Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services is a relatively new player in the reporting tools market, but is quickly making up for lost ground. Reporting Services is an add-on to SQL Server 2000 and features a report designer that runs within Visual Studio.NET.
| Contents |  |
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|||||
The report designer itself suffers from the same problem and it takes a bit of practice to become proficient. In addition, you won't find some of the same formatting features found in other reporting tools but this is just the first release of the product. With that said, Reporting Services supports most of the report types and formats you will want to create.
Export formats include all of the usual suspects, including HTML, MHTML, PDF, TIFF, and Excel. You can also export to HTML pages using the Office Web Components, which will allow you to leverage the features within Office applications to perform further analysis on your report data.
Report integration is another area where Reporting Services will need to raise it's game before the next release, due to ship with SQL Server 2005. The methods available to integrate reports into applications is limited and cumbersome to work with. If you do plan to use Reporting Services, it is best to just point users to a URL where they can view the report, as opposed to trying to integrate the report into your application.
But as the saying goes, you can't beat the price. Reporting Services is not free (as many people think) but the licensing is include in your SQL Server license, which can make Reporting Services an attractive alternative. With a host of new features and functionality slated in version to be released with SQL Server 2005, Reporting Services may become a giant-killer.
Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services
Vendor: Microsoft
Price: : included with SQL Server licence
Summary
Here are the results of our reporting tools testing at a glance:
Data Source Support |
Report Designer |
Report Presentation |
Output Formats |
Report Integration |
|
| ActiveReports for .NET | |||||
| Crystal Reports | |||||
| JasperReports | |||||
| JReport | |||||
| MS Reporting Services |
1
David Coleman - 15/01/05
I develop in C# using VS 2003. I use ActiveReports for all reporting services. I have developed a cl**** wrapper around ActiveReports and all reports are run as unbound with data management being performed by the cl**** wrapper, and business rules objects being handled by code behind cl****es. This model allows translations on the fly. For example, a client has a customer table with around 20 coded fields, eg CustomerTypeCode, FreightCode, AreaManagerCode etc. To write a JOIN SQL query to perform these translations creates a cumbersome and complex SQL structure which is prone to errors (ie if a particular freight code is missing the SQL JOIN returns a null data row for the combined customer data). By using unbound reports and a cl**** wrapper a simple SQL statement returns the list of customers, and for each customer row the code translations are performed and the ActiveReports fields are populated by simple code in the business objects code behind cl****. This in combination with the significant feature of ActiveReports which is that the report layouts are saved in XML format (with the extension .RPX) and can be loaded at run time and therefore loaded from web services, I believe, puts ActiveReports in a cl**** on its own. Additionally sub-reports can be also dynamically loaded at run time which permits common report components to be built and plugged together as required within an application solution. Although the customer print is a simple example this model holds true for all reports. eg Trial Balances, Delivery Tickets, Invoices, Statements, Price Lists (which, for a particular customer, includes product images and individual customer product pricing and discount structures).
The simple model for a statement run is
1. Read all customers with an outstanding balance (plus any additional matching criteria)
2. Main report. Print statement header from customer row.
3. Sub-report one. Print balances from matching debtor row.
4. Sub-report two. Print transaction detail lines from matching transactions.
5. Main report group footer. Print end of statement as required.
Note. Sub-report activation and data sub-set retrieval being directed from the business objects code behind cl****es, and managed by the developed reporting cl**** wrapper.
I believe ActiveReports provides a superior extensible model which is relatively straight forward to implement and is unavailable in any other reporting solution.
» Report offensive content
2
George Brak - 17/01/05
I have used Crystal reports 8.5, 9 and 10 (including the one shipped with .NET). I have recently been using Active Reports.
Many of my clients found Crystal reports licensing cost prohibitive, and that meant that I had to reduce functionality in other parts of the program. There was also a number of crashing issues with Crystal, especially when you are working with many complex formulas and/or groups on the same report.
You also need to learn the syntax for Crystal reports to write formulas (or use VB syntax). You can't generate Crystal reports with version 10, unless you get the advanced version - becoming very expensive (you could with 8.5).
What great with Active reports is that it's written in VB.NET or C#, ie whatever language your developers use. Debugging become easy. As a brilliant bonus is the fantastic support you get! From the newbie questions to more complicated queries, you post them on the forum and get a prompt reply!! This is all for free. Support like this? Why would you want to go anywhere else...?
» Report offensive content
3
sriprada - 16/12/05
Hi,
I have created reports using Active Reportts 2.0 in ASP.NET.
i have a requirement that those reports should come in single web page.
i got it.But the requirement is to export the whole page(which contains charts also)means
all the reports, to the same word file without overwriting.
Can u please help me, it's very urgent
» Report offensive content
4
Naveen Rai - 18/07/06
how do I show dynamic data in a sub report by using crystal reports?
» Report offensive content
5
Srikanta Khillar - 20/07/06
I came to know that some crystal reports jar files can be used to generate the charts in the HTML pages. If we use these jar files, we won't need to create applets of our own and the development will be much easier.What are the jar files necessary over here? How do you implement this? Some code would be helpful for me.
Thanks
Regards,
Srikanta
» Report offensive content
6
Mrudula - 21/08/06
Can we get licensing for active reports free of cost???
» Report offensive content
7
mrudula - 21/08/06
Is it possible to create controls at runtime in crystal reports??? My requirement is to create the complete report in the code behind.Any idea???
Thanks
» Report offensive content
8
Chandrashekhar R V - 04/10/06
Is it possible to use Crystal reports Version 10 in Visual basic. I am asking this question, because I heard that Crystal reports version 10 does not support visual basic and that it supports only Dot Net. Please clarify.
» Report offensive content
9
praveen - 24/10/06
i want to display table in my jreport..how can i do that
» Report offensive content
10
Nidhi - 24/01/07
I am displaying data in crystal report through XML Schema also, I want to display graph using that XML but graph is showing wrong data
» Report offensive content
11
Puneet Bhatiau - 10/07/07
I am using Crystal Reports 10. In that I am fetching text data from database. But the formating in Crystal Report different from actual data.(i.e. the space between two value in one row in database is five but crystal reports only contains two or three space)
» Report offensive content
12
raj gautam - 30/11/07
i downloaded the crystal report 10 software but doesnot have activation code if anybudy have the activation code pls mail me...
» Report offensive content
13
uttam - 24/12/07
I want do display header in the report but i want to configure it.if i required i can able to change . using c#
» Report offensive content