Reporting capabilities in .NET and ASP.NET

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mohammad S Khan
  • Start date Start date
M

Mohammad S Khan

I am doing some research into the reporting capabilities provided by
..NET by itself and also integration with other programs such as
Crystal Reports or thrid party tools. I don't have much experience
with .NET technologies but most of the reports will be requested
through the web and produced via VB components with a SQL 2k backend.
I am looking for reports either in xls or pdf format and mostly they
will be data intensive i.e. no graphics such as bar or pie charts etc.

I am looking for a starting point and wanted some feedback from people
who have had experience in doing stuff similar to what i am looking
for.

Thanks,
Mohammad S Khan
 
Well, .Net itself doesn't come with a reporting component that you can
redistribute to third parties. What it comes with is a "introductory"
version of Crystal Reports (at least if you are using the IDE to develop
your applications with) that you must get a license for before you can
distribute any report to third parties.

That said however, SQL 2k does have a free reporting tool that you may
be able to use for what you want to do. The tool is called SQL
Reporting Services and is a free download that only requires that you
have a valid/legal license to SQL 2k to use. The reports have a
designer for VS.Net that works quite well and is as easy to use as
Crystal for creating reports. Try looking into this first before you
decide to buy. Hope this helps.

Have A Better One!

John M Deal, MCP
Necessity Software
 
I suggest you take a look at reporting services. I believe it's free if you
already have an sql server license. I use it often and it's a good product.
It's not perfect but it seemed much simpler to set up and use than crystal
reports. The report designer runs inside visual studio 2003.

I think there is a demo version somewhere on microsoft's website. It
renders a somewhat complex report of 380 pages to PDF format in under 3
minutes.

I tried the crystal reports demo but the report servers weren't fun at all
to set up...
 
I have to third the recommendation of SQL Server Reporting Services. It's
cheap, easy, and provides a variety of reporting options (PDF, Excel,
scheduled reports, emailed reports, etc.). Worth learning about even if you
don't end up using it.

If you're really just doing tabular (i.e. grid) reports, you might also be
able to find some inexpensive third-party components (or maybe free code)
that generates xls and/or pdf from datagrids or datatables. Then each new
report could be a few lines of code: call a new proc, bind the dataset to
the reporting object, & return to the user.
 
Not too long ago I was looking for a comprehensive reporting solution for our
projects. I've searched all over the web trying to find the better price and
functionality ratio till I came across Report Sharp-Shooter by 9Rays.Net.

From then on, I've been using it for quite a while and it still amazes me
with its flexibility, ease of use and the impressing features set (13 export
filters!)!
If you decide to have a look at it, please feel free to get in touch with me
as I've already got some experience with it and hopefully will be able to
answer your questions, if you have any of course.

I wish you success and lots of positive experience coping with .NET
 
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