, you can launch BIDS from the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 program group.

To begin launch BIDS by selecting SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio from the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 program group.  Click File, New Project on the top-level menu to display the New Project dialog.  Click Visual Studio Solutions under Project Types, Blank Solution under Visual Studio installed templates, and enter the Name and Location. 

Click OK to create a blank solution.  Now we want to add a project to our solution.  A solution is just a container for one or more projects.  By creating a blank solution, we can add multiple projects that make up the complete solution that we are building. Click File, Add, New Project from the top-level menu to add a Report Server project to the solution.  Fill in the Add New Project dialog .              

At this point we have created a blank solution and added a Report Server project to the solution.  Report Server Project Wizard is one of the options under Visual Studio installed templates.  This option will create a project and immediately launch the Report Wizard and you probably don't want to create a new project for every report.