I'm trying to figure out if this tool will be good enough for my non-technical users to build reports themselves. I know they will need to have a lot of business/domain knowledge about the data model I present them. But how about the UI itself?
Has anyone used the SSRS Report Builder in this way? What is your experience with it?
Building and (mostly) maintaining the data model seems like it will take a good deal of development effort. Any tips with this? Know any good places to look for reference?
thanks.
It really depends on the level of understanding of the users. As you said, the users need to understand the layout of the data. They also need to understand basic query concepts (filtering, grouping, sorting etc.). Once they have that, it is easy to create reports with Report Builder. It is literally drag and drop, although for more complex queries I recommend to users that we build the reports for them. I suggest having a play with it yourself. My main reason for not letting users loose with Report Builder is that (AFAIK) there is no way to change the default report template (reports need to fit in with corporate fonts, colours etc.).
As far as the data model, it is pretty simple to set up and, provided your database schema doesn't change, requires no maintenance. Once the tables, joins etc are defined, that's it. Books Online have some good walkthroughs here.
Related
I want to design a report like this:
I have all the columns in power bi as table. I dont know how I can get this design. Can anyone please suggest this.
Well, if you want to design something exactly as shown in the picture then, I'm afraid that it's not possible, and even if you perform some turns and twists then, the visual might not respect the filters.
I would suggest designing such kinds of tables, either prefer excel or, Power BI Report Server.
But, if the design is not primary concern then, you can easily make tables with matrix visual (Just need to play more on the formatting side).
I want to develop a web site that generate a report which query data in MySQL and let users can filter a data by choose from a dropdown list at the header of table column of report.
Would you please suggest any platform or engine that can do those? I found some such as BIRT and JasperReport but they don't seem like I need.
It seems that you've already tried the most popular open source reporting engines (except Pentaho), so that mostly leaves you with the comercial ones; i recommend you to try several (most offer trials) and see if you can find one that fit your needs, and you can start with DBxtra, which is pretty easy to use as it let you create a report with pure drag and drop, from query to design, and can handle filters and parameters the way you want to.
P.S.: I'm a DBxtra evangelist.
I am working on project in economy where I need to manage large data in linked tables, with many foreign keys.
I have a few years of experience as Oracle DBA so I can manage all that without problem,
But I need to be able to share the data with others that have no knowledge in databasing,
There for I need to get them some graphic way to show the data.
Toad does all what I need and much more, but the program is too complicated for my needs.
Instead of wasting time on writing a program in C# that manages the data, I am looking for a good program that:
Shows Main table/view data with option to filter/group/order with drop-box options
Selects a row and shows data in linked tables by the selected row's data
Makes report/data pages of my selected rows that I can adjust and print. (I know it's a bigger request)
In Addition, what is the most fit and easy DB for it? I worked only with Oracle but it's sure too much for that, so MySql? Access (I tried first to do all that in Access program but It's just too hard to adjust forms and so, and in the end you cannot make a publish version.
And the tables will be with start_date and finish_date that follow each other for same ID,
But I don't think it will be a problem that I can maximum make view that shows only the last one. (BTW, what is the name of such table, I never knew that)
Take a look at Tableau http://www.tableausoftware.com
It will let users view the data many different ways, makes great visualizations and works with most databases. It's a read-only tool, so it's perfect for safe reporting, but you'll need to couple it with something else if you want your users to make changes to the data.
You can define a connection in Tableau that sets up the relationships for users that don't understand foreign keys and the like. Or make views that hide those details, of course, regardless of the tool you choose.
I am trying to build a user interface which will allow users to choose what kind of information they want, then based on these selected conditions, I need to query an access database and retrieve the corresponding data for future calculation. During calculation, there are two additional tables that I will query from. Finally, I need to display the calculated results to users. Now I have some questions:
Which one will be easier if I use excel as a front-end to users and retrieve querying data from Access to excel vs. I use access forms as a front-end to users and directly work with access to query data?
Does access forms can perform functions like allow users to select options from a drop down list? and once options selected, Access will query the target info?
Can Access perform intermediate calculation for large amount records? Will it get very slow? Compared to excel, which one is better in terms of calculation?
I never use Access before and just know a little about Excel VBA, not totally familiar with it, not to mention object models. So, in this case, which way is time-saving for me? or they are probably the same time-consuming?
Anything else that I should be aware of?
Thanks so much!
Bing
Definitely Access - it is specifically made for working with, querying, and reporting on data. The language of VBA that you have experience with in Excel is the exact same language used for coding in MS Access!
Access, no question!
Absolutely. Of course it doesn't magically know this as your requirement. You have to drop the combo box on the form yourself, and then in the OnChange event of the combo box, alter a query statement that displays results to filter based on the user's selection.
Sure. Make a temp table (a table that is only used for the calculation), populate the records with INSERT statements, apply intermediate calculations with UPDATE statements, and display the results. Access is built for this kind of thing and will most likely be faster than Excel.
Access uses VBA as well. There may be a larger learning curve to switch, but if you are familiar with the user interface objects in Excel such as Button, Combo Box, etc., they will be very similar and yet more intuitive in Access (Because that's what Access was made for)
Access has some quirks. Google a few tutorials and get some background on the ways Access is traditionally used for your kinds of scenarios and it will go a long way toward streamlining your development.
Start with the simplest model that will accomplish what your requirements are, and implement it. Then work through the quirks and bugs that you find with Google as your friend, and you should be able to get something solid pretty quickly! As you get into the experience, feel free to post new questions with specific problems you find along the way.
Best Regards,
I'm recently migrating to Linq2Sql and all my future projects will be using Linq2Sql. Having said that, I researched a lot on how to properly plug-in Linq2Sql in application design.
what to put at what layer ?
How do you design your repositories and business layer services ?
Should I use DTOs over Linq2Sql entities on interaction layer ?
what things should I be careful about ?
what problems did you face ?
I did not find any rock-solid material that really talked about one single thing and everyone have their own opinions. I'm looking forward to your ideas on how to integrate/use Linq2Sql in projects. My priority is maintenance[it should be maintenable and when multiple people work on same project] and scalabilty [it should have scope of evolution].
Thanks.
I have been using linq to entities for the last two and half years on production applications and I can say it has been a really nice experience... but that doesn’t means you should do everything with Linq.
I am going to try to give you some answers to your questions,
I think you should ask first what kind of application you want to create; once the scenario is clear you will have an odd idea of number of transactions or queries you are going to perform against the database (or repository).
Linq could be extremely useful to abstract data access, context and entities handling, but everything comes with at a cost. Objects will be created with a cost and you really need to think about this.
If your application has a ‘nice-not-too-heavy’ data access Linq will be the perfect tool to save time for your application.
If your application is entirely based on data extraction or processing, Linq will be great as well.
If your application is handling huge blocks of data (check your application) you will need to do something else to avoid creating a bunch of objects that might be useless.
What does that means? You need to know what a smart data access means... and that is leave SQL to work for you (in the case of SQL); if you are going to do lots of joints, cross information and stuff, create stored procedures that creates the data result for you and then get it using Linq or SqlCommand or SqlDataAdapters, etc...
What to put at what layer?
Since Linq gives you the data access abstraction you can pretty much place your code where the business logic demands it. There are tons of good practices of how to structure your code; Linq (as any other entity framework or data access libraries) will fit in the right spot.
Avoid whenever is possible direct linq expression in your controls (asp.net has lots of controls with linq data sources), instead wrapped your ‘query’ with a service class that can be instantiated by your code or controls as an object data source.
What have I found?
Pure Linq is not always possible on big applications or projects (so you will end up with many things in linq and some in previous more simple solutions to access your repositories) but will help you to save time.
Implementing stored procedures is a MUST if you want to deliver great quality applications.
Hope this comment helps.
Cheers.