Best practice and/or ideas on how to do backend reporting

[szlamany]

I've got a web app - all ajax - maintenance with slickgrids and now I'm adding reporting.

The reports are sprocs that I "find" the parameters of - using an ajax call - and load these into a slickgrid. User fills in the column in that slickgrid basically putting in the selections for each parameter.

I've used this concept in VB6 for a decade - the image attached below shows the old VB6 app - and what I've got so far for the jQuery slickgrid below that...

At any rate - when the user clicks the PRINTER icon in the jQuery page it will ajax submit a request to a web service that will run the old VB6 app with a .BAT file (I already support this in the old VB6 app so my clients can automate nightly reports and what not).

The .BAT file on the server will produce output to a PDF print driver that we have installed...

So - my questions...

I guess I will respond to the initial AJAX request to start the report - which is starting the .bat file running - with some kind of SUCCESS message?

I guess I need to "identify" the "report submit session" somehow from the server - maybe a GUID?

How do I tell the web client when the report is done? Some reports run fast (moments) - but some can take 5 or 10 minutes.

Do I keep submitting AJAX requests for "status" updates? Use a javascript timer to do this?

I'm looking for any ideas or methods you all have used in this area.

Thanks a lot - in advance!!

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