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Reporting Frameworks

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  • M moon_stick

    I've been tasked with researching some alternatives to SQL Server Reporting Services and was wondering what experiences and recommendations anyone out there has? I've also seen a couple of add-ons for reporting services, some of which look quite promising - has anyone got any experience of these? PS Ideally not Crystal Reports - I had to use this in an old job and *hated* it!! Cheers

    It definitely isn't definatley

    B Offline
    B Offline
    Bassam Abdul Baki
    wrote on last edited by
    #9

    I've used SQL Server Reporting Services (and almost got fired for it) and found it easy and quite adequate. What exactly are you trying to do that you can't use it? Also, have you looked at Microsoft's recently released free charting tools?


    Web - Blog - RSS - Math - BM

    K W 2 Replies Last reply
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    • M moon_stick

      I've been tasked with researching some alternatives to SQL Server Reporting Services and was wondering what experiences and recommendations anyone out there has? I've also seen a couple of add-ons for reporting services, some of which look quite promising - has anyone got any experience of these? PS Ideally not Crystal Reports - I had to use this in an old job and *hated* it!! Cheers

      It definitely isn't definatley

      W Offline
      W Offline
      wolfbinary
      wrote on last edited by
      #10

      There's active reports. What about reporting services don't they like?

      S 1 Reply Last reply
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      • M moon_stick

        I've been tasked with researching some alternatives to SQL Server Reporting Services and was wondering what experiences and recommendations anyone out there has? I've also seen a couple of add-ons for reporting services, some of which look quite promising - has anyone got any experience of these? PS Ideally not Crystal Reports - I had to use this in an old job and *hated* it!! Cheers

        It definitely isn't definatley

        H Offline
        H Offline
        hairy_hats
        wrote on last edited by
        #11

        moon_stick wrote:

        I've been tasked with

        Aaaargh! :mad: Noooooo!

        M 1 Reply Last reply
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        • H hairy_hats

          moon_stick wrote:

          I've been tasked with

          Aaaargh! :mad: Noooooo!

          M Offline
          M Offline
          moon_stick
          wrote on last edited by
          #12

          Steve_Harris wrote:

          I've been tasked with Aaaargh! Mad Noooooo!

          Task is a verb is it not? Past present tense? Am I missing something!? ;)

          It definitely isn't definatley

          H D 2 Replies Last reply
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          • M moon_stick

            I've been tasked with researching some alternatives to SQL Server Reporting Services and was wondering what experiences and recommendations anyone out there has? I've also seen a couple of add-ons for reporting services, some of which look quite promising - has anyone got any experience of these? PS Ideally not Crystal Reports - I had to use this in an old job and *hated* it!! Cheers

            It definitely isn't definatley

            L Offline
            L Offline
            Lost User
            wrote on last edited by
            #13

            DevExpress' XtraReports[^] works for me. Cheers, Drew.

            D A J 3 Replies Last reply
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            • M moon_stick

              Steve_Harris wrote:

              I've been tasked with Aaaargh! Mad Noooooo!

              Task is a verb is it not? Past present tense? Am I missing something!? ;)

              It definitely isn't definatley

              H Offline
              H Offline
              hairy_hats
              wrote on last edited by
              #14

              moon_stick wrote:

              Task is a verb is it not?

              No it isn't! Task is a noun not a verb. :D What's wrong with "I was given the job of ....."

              M J 2 Replies Last reply
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              • H hairy_hats

                moon_stick wrote:

                Task is a verb is it not?

                No it isn't! Task is a noun not a verb. :D What's wrong with "I was given the job of ....."

                M Offline
                M Offline
                moon_stick
                wrote on last edited by
                #15

                Hmmm, OED appears to contradict... task • noun a piece of work to be done. • verb 1 (task with) assign (a task) to. 2 make great demands on. — PHRASES take to task reprimand or criticize. — ORIGIN Old French tasche, from Latin taxare ‘censure, charge’.

                It definitely isn't definatley

                H 1 Reply Last reply
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                • M moon_stick

                  Steve_Harris wrote:

                  I've been tasked with Aaaargh! Mad Noooooo!

                  Task is a verb is it not? Past present tense? Am I missing something!? ;)

                  It definitely isn't definatley

                  D Offline
                  D Offline
                  Dan Neely
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #16

                  http://bp2.blogger.com/_I0JyZiMKuh0/R0SsGMbc7qI/AAAAAAAAAEM/wadQnwbHbJ4/s1600-h/verbing-sm-01.jpg[^]

                  Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots. -- Robert Royall

                  1 Reply Last reply
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                  • M moon_stick

                    I've been tasked with researching some alternatives to SQL Server Reporting Services and was wondering what experiences and recommendations anyone out there has? I've also seen a couple of add-ons for reporting services, some of which look quite promising - has anyone got any experience of these? PS Ideally not Crystal Reports - I had to use this in an old job and *hated* it!! Cheers

                    It definitely isn't definatley

                    J Offline
                    J Offline
                    Jerry Hammond
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #17

                    moon_stick wrote:

                    I've been tasked with researching some alternatives to SQL Server Reporting Services...

                    My condolences as you have been sent on a fool's errand. ;P Btw, have you looked into Cognos?

                    The world is a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed. —Sean O’Casey, Playwright

                    1 Reply Last reply
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                    • H hairy_hats

                      moon_stick wrote:

                      Task is a verb is it not?

                      No it isn't! Task is a noun not a verb. :D What's wrong with "I was given the job of ....."

                      J Offline
                      J Offline
                      Jerry Hammond
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #18

                      'Tasking' someone or being 'tasked' is military and project management speak. Gee, have you not dialed in on these new old terms. You're wasting our cycles.

                      The world is a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed. —Sean O’Casey, Playwright

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                      • M moon_stick

                        Hmmm, OED appears to contradict... task • noun a piece of work to be done. • verb 1 (task with) assign (a task) to. 2 make great demands on. — PHRASES take to task reprimand or criticize. — ORIGIN Old French tasche, from Latin taxare ‘censure, charge’.

                        It definitely isn't definatley

                        H Offline
                        H Offline
                        hairy_hats
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #19

                        Verbing of nouns is a vile creeping Americanization and should be stamped out lest the evil persist. Plus "tasked with" sounds horrible... X|

                        L 1 Reply Last reply
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                        • H hairy_hats

                          Verbing of nouns is a vile creeping Americanization and should be stamped out lest the evil persist. Plus "tasked with" sounds horrible... X|

                          L Offline
                          L Offline
                          leppie
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #20

                          Stop posting useless posts ;P

                          xacc.ide - now with TabsToSpaces support
                          IronScheme - 1.0 beta 1 - out now!
                          ((lambda (x) `((lambda (x) ,x) ',x)) '`((lambda (x) ,x) ',x))

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                          • M moon_stick

                            I've been tasked with researching some alternatives to SQL Server Reporting Services and was wondering what experiences and recommendations anyone out there has? I've also seen a couple of add-ons for reporting services, some of which look quite promising - has anyone got any experience of these? PS Ideally not Crystal Reports - I had to use this in an old job and *hated* it!! Cheers

                            It definitely isn't definatley

                            M Offline
                            M Offline
                            Member 96
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #21

                            About 4 years ago we had to choose a new reporting engine to get away from the horrifying abomination that was Crystal Reports and the even more horrifying company and their insane policies that published CR at the time. We tried ActiveReports and settled on it, then halfway through production realized how primitive and limited it was and by good fortune stumbled across DevExpress XtraReports which we've used since then. However, time marches on and now I've noticed that Telerik has what appears to be a pretty good reporting component and I've not looked at ActiveReports since so perhaps they've matured the product greatly. The thing I like about XtraReports is it has a great end user report designer which is royalty free and very easy to wire up if you want to give end users the ability to create or modify reports. Also it supports C# behind the report right in the end user designer so you can come up with some pretty sophisticated stuff. If I were starting over again I'd have a look at those three and evaluate them all.


                            "It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson

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                            • M moon_stick

                              I've been tasked with researching some alternatives to SQL Server Reporting Services and was wondering what experiences and recommendations anyone out there has? I've also seen a couple of add-ons for reporting services, some of which look quite promising - has anyone got any experience of these? PS Ideally not Crystal Reports - I had to use this in an old job and *hated* it!! Cheers

                              It definitely isn't definatley

                              G Offline
                              G Offline
                              GuyThiebaut
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #22

                              Xcelsius, Access, even Excel but remember this - never stray to the dark side (i.e. avoid Crystal).

                              Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.(Winston Churchill)
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                              • N NormDroid

                                After a brief experience with Crystal I decide wrote my own engine, it can product stunning reports, which hardly any effort, but using c# as the driving language. I aggree these tools are aimed for the users, and trying to simplfy creating reports actually complicates the UI, it seems no software house can solve this problem.

                                Software Kinetics - Moving software

                                F Offline
                                F Offline
                                FyreWyrm
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #23

                                Any chance there's an article? I would definitely be interested in reading it.

                                Don't blame me. I voted for Chuck Norris.

                                N 1 Reply Last reply
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                                • M moon_stick

                                  I've been tasked with researching some alternatives to SQL Server Reporting Services and was wondering what experiences and recommendations anyone out there has? I've also seen a couple of add-ons for reporting services, some of which look quite promising - has anyone got any experience of these? PS Ideally not Crystal Reports - I had to use this in an old job and *hated* it!! Cheers

                                  It definitely isn't definatley

                                  F Offline
                                  F Offline
                                  FyreWyrm
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #24

                                  I feel your pain. I'm currently in the middle of writing a printing "framework" for on of our internal applications. It's turning out to be a real PITA considering how flexible it has to be and how terrible a programmer I am.

                                  Don't blame me. I voted for Chuck Norris.

                                  1 Reply Last reply
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                                  • M moon_stick

                                    I've been tasked with researching some alternatives to SQL Server Reporting Services and was wondering what experiences and recommendations anyone out there has? I've also seen a couple of add-ons for reporting services, some of which look quite promising - has anyone got any experience of these? PS Ideally not Crystal Reports - I had to use this in an old job and *hated* it!! Cheers

                                    It definitely isn't definatley

                                    C Offline
                                    C Offline
                                    christhecoder
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #25

                                    Why is it that every man and his dog feels it's necessary to write their own report writer? Along with code generators it seems to be a favourite project of software developers, but rarely comes up with anything more than an expensive experiment - satisfying the programmer who writes it but not the customer who's paying for it. Report writers are just another meta-problem like code generators and ORM frameworks - fun for the developer but don't produce bang for buck for the client. Clients aren't paying us as developers to solve the problems we find interesting, but paying us to solve their particular business problem. [Sorry, just a rant about the million or so custom reporting engines out there] In my experience users always want to be able to customise their reports - and most reporting frameworks don't allow this or charge exorbitant license fees (where the user then needs training to use the tool). More often than not the users come back to us as developers to just produce the report for them. I don't think there is a perfect reporting framework out there for any one particular project, and it really comes down to the particular requirements of the project as to what you should use. Can you fill us in on your particular requirements? I've used Crystal Reports before, and for the most popular reporting tool out there I'm yet to find someone who's used it that actually likes it or swears by it. Personally I've encountered so many issues just deploying Crystal Reports in the times I've used it (spending much time in their kb for workarounds to their bugs) that I couldn't recommend it. I haven't used the full SQL Server Reporting Services but have used the local report engine (RDLC), which for all intents and purposes is the same thing. But you are likely to hit problems once you get beyond anything but basic reports in my experience. There are a number of others out there that I haven't used but look OK (Telerik, XtraReports, etc). Ultimately the only solution I've ever found to be popular with users is to generate reports as Word or Excel documents (either through automation, a VSTO addin, or populate it on a server using the Office Open XML or WordML formats). Users can then customise them to their needs, and if you have a template system (easy to do) they can create their own. Especially easy with Office 2007 with the Office Open XML standards (though I've also done it with WordML for Office 2003 compatibility). The advantages are that almost every user will have Office on their desktop,

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                                    • C ChandraRam

                                      Hey Rajesh Aren't you in Mumbai? Hope you are doing OK? Chandra

                                      R Offline
                                      R Offline
                                      Rajesh R Subramanian
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #26

                                      Hi Chandra, Thank you very much for the love. I actually split time between Mumbai and Bangalore. At the time of attack, I was fortunately at Bangalore (if I were at Mumbai, I would have been definitely at the CST station at the time of attack). I'm done mourning at the death of an ex-colleague (he has two wonderful daughters aged at 3 and 7) and his wife is visually impaired. He was a very nice and kind man. It was disheartening to see how he was shot like a dog on the road. I felt like my own home was being attacked, as I've spent far too much time at Mumbai and it's my favorite place in this country. God bless us and bring peace!

                                      It is a crappy thing, but it's life -^ Carlo Pallini

                                      C 1 Reply Last reply
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                                      • R Rajesh R Subramanian

                                        Hi Chandra, Thank you very much for the love. I actually split time between Mumbai and Bangalore. At the time of attack, I was fortunately at Bangalore (if I were at Mumbai, I would have been definitely at the CST station at the time of attack). I'm done mourning at the death of an ex-colleague (he has two wonderful daughters aged at 3 and 7) and his wife is visually impaired. He was a very nice and kind man. It was disheartening to see how he was shot like a dog on the road. I felt like my own home was being attacked, as I've spent far too much time at Mumbai and it's my favorite place in this country. God bless us and bring peace!

                                        It is a crappy thing, but it's life -^ Carlo Pallini

                                        C Offline
                                        C Offline
                                        ChandraRam
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #27

                                        That's really sad about your friend... how can one explain what happened to such small kids?

                                        Rajesh R Subramanian wrote:

                                        God bless us and bring peace!

                                        Call me a cynic, but I don't think the peace part is going to happen anytime soon :( Good to know you are OK, though... stay safe.

                                        1 Reply Last reply
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                                        • M moon_stick

                                          I've been tasked with researching some alternatives to SQL Server Reporting Services and was wondering what experiences and recommendations anyone out there has? I've also seen a couple of add-ons for reporting services, some of which look quite promising - has anyone got any experience of these? PS Ideally not Crystal Reports - I had to use this in an old job and *hated* it!! Cheers

                                          It definitely isn't definatley

                                          M Offline
                                          M Offline
                                          Martin Hart Turner
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #28

                                          I have used Crystal Reports when I was programming with C++, and hated it. When we moved to C# I tried several alternatives: 1) Crystal Reports (again) - 1 out of 10 2) SQL Server Reporting Services - 5 out of 10 3) XtraReports - 7 out of 10 4) StimulReports - 9 out of 10 I have found StimulSoft's product to be robust, fast and easy to use. They also have a web designer if you need that. HTH

                                          --- Regards, Martin.

                                          C 1 Reply Last reply
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