I am creating reports using ssrs many of which will be internal but some will for the public. And if the report is exported as a .pdf for public download then that .pdf must be accessible. Before we can post any pdfs on our web site we use the full version of Adobe to check for accessibility. So my question is are there settings or things to do in SSRS so that the pdf that is generated when the report is exported has little to no accessibility issues?
I've looked at a couple different reports and whether a simple one table report or a report of three tables within a rectangle the accessibility issues are numerous from alt text to table list and heading problems.
My company has had a lawsuit regarding accessibility of documents on our web site so it is of the utmost importance that we create reports that are accessibility compliant. Thanks for any guidance with this.
Interesting question. I was going to put this in the comment section but it was too long. It's not a direct answer to your question but might help.
Since SSRS is from Microsoft, I would hope that it would generate accessible PDF. If you edit a Word document and "save as" to PDF, it creates a pretty decent accessible pdf. And by "accessible PDF", I'm talking about a "tagged pdf". Since Word does a decent job, and SSRS is by the same company, hopefully SSRS can do a decent job too.
To start with, is a tagged PDF generated from SSRS? If not, then you're in worse shape than I thought. I'm guessing you at least have a tagged PDF otherwise the Adobe checker wouldn't work.
In using the Adobe checker, I assume you're using Tools > Accessibility > Full Check? And then you look at the checker results in the left navigation panel?
You can also look at the "Matterhorn Protocol", which lists PDF failures for accessibility. I'm guessing that the Adobe checker is using the Matterhorn list.
We had a support ticket with Microsoft about this issue. They advised us to edit this portion of the rsreportserver.config file. This applies to SSRS 2019. I do not believe this is supported in earlier versions, but you should confirm with Microsoft whether it will work for your specific version.
My rsreportserver.config was found in C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services\SSRS\ReportServer. Yours may be different depending on how you performed the install.
After you edit the file you will need to restart SSRS Services for the change to take effect.
<!-- Updated per Microsoft instructions
<Extension Name="PDF" Type="Microsoft.ReportingServices.Rendering.ImageRenderer.PDFRenderer,Microsoft.ReportingServices.ImageRendering"/> -->
<Extension Name="PDF" Type="Microsoft.ReportingServices.Rendering.ImageRenderer.PDFRenderer,Microsoft.ReportingServices.ImageRendering">
<Configuration>
<DeviceInfo>
<AccessiblePDF>True</AccessiblePDF>
</DeviceInfo>
</Configuration>
</Extension>
<!-- End change per Microsoft -->
After applying this change, most accessibility checks in Acrobat DC are passing.
Related
Is it possible to create Custom (own) controls for the SQL Server Mobile Report publisher? Meaning own graphes (Gauges), styles, maps, etc...
I was unable to find any information about this topic on Google (or other sites like SO). Few days back we had lectures/training with some developer (basics of Reporting) and he shortly said that it is possible, but we haven't got time to go through it.
My expectations (as an answer) is explanation what tool can be used and/or link to tutorial.
Possibly also some information (with source) that this cannot be created in version 2016.
Short story: It is not possible to create custom control in Mobile Reports Publisher as of now (March 2017). There is no support in the software itself. However Microsoft will allow store/use Power BI reports within Reporting services.
Long story: I've reached out the tutorial guru and discussed this further. We've found that the original statement is not true and mobile reports cannot be adjusted in a way of creating new control or modifying style sheet.
But: Since Mobile reports are sort of family with product called Power BI, Microsoft has decided (as described in MS Technical preview - January 2017) to support Power BI Reports on next version MS Reporting Services. And as there can be done some visualisation changes and even create new controls, most likely we will be also able to create our own control.
I am using Microsoft Reporting Services to provide users with custom reports. I create them in Business Intelligence studio, deploy them and have a website where users can view those reports.
Now i need i new tool to do almost the same. I need to create reports and users has to be able to view them in PC, Mac, mobile phone, tablet, etc. Microsoft Reporting Services has some problems with Android and iOS, and that is the problem for me. Users cannot scroll the report (if it is longer thant report viewer window), expand does not allways work and etc.
I need a tool, to create same reports and allow to view them anywhere. I was thinking about pentaho, but it is no exactly what i need. Maybe somebody has any solutions?
Pentaho's analyzer tool is good on tablets/mobile but unfortunately it is EE only, not community/open source.
If you're happy with enterprise another option is yellowfin?
Alternatively with the community edition of Pentaho you can make use of CTools and there is a very good dashboarding framework with explicit support for mobile devices - may be worth looking at that?
Why exactly is pentaho "not exactly what you need" ? What are your perceived issues with it?
I have not used pentaho. However, I know any limitations in the web viewer control are based on browser support and interpretation. One workaround to these limitations is to reference the reportexecution2005 interface in your project and call the Render method with HTML40 format and designate HTMLFragment in the device context header, this will return the report html content as a byte[]. However, any custom paging/printing/zooming would have to be re-implemented in your web app :(
I'm using Crystal Reports XI Viewer Active control in an Access 2007 (but 2003 format) form. I'm using SQL Server 2008 as the backend. The viewer displays reports fine, but there are no toolbar icons. Buttons and tooltips work as expected, just no images.
Searching for this, I've seen countless references to this problem using the WebForms viewer, but not the ActiveX control.
I thought maybe it was a missing reference, so I added every Crystal version 11 DLL the References dialog offered. I suspect it may yet be another, but don't know what else to look for.
Has anyone else come across this? Any ideas?
(Please don't recommend using Access's built-in reporting instead. Business requirements dictate Crystal so my hands are tied.)
Adding all the DLLs is not going to do anything that dropping the ActiveX control on a form will not already have done. That is, using an ActiveX control automatically creates the appropriate reference in Access.
I recommend against utilizing any ActiveX controls (except the ones that are built in) in any Access app because there are so many installation problems they can cause.
Not all ActiveX controls are compatible with Access, so you need to check with your vendor to see if they think it is. If not, then you're probably out of luck. It's unlikely there are many Access programmers out there who've attempted to use a Crystal Reports ActiveX control in Access itself, as there's not much need for it in the vast majority of Access apps.
Is there some other interface that you can use other than an ActiveX control? What does it do? Display the report in a form?
Problem fixed itself after closing and re-opening Access.
The following are the 3 ways that I know and would like to know the experiences from SO users.
URL-based
Report Viewer Control from Visual Studio
Web Services
Not sure what you're using as a report generator on the server side, but I've found that serving up reports in PDF format is a relatively pain-free, cross-platform way to go. Almost everybody has Adobe Reader installed.
Update: sorry, I missed the SSRS tags, but you can output SSRS reports to PDF:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/reporting-services/PDFUsingSQLRepServices.aspx
I still recommend PDF for the delivered report format. Cross-browser and near-universal, two things that make me (and clients) very happy.
I have a huge MS Access document with built-in VBA codebase. Is it possible to track the file (as I am developing it) with a (mercurial) version control system? Can I extract code and track that? Or is it just the-binary-file-path? Thanks.
It's possible with MS Access to export most of the code through scripts. I posted some here a while ago:
How do you use version control with Access development?
It's possible to version-control binary files, but it would be a little cleaner (IMO) to have the code separate. If it works for you though, then by all means do what you do.
There is a nice tool here https://github.com/hilkoc/vbaDeveloper .
It allows you to easily export and import all your vba code and can do this automatically as soon as you click 'save'.
The export files are all plain text which you can then put in version control in the usual way.
Access all the way up to 2010 has supported source code control, and that includes support for team foundation server. The fact that you place all files in ONE zip file, one folder on a hard drive, or one container called an accDB is a MOOT point. As long as EACH individual object can be viewed as a SEPARATE object, then why do you care if one is using a zip file, or an accDB file? This is a “logical” view vs a physical view issue.
The simple matter is EACH OBJECT IN ACCESS CAN BE EXPORTED AS A TEXT OBJECT. Thus Access has supported source control integrate using this ability with the standard Microsoft SCC interface since Access 97 (that is 17+ years!!).
When you use SCC such as Visual Source safe or Team Foundation server then the BUILT IN UI in Access supports display the objects status in question. You have resolution down to the form, report, sql query and code module level. So multiple developers can all work on the application at the same time. They only need check out the forms, reports quires etc. they are working on. Each developer thus has their own local build.
If using Visual Source Safe, then you see this in the ribbon:
If you using team foundation server, then you see this:
And for objects checked out, you see this:
And when you open, or even right click on an object, you see these additional options:
Of course given that “few” use this feature or even know what it is (and the posts on SO confirm this lack of knowledge), then it is LITTLE surprise that the feature was dropped in Access 2013 after all these years!. However some 3rd party add-ins claim to restore this ability. So the ability to export objects in 2013 as individual text files STILL remains in place.