We currently use Report Builder with ColdFusion. This Report Builder hasn't seen any Adobe development in around 5 years and doesn't look like it will see any soon.
I need a scalable reporting solution that will work in the cloud without huge licencing implications. I've looked at Crystal (which I don't understand the pricing or what I need) and JasperReports with iReport, and I guess that Microsoft SQL Reporting is an option also.
I'd like to get some recommendations on what people are using and how you have integrated that into ColdFusion. I appreciate that it may not be as seamless as Report Builder.
We are using Windows 2008 R2 with SQL Server 2008 in a Cloud infrastructure.
What ever solution we come up with, the resulting output of the reports need to be PDF.
I've used Crystal, SQL Report Builder and ColdFusion Report Builder.
Crystal and SQL Report Builder are much better than ColdFusion Report Builder. Like you said CF is not going anywhere and is really buggy to me.
Crystal is great but it becomes really expensive when you want to publish reports to the web. The standard product requires a report viewer that is installed locally. If you need to publish to the web it is much more expensive.
SQL Report Builder is a really good option. Version 3.0 is really nice and makes it very easy to write advanced SQL queries or call SPs and publish to the web.
I am a pretty big fan of SQL Report Builder.
Hope this helps.
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Here in my job, we use Access 2000 as our only report deployment tool, and as many of you know, Access 2000 has some limitations, like not supporting OOP.
My question is:
What is the better replacement for it, Crystal Reports, Active Reports or SQL Server Reporting Services ? If you guys have any better idea, I would be happy to know it.
I have been searching and finally found the answer. First of all there are a lot of tools capable of this task, examples: Crystal Reports with RAS(Report application server, a crystal reports solution for building dynamic reports) API for .NET; You can do with xml and SSRS, first you generate a xml file with the information and then use the rdlc to display it. You can use Xtrareports a devexpress team solution. You with c# code create and manage your reports. This is it.
We are planning to use SQL Reports in our company and we are currently evaluating the ways to expose the reports to end users. Should we use a reporting web service and then render the reports through a .NET Application? Should we use a report viewer or should we expose the SQL GUI to the users? What are the pros and cons of these over each other? Could anyone please help? I couldn't find any information anywhere for this.
The simplest is to use the Report Manager website that is enabled by default with an SSRS installation it's very quick and easy to get running and the security/ snapshot(cache) / subscription (email etc) options are easy to configure on a per site /per folder /per report basis. It's drawbacks are:
It's ugly - although if you are good with CSS it is possible to mess
with it, but I wouldn't. Newer versions e.g. 2008R2 and 2012 are less ugly
It has an ugly URL - although you could use a DNS alias to get
around that
It doesn't let you control how parameter drop-downs and other
objects appear on the page, but that's minor
I usually use Sharepoint (MOSS not WSS) (if the company has that) with the report viewer web-part. It doesn't require any special Sharepoint SSRS integrated mode - you can read about that but it's that's not a path I recommend taking.
The reports then appear to be embedded within the company's existing intranet site which looks professional IMO. Powerview for sharepoint is also a good option (or performance point in older versions of Sharepoint)
I would definitely NOT go down the road of webservice, that would entail a huge amount of unecessary programming. If you have a lot of spare .NET developers around I still wouldn't do that.
Rather to use the report viewer object in Visual Studio to display a report in an .NET web application. Designing reports using the BIDS (2008R2 and earlier) or SSDT (2012) is much easier than programming, particularly if you've used other reporting tools such as crystal reports or even Access. Using that report viewer object is a much better option than rolling your own.
I've written my response in order of easiness and work required. Hope that is helpful.
Were still using Reporting Services for SQL2008 (not SP2). I recently started using report builder 2.0, but it looks like report builder isn't able to modify data models - and VS2010 lacks business intelligence features. My question is: Have data models been depreciated? If not, what is the current tool for managing them? I have new reports to write so I'm trying to think ahead. Can datasets be used, and access controled, for ad-hoc reporting?
There isn't a way to modify the report models using vs2010 you would still have to have vs2008 BIDS installed to be able to modify these. It looks like reports models may be depreciated from SQL 2012 (http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/sqlreportingservices/thread/0d0650d1-6d40-4d12-a471-54fb29b3356d).
If you starting a new project then personally I would look at using shared data sets based on views or stored procedures as these will be a lot easier to maintain and use. You can then use the permissions on these to control who has access to what.
I am building an application and the client is asking for reports. Normally we would create the reports for them using reporting services. We are wanting to give the client report builder and let them build there own reports. Some of these reports can be complex and I am not 100% sure how far report builder will take us.
Before we decide if it’s worth giving the client report builder. What are the limitations of report builder? What type of report is it no good for?
I found it is fine for creating and managing reports to be placed on the report server. You obviously cannot use it for .rdlc reports. For most standard users and power users it will be just fine and do what they need, and will not require the entire VS IDE shell that comes with SQL Server (BIDS).
Just remember, if the client is asking to manage their own reports, it's kind of an "all or nothing" situation. You cannot limit their access to the data. Make sure they have a read only reporting account set up on the server. Any reports you create for them originally are backed up.
Train up time may vary depending on the technical level of the end-user expected to use the tool.
I have an Access db file, and I need to slice and dice the data for various reports that my boss wants.
Is Microsoft Reporting Services a tool that is appropriate for this kind of activity?
If so, would I import the Access data in SQL Server, then the reporting services is a tool that works on SQL Server, allowing the report builder to build custom reports?
SSRS is great for what your trying to do if you wish to stick with Micrsoft tech.
SQL Server Express Adv edition comes with report server. There are plenty of guides out there for install / set up but once going you can use a little application called Report Builder that lets you design the layout of the reports themselves.
Reporting server esentially generates reports from templates you produce in report builder app.
The free edition of report server that comees with SQL Express Adv can export reports into three types, word files, excell or PDFs and does a very good job at it. It also exposes a webservice with a whole myrad of web methods thats very very usefull. ASP.Net also has a control which you can drop into your apps which will render a report.
So in short, yes :)
Hope this helps.