Reporting solutions?

[JPicasso]

Looking for a decent reporting solutions for use with VB.NET and Access and SQL server. Should be able to generate documents for both stand-alone and Web use. PDF generation is a plus.

Crystal reports is not an option due to manager personal bias.
(good or bad, that's how it is.)

What are any of you guys using?

[kleinma]

lol if he doesn't want to use crystal (especially in .net since its built in) tell him to set a reference to the report designer for VB6... that should have him begging for crystal soon enough

[Mike Hildner]

If you can't use Crystal (I think your manager went to the same school as mine) check out IntelliView http://www.intelliview.com/ It's quite nice and they have an ActiveX component. Tell your manager to pull out the checkbook.

Actually it's more than quite nice, it's really slick - you can download a free demo.

[Edneeis]

We aren't currently using it but try Active Reports: http://www.datadynamics.com/Products...px?Product=AR2

[nemaroller]

Active Reports .Net is actually a very good reporting tool...

Its more intuitive if your a programmer and their base reports handle subclassing well.

Here's the link to the .Net version of Active Reports:

http://www.datadynamics.com/Products...?Product=ARNET

[mendhak]

SQL Server Reporting Services from Microsoft. It's free. Takes a little learning and you have to deal with the fact that the datasets there are not the same as in your VB.NET. Other than that, it's fine.

[Mike Hildner]

mendhak, I'm looking to use MSSQL Reporting Services. Was just looking at Microsoft's site, but could not determine if I could write my app using Reporting Services, and deploy with MSDE. You wouldn't happen to know if this works ok, would you?

[nemaroller]

If your not using Reporting Services for an internal project in your organization, forget about em.

They are not easily deployable. There would be many security considerations that make reporting services a hassle for deployment as part of a package application.

Now, maybe your just deploying to a company server, so you can control those issues. But we worked with reporting services for 2 months before we decided to drop them because of deployment issues. That was in April this year, perhaps MS has made significant changes to this...?

[mendhak]

Originally posted by Mike Hildner
mendhak, I'm looking to use MSSQL Reporting Services. Was just looking at Microsoft's site, but could not determine if I could write my app using Reporting Services, and deploy with MSDE. You wouldn't happen to know if this works ok, would you?

Not really. We had a few minor issues with SQL Server itself, but that was in implementing the security measures. I doubt if it'd work with MSDE though, never used it.

[mendhak]

Originally posted by nemaroller
That was in April this year, perhaps MS has made significant changes to this...?

None whatsoever.

[Mike Hildner]

Thanks for the info. We need to deploy to various sites, so I guess I'll stick with Crystal.

[mendhak]

Originally posted by Mike Hildner
Thanks for the info. We need to deploy to various sites, so I guess I'll stick with Crystal.

You've made an excellent choice, sir.

[DL1600]

The problem that I have with Crystal is, it is NOT Easy! I can not get any data to display on my report. I don't understand why it can not be a simple drag and drop.

Any one know how to use a filter in Microsoft Reporting?

[RobDog888]

We aren't currently using it but try Active Reports: http://www.datadynamics.com/Products...px?Product=AR2

$499.00

Just use Access to create Reports

[DL1600]

$499?? I saw $899

[RobDog888]

499 is for the Standard version and 899 is for the Pro

[DL1600]

OH, I'm sorry, I did not see the basic! It's still to high! WE WANT FREE!!

[techgnome]

Good luck then. There aren't too many free reporting options out there.

But just to add more fuel to the fire, DevExpress also makes a pretty decent reporting tool. We came [] this close to choosing it as our reporting tool before we realized what that would mean (converting 100's of existing reports form Crystal)... and the fact that we had clients that had already built a number of custom reports in Crystal... so rather than support two reporting platforms.... we tucked tail and went with Crystal XI. It still keeps me up at night.

-tg

[RobDog888]

But why not use Access? Its more then likely already on most systems that have office and if not its less then $99 for just Access.

[nemaroller]

Didn't I suggest ActiveReports? I could have swore 3 years ago when this thread was made I suggest ActiveReports .NET.

Silly me... is this thread resolved by the way?

[RobDog888]

Well DL1600 bumped it so it got started again.

I suppose if anyone want to discuss it more then a new thread is needed.