Recommendations for reporting solution -- shared hosting friendly
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fyireporting.com :cool:
"mostly watching the human race is like watching dogs watch tv ... they see the pictures move but the meaning escapes them"
Doesn't appear to support stored procedures (Sql Server)?
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
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Hey, guys. I'm running web projects in both VS 2005 and 2008. For my reporting needs, the built in Crystal Reports gets the job done nicely - until it's time to deploy. All of my projects run in a shared hosting environment, which means that I don't have access to the server to run an install program (or any other .exe), and they wouldn't let me if I did. That's the nature of shared hosting. If you've tried to deploy Crystal in this type environment, you'll understand why I'm looking for a different product. Fortunately, I'm not yet heavily invested in reports written in Crystal, so I'm looking for an alternative solution that's a) wysiwyg report development ala Crystal and b) simple to deploy in a shared hosting environment, i.e. just copy files to the bin folder and be done with it. Anyone have suggestions of products that meet these needs? I don't mind spending a hundred bucks or two, but much more than that would be beyond my budget.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
I am using MS ReportViewer 9.0 for that. It's just a matter of copying something like 3 or DLLs (around 5 MB) and it works (I think -- I am not 100% sure about web but I have done it personally with WinForms; I'll have to ask my coworkers about web).
Luis Alonso Ramos Intelectix Chihuahua, Mexico My Blog!
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Doesn't appear to support stored procedures (Sql Server)?
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
ummmmm RDL report files have a "query" inside them that can easily exec a stored proc ... what else would you need?
"mostly watching the human race is like watching dogs watch tv ... they see the pictures move but the meaning escapes them"
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Have you tried installing it in a shared hosting environment where all you're able to do is copy files?
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
Yes, but there's the rub. Many of its designers etc. require it installed in the GAC, so you need to include the following in your deployment procedure: 1. Change all the strong names in 'Register' page directives. Quite easy. just lop off everything but the assembly name, and search and replace on all aspx pages. 2. Copy the required assemblies from the DevEx installation directory to your bin folder. 3. Remove all 'Compile' entries in web.config for the above assemblies. 4. Deploy. It's really about ten minute's work, regardless of your project size.
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I am using MS ReportViewer 9.0 for that. It's just a matter of copying something like 3 or DLLs (around 5 MB) and it works (I think -- I am not 100% sure about web but I have done it personally with WinForms; I'll have to ask my coworkers about web).
Luis Alonso Ramos Intelectix Chihuahua, Mexico My Blog!
when i looked at the ms report viewer thingy it appeared that the reports have to be compiled into the app which made it less than useful for me ... or is that not the case?
"mostly watching the human race is like watching dogs watch tv ... they see the pictures move but the meaning escapes them"
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fyireporting.com :cool:
"mostly watching the human race is like watching dogs watch tv ... they see the pictures move but the meaning escapes them"
We are stuck with fyi on our core application, and am sorry we have invested so deeply in it. Its just not on the same level as the other products mentioned in this thread.
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Hmmm, looks interesting, and of course Free is always good. :) I see that there's an msi file to install it locally. To deploy to a shared hosting environment, is it as simple as copying RdlViewer.dll and RdlEngine.dll to the bin directory and uploading to the web site, or is there more to it than that?
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
That's it.
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when i looked at the ms report viewer thingy it appeared that the reports have to be compiled into the app which made it less than useful for me ... or is that not the case?
"mostly watching the human race is like watching dogs watch tv ... they see the pictures move but the meaning escapes them"
You can either include them as embedded resources or specify an external
.rdlcfile.Luis Alonso Ramos Intelectix Chihuahua, Mexico My Blog!
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fyireporting.com :cool:
"mostly watching the human race is like watching dogs watch tv ... they see the pictures move but the meaning escapes them"
I was looking at fyiReporting and it looks promising. One thing I don't like too much about ReportViewer is that for web it requires installing an ActiveX control, and that might be overkill for simple reports. This one can generate HTML output (I saw the demos for simple reports, but I'd need to try it with more complicated ones.)
Luis Alonso Ramos Intelectix Chihuahua, Mexico My Blog!
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Hey, guys. I'm running web projects in both VS 2005 and 2008. For my reporting needs, the built in Crystal Reports gets the job done nicely - until it's time to deploy. All of my projects run in a shared hosting environment, which means that I don't have access to the server to run an install program (or any other .exe), and they wouldn't let me if I did. That's the nature of shared hosting. If you've tried to deploy Crystal in this type environment, you'll understand why I'm looking for a different product. Fortunately, I'm not yet heavily invested in reports written in Crystal, so I'm looking for an alternative solution that's a) wysiwyg report development ala Crystal and b) simple to deploy in a shared hosting environment, i.e. just copy files to the bin folder and be done with it. Anyone have suggestions of products that meet these needs? I don't mind spending a hundred bucks or two, but much more than that would be beyond my budget.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
Have you tried Access, SQL Reporting Services or EXCEL for reporting? Access is pretty much WISIWYG and the reports are pretty standard. I have implemented spreadsheets and charts programmatically with EXCEL. I haven't used SQL Reporting Services yet but I have heard from friends that it is a workable solution.
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
Think inside the box! ProActive Secure Systems
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes -
Hey, guys. I'm running web projects in both VS 2005 and 2008. For my reporting needs, the built in Crystal Reports gets the job done nicely - until it's time to deploy. All of my projects run in a shared hosting environment, which means that I don't have access to the server to run an install program (or any other .exe), and they wouldn't let me if I did. That's the nature of shared hosting. If you've tried to deploy Crystal in this type environment, you'll understand why I'm looking for a different product. Fortunately, I'm not yet heavily invested in reports written in Crystal, so I'm looking for an alternative solution that's a) wysiwyg report development ala Crystal and b) simple to deploy in a shared hosting environment, i.e. just copy files to the bin folder and be done with it. Anyone have suggestions of products that meet these needs? I don't mind spending a hundred bucks or two, but much more than that would be beyond my budget.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
You can't do copy-deploy to the bin directory of your web apps?
Todd Smith
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Grooviness. Thanks!
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
Christopher Duncan wrote:
Grooviness
Grooviness Reporting Patterns
by Christopher Duncan
Teaches Reporting design patterns such as:
- The Cool Beans Report Pattern
- The Hipster 3-D Charting Pattern
- And the 10 MacDaddy'O Reporting Design Principles
Be a cool cat and get your copy today!
:rolleyes:
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
Grooviness
Grooviness Reporting Patterns
by Christopher Duncan
Teaches Reporting design patterns such as:
- The Cool Beans Report Pattern
- The Hipster 3-D Charting Pattern
- And the 10 MacDaddy'O Reporting Design Principles
Be a cool cat and get your copy today!
:rolleyes:
Outta site. :-D
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
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You can't do copy-deploy to the bin directory of your web apps?
Todd Smith
Nope. Hence the quest.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
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The shared hosting deployment is pretty much the heart of the matter and could be a show stopper if not supported. Maybe I should try giving them a call on Monday.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
Their support is pretty good so giving them a call will give you an answer pretty quick. I've not used XtraReports in a web environment either, but there's no deployment tool that I can find for it (I subscribe to their Universal package - i.e. everything with source), so I'd guess it's the same as all their other web stuff (which I do use) - just copy the dll's to the bin folder. Here's[^] a recent similar topic in their community forums that you'll find interesting. Downloading and trying their trial package would tell you whether or not you'll run into this issue. Cheers, Drew.
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Hmmm, looks interesting, and of course Free is always good. :) I see that there's an msi file to install it locally. To deploy to a shared hosting environment, is it as simple as copying RdlViewer.dll and RdlEngine.dll to the bin directory and uploading to the web site, or is there more to it than that?
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
For deploying you will need to install the MS report viewer. Heres a link: http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/e/d/6eda0f6a-4fb3-4880-bd96-fe71d7c12aa0/ReportViewer.exe[^] I have included a check within my installer to determine if its already installed. If not, it downloads and installs it.
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Well, given the price of other solutions, $350 without source / $500 with isn't out of line, though more than I was hoping to spend. Actually, since I'd been under the assumption that I could use the tools that ship with my compiler (i.e. Crystal), I'm irritated about having to spend any money at all, but that's a different conversation. Have you deployed XtraReports to shared hosting servers where you didn't have the ability to run an install program? In other words, do they support a simple file copy installation via ftp?
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
Also keep in mind that Crystal only appears to be free. If you need non-trivil runtime report modifications you will need to pay royalty (per installation) for using some specific Crystal API. Also if you try to localize your reports you may need to buy Crystal Language Pack (~US$800 a few years ago). And I am not even talking about quality of the product....:mad: I worked with XtraReports, had good impression. It is not perfect but a solid product, which (in contrary to Crystal) is a pure managed product/application. Though some other managed alternatives might be available.
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fyireporting.com :cool:
"mostly watching the human race is like watching dogs watch tv ... they see the pictures move but the meaning escapes them"
Nice find. I use telerik reporting myself but have been looking for some rtf generation source code to fill the gaps in our own internal RTF library. :cool:
---Guy H ;-)---
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For deploying you will need to install the MS report viewer. Heres a link: http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/e/d/6eda0f6a-4fb3-4880-bd96-fe71d7c12aa0/ReportViewer.exe[^] I have included a check within my installer to determine if its already installed. If not, it downloads and installs it.
Hi, Greg. Since this is shared hosting I don't have the option of running install programs on the server. Thanks for the help just the same.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
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You can either include them as embedded resources or specify an external
.rdlcfile.Luis Alonso Ramos Intelectix Chihuahua, Mexico My Blog!
I'll see if it's available for the web. Thanks, man.
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com