What is the best report generator with VB.NET & SQL Server

[dbelley_office]

Hi,

I am new to VB.NET and don't know much yet of what tools to use for reporting.

With my VB.NET application I usually sur MS Access Database or SQL Serveur 2000 or newer.

I was wondering what is the best report generator tool or software to use?.


With Visual Basic 6.0, I think that Crystal Report was the best and most popular report generator.


What should I buy for the same task in VB.NET? I don't even know if VB.NET has its own report generator and if so, if it's worth the use.


Thanks for helping.

[Markmellow]

Well, I use Crystal Reports because it's all I've used and have found getting it to work properly you better prepare yourself for a full out battle.

Trying to get it to export into PDF was one battle, then my program ran into UNICOWS issue's for Windows 98 that I had to fight, then there was an atisomething.dll issue I had to figure out and fight, I don't know what it does trying to export to Excel but holy cow has anyone gotten it to export into Excel without having data like, every other row, the columns with no spaces, etc, it merging cells, it's a nightmare.

Hope that doesn't discourage you it's all I know and I use it because of it's versatility. Even though exporting to a PDF was one battle I had to fight, hey it can export to a PDF. Having it export to e-mail is another great feature, but that was another battle to be fought and after winning hey it exports to e-mail. Being able to export to Excel and even though there are serious formatting problems hey you can export to excel!

So, I use Crystal Reports not because it's easy but because it's versatile.

[kleinma]

crystal reports .net comes with visual studio .net

i am not sure if some packages of .net do not include it, like a school edition, or basic edition, or whatever. I have VS.NET 2003 professional.

It is probably the best reporting tool you can use, next to purchasing crystal reports full version.

I used to be a reporting analyst at a company, and we used crystal, and now that I have used both the .net version, and the full version... the only MAJOR drawback I have found to the built in .net version, is you cant run reports

well what I mean is you have to create your report, then run the VB.NET app, to view the report... in the full CR, you can run the report at design time to get data back and tweak your report.

[dbelley_office]

Thanks.

I guess Crystal Reports is the avenue I should take.

I tried to get some pricing information on the web. It's seems complex. There is version 8.5 to 11 available ..

Can you help me a bit with what version I should go with and/or refer me to a website that shows pricing for software and licensing.

I only have VB.NET 2003 here and Crystal Reports doesn't seem to be part of it.


Thanks a lot for you precious advise and opinion.

[Hueby]

Having it export to e-mail is another great feature, but that was another battle to be fought and after winning hey it exports to e-mail.

Do you have it set to automattically send the e-mail out? I get it exported a word document into outlook, but from there what can I do? If you could provide more detail on how you have yours setup please!

--------

I also use Crystal Reports and find it to work great for my needs. Once you get over the learning curve, you can do some pretty powerful reports with it.

I've used CR 8.5 and CR 10 .... and found the interface of CR 10 to be much easier to use.

[dbelley_office]

So Crystal Report 10 is a good choice?

But there is so many version and on most website I visit they don't mention the differences between each of them.

CR10 - Standard(175$)
CR10 - Developper(500$)
CR10 - Professionnal(450$)
CR10 - Advanced Developper(1600$)
and few more ... going to (1800$)

And I guess this doesn't include licenses fees.


What version is usually used? For a reasonnable VB.NET application. Nothing too simple, nothing to complex.

Thanks for helping.

[kleinma]

Thanks.

I guess Crystal Reports is the avenue I should take.

I tried to get some pricing information on the web. It's seems complex. There is version 8.5 to 11 available ..

Can you help me a bit with what version I should go with and/or refer me to a website that shows pricing for software and licensing.

I only have VB.NET 2003 here and Crystal Reports doesn't seem to be part of it.


Thanks a lot for you precious advise and opinion.

you may want to check your CDs for .net 2003 because i dont remember if it is checked by default to install when you install it... so it might be on there and you didnt even know if.. if not I think version 9 or 10 is the minimum for working with .net but I am not positive on this.. i would think their site would have some information on which one you should get if you plan on using it with .net

[dbelley_office]

What is the official website for this product? I don't even know the compagny name.

[Hueby]

http://www.businessobjects.com/default.asp

[Zakary]

And what about Active Report .NET!!

They said, that "Active report" do not make all the thing Crystal does but it work very well .
Compare to Crystal report that does so many thing but not too well ...

[kleinma]

And what about Active Report .NET!!

They said, that "Active report" do not make all the thing Crystal does but it work very well .
Compare to Crystal report that does so many thing but not too well ...

well considering that CR is free with the right visual studio product, i consider that to hold a lot of weight compared to any report utility that costs $$

[BukHix]

If you have a version of Visual Studio that doesn't include reporting like, for instance, the Standard Version you want to use the Developer's version of Crystal Reports. Otherwise you will not be able to create them from within the IDE nor will you be able to distribute them with the application (You can distribute but it has to go separately with tools from CR). However, as was mentioned above, if you have the Pro Version of Visual Studio you should already have a somewhat limited version of Crystal Reports included.

As an alternative MS now has Reporting Services that are free to anyone who owns (I think) any version of SQL server. I believe that you also need to serve the reports from a web server, which may or may not work in your situation.

[Zakary]

well considering that CR is free with the right visual studio product, i consider that to hold a lot of weight compared to any report utility that costs $$

I have heard, something different about CR ... The software are packed with VS.NET yes, but I've heard that the license to distribute it, is not packed with VB.NET ...

[kleinma]

I have heard, something different about CR ... The software are packed with VS.NET yes, but I've heard that the license to distribute it, is not packed with VB.NET ...

no it is... its just limited to the amount of calls to the report engine at a given time.. i think its 5.. so lets say you have a stand alone app that you distribute to someone.. it will work just fine.. lets say you have a webserver that servers up crystal reports and you have 6 people trying to run a report at the same time.. that is where you would need another license...

lets say you have 5 people requesting reports on a webserver, and then they get their report in the report viewer in the aspx page and they are viewing it, 5 people could then also be running reports.. so the license is to the amount of reports that can be running (populating with data) at the same time

[Markmellow]

Okay, if you're going with Crystal Reports BukHix (um.. great name) post is very, very important. Use it as a bible.

For example if you get a version below Developer Edition, it will only work on your machine, those that get your program and install it won't be able to run reports. Kinda useless IMHO.

So, use the Developer Edition as a starting point if you want people besides yourself being able to use reports & applications you create with Crystal Reports.

[dbelley_office]

Yeah !

My VB.NET app will be deployed on 10-15 PCs. So many users will need to use reporting capabilities. So CR11 - DEVELOPPER edition is the one I will go with.

I just need to see how licensing works, but I will contact a sales rep.


Thanks everyone for you comments.

[BukHix]

One more thing to keep in mind if you plan on deploying reports from a web site. If you do not control or do not have administrative access to the web server your site is hosted on, like for instance shared hosting (pretty typical) you will not be able to use Crystal Reports for reporting. In a case like that I think you are pretty much stuck with expensive third party software or you will have to roll your own.

[per-i]

Well we use Active Reports 1.0 (i am testing the 2.0 version now) for all our programs. It is from data dynamics.

we have used Crystal Reports in the past, but Active Reports works so much nicer. And i can't think up any thing that you might want to do that Crystal reports can do and Active Reports can't

Regards,

per-i

[szlamany]

Well we use Active Reports 1.0 (i am testing the 2.0 version now) for all our programs. It is from data dynamics.

we have used Crystal Reports in the past, but Active Reports works so much nicer. And i can't think up any thing that you might want to do that Crystal reports can do and Active Reports can't

Regards,

per-i

Can Crystal do quadrant type reports - like a student transcript?

Can Crystal do two column reports - show all the kids absent from school - left half of the page, get to the bottom and continue the list on the right half of the page?

Can Crystal do duplex back of a check - printing a key/legend about what was processed on the front of the check?

Can Crystal print a vertical PURCHASE ORDER number on the page, when everything else is portrait oriented?

Can Crystal change trays while printing - some pages on top tray - some on bottom tray?

Can Crystal draw boxes around all the data on a page?

[kleinma]

Can Crystal do quadrant type reports - like a student transcript?

Can Crystal do two column reports - show all the kids absent from school - left half of the page, get to the bottom and continue the list on the right half of the page?

Can Crystal do duplex back of a check - printing a key/legend about what was processed on the front of the check?

Can Crystal print a vertical PURCHASE ORDER number on the page, when everything else is portrait oriented?

Can Crystal change trays while printing - some pages on top tray - some on bottom tray?

Can Crystal draw boxes around all the data on a page?

are you asking those questions for real? or are you trying to say CR can not do those things?

[szlamany]

are you asking those questions for real? or are you trying to say CR can not do those things?

Actually I do not know. I am not a Crystal user - and have to justify my position with my clients all the time.

From the research we did into Crystal three years ago we decided that it was too difficult to do the complex things we needed to do - they were simply too customized.

[per-i]

Well i don't know if Crystal can do it. Active Reports can do it, that is for sure! That is what i mean. Everybody talkes so good about Crystal, but i haven't found thing yet which Active reports can't do (and Crystal can).

But it is al so much easier with Active Reports.

[kleinma]

lol well in all fairness, if you base your judgement off of crystal 3, that is just silly... that is like saying windows XP sucks because when you evaluated DOS 6.22 it didnt do what you needed it to....

Other reporting programs may be better, there is no doubt about that. The fact remains that MS decided to go with CR for the packaged reports in VS.NET, and many programmers are not going to go out and get something different, simply for the fact that they do not have additional money to pay out for these products. When cash is not a factor, it can make it easier to get the product that is actually better.

What I can say though is that I use CR in many apps, and it does everything I need it to... including pass datasets to them at runtime to generate reports versus having the report itself hit a DB for data.

[szlamany]

lol well in all fairness, if you base your judgement off of crystal 3, that is just silly... that is like saying windows XP sucks because when you evaluated DOS 6.22 it didnt do what you needed it to....

Other reporting programs may be better, there is no doubt about that. The fact remains that MS decided to go with CR for the packaged reports in VS.NET, and many programmers are not going to go out and get something different, simply for the fact that they do not have additional money to pay out for these products. When cash is not a factor, it can make it easier to get the product that is actually better.

What I can say though is that I use CR in many apps, and it does everything I need it to... including pass datasets to them at runtime to generate reports versus having the report itself hit a DB for data.

Not Crystal 3 - off of Crystal 8 - 3 years ago.

I've got it sitting on a shelf over in the corner

We decided it was a "user" tool and not a "developer" tool.

[Markmellow]

Can Crystal do quadrant type reports - like a student transcript?

Can Crystal do two column reports - show all the kids absent from school - left half of the page, get to the bottom and continue the list on the right half of the page?

Can Crystal do duplex back of a check - printing a key/legend about what was processed on the front of the check?

Can Crystal print a vertical PURCHASE ORDER number on the page, when everything else is portrait oriented?

Can Crystal change trays while printing - some pages on top tray - some on bottom tray?

Can Crystal draw boxes around all the data on a page?

Szlamany you were a tremendous help to me I spent an hour to try to help answer your questions.

I have Version 10.0 Developer Edition, can it do Vertical Printing, eh... The only way is to make a field and resize it to 1 character wide and a page long. That's not what you mean, you want to take a field, rotate it 90 degrees and have it print that way. No, you can not in CR10

Can it do duplex printing? Not version 10, doing a search for Duplex in help comes up no results so I assume it can't.

Can it do multiple columns like your example? Have it print a list on the left and continue it on the right as if in newspaper style? No.

Can it print to multiple trays during the process of printing? No.

Can it draw boxes around all it's data. We have a winner here folks, the answer is yes and I'm pretty sure I know what you mean.

So, hope I was able to help you, I think it's a very particular situation though because after 3 years no one has ever asked to print something verticle, or two columns, those types of things. I do see where that may be very important. I think the warnings, flags, drill downs, charting, and exporting features is what I like. You know, like show a picture of the USA and have the states colored by sales dollars. When you click on say, Connecticut you can open up all your orders to Connecticut, things like that. I've found it to be very focused to analyzing, dollar analyses, and sorting, just very focused to business reports and I'm in a business. Not to say it's the only one but I believe that is its main focus is business. Will they ever fix that Excel export though so afterward you don't have to open it up and delete the columns that are empty, and rows that are empty. It works, but the export to excel just always seems to need some user polishing afterward.

Hope I helped, you were such a big help to me.

[kleinma]

Not Crystal 3 - off of Crystal 8 - 3 years ago.

I've got it sitting on a shelf over in the corner

We decided it was a "user" tool and not a "developer" tool.

lol your post of "Crystal 3 years ago" It looked like "Crystal 3, years ago " not "Crystal, 3 years ago"

[szlamany]

Szlamany you were a tremendous help to me I spent an hour to try to help answer your questions.

I have Version 10.0 Developer Edition, can it do Vertical Printing, eh... The only way is to make a field and resize it to 1 character wide and a page long. That's not what you mean, you want to take a field, rotate it 90 degrees and have it print that way. No, you can not in CR10

Can it do duplex printing? Not version 10, doing a search for Duplex in help comes up no results so I assume it can't.

Can it do multiple columns like your example? Have it print a list on the left and continue it on the right as if in newspaper style? No.

Can it print to multiple trays during the process of printing? No.

Can it draw boxes around all it's data. We have a winner here folks, the answer is yes and I'm pretty sure I know what you mean.

So, hope I was able to help you, I think you have a very particular situation though because I've been using CR for over 3 years and have never once come up with wanting to do any of those abilities but I see applications you may. I think the warnings, flags, drill downs, charting, and exporting features is what I like. You know, like show a picture of the USA and have the states colored by sales dollars. When you click on say, Connecticut you can open up all your orders to Connecticut, things like that. I've found it to be very focused to analyzing, dollar analyses, and sorting so right there for a business but will they ever fix that Excel export please!

Hope I helped, you were such a big help to me.

Thank you very much for you answers.

You see we are converting 20 years worth of mainframe software to PC/VB/SQL and the customers want what they got in the past. In the past we developed hardwired BASIC programs on the mainframe and sent PCL sequences to HP printers to do whatever we wanted.

You know, that two column report is the way schools get attendance lists every day - you normally can fit a whole days absence on one sheet of paper if it's two columns.

They've been getting that stuff from us for 20 years - no way to say - "can't do that now!"

I felt pretty sure that Crystal could not do the things I posted - I'm glad to find out that's still true - since I dis Crystal all the time to my customers.