Reporting Tool For Sql Server
For knocking out fairly 'run of the mill' reports, SQL Reporting Services is really quite impressive. For complicated analysis, loading the data (maybe pre-aggregated) into an Excel Pivot table is usually adequate for most users. I've found you can spend a lot of time (and money) building a comprehensive 'ad-hoc' reporting suite and after the first month or two of 'wow factor', 99% of the reports generated will be the same report with minor differences in a fixed set of parameters. Don't accept when a user says they want 'ad-hoc' reports without specifying what goals and targets their looking for. They are just fishing and they need to actually spend as much time on THINKING about THEIR reporting requirements as YOU would have to spend BUILDING their solution.
I've spent too much time building the 'the system that can report everything' and for it to become out of date or out of favour before it was finished. Much better to get the quick wins out of the way as quick as possible and then spend time 'systemising' the most important reports. I've used Reporting Services and Crystal fairly extensively, and I'm writing a few reports using Excel(ick) at the moment. Reporting Services is pretty good for simple reports but as soon as you need total control over formatting,complex formulas and charts etc. Crystal is a long way ahead. I also find Crystal to be far more usable; being able to change things within the report preview is invaluable (it may be possible in later versions of RS?). RS also needs to be deployed to a web server which limits it's usefulness if you are writing applications that need to be deployed externally.
Older versions of Crystal were very buggy but the latest ones are much better, it's much more mature than Reporting Services. If you have all the money in the world, go with Cognos. They provide a data cube that essentially makes the reporting 'developer free' and the end user can create reports, dashboards, anything they like. For the 'common man', I've grown quite fond of the ComponentOne reports for.NET library/tools. It has a similar feel to Crystal Reports, but has a very friendly XML format that you and edit under the hood and none of the headaches with versioning, keys, and other items that I've had to deal with when making simple updates to either the report or the underlying version. We've been using BIRT which had a steep learning curve for me until I realized how many WYSIWIG features it had (I started editing the xml source code direct, which I don't recommend.) There are some output specific tricks (like using a 0 left margin to not get a blank A column when outputting to XLS format) but for the most part it's quick and easy to use, edit and preview.
I have also been impressed on how easy it is to intermix different datasets in a single report. While not a silver bullet, its a better all around tool than 99.999% of people are going to build on their own. 'Give them data and they will love you for it' Out of the methods and tools I've used in the past, I would rank them in the following order based on abilities/versatility/usability/speed to deploy. I'm leaving cost out of it because while it is always a factor it is a different factor for everyone. 1 is Cognos (version 8) 2 is SQL Server Reporting 3 is Crystal Reports 4 is Custom written code I haven't used any of the other tools mentioned.
Cognos 8 is nothing short of awesome. While pricey, you are only limited by your imagination. It can do anything. This isn't so much a positive suggestion, but more of a cautionary tale against crystal reports. As with other people, getting the right version of the crystal runtime is important, but having done that, I still had this problem:. Spent weeks developing reports that had embedded images.
Apr 20, 2012 A tool that migrates reports and other artifacts from one report server to another report server. It can also be used as a backup and restore tool for. SQL Server Reporting Services contains a set of graphical and scripting tools that support the development and use of rich reports in a managed environment.
Tested on dev and staging environment, all A-OK. Deploy to live server - doesn't work. Spent two weeks trawling forums and looking for advice, eventually got a response from a crystal body on their forums. Suggested that he had seen a similar problem to do with MS Paint being set up as the default application for a certain file extension. At this point, we gave up trying (after I convinced my boss that this wasn't a take the piss answer, but actually a formal response from Crystal).
Handily we were migrating to new servers about a month later (where the reports worked), but honestly, wouldn't touch them again. Oh, and have used SSRS and found it to be pretty good for most things (particularly the most recent version). We had used MS Reporting Services, but we was completely unhappy with it.
Reasons:. it is needed to make difficult configuration of server.
it is not possible to embed report editor into our app without buying SQL server license for every user. it is possible only to use embedded report parameters input form UI or send them from app, but not to create parameters UI by report designer Now we a using Stimulsoft Reports.
It have no such limitations like MS Reporting Services, and we and your users are happy with it. 1) I would think Reporting Services is very good for most of the needs, when in comes to developing table based reports and also matrix reports (drilldown - pivot like functionality).Considering the price of Cognos etc.
An SME can't even dream of getting Congns AFAIK 2) Report Scheduling / Subscription functionality can be invoked to send reports to a set of users (data driven) to deliver reports. Subscriptions can be delivered to custom locations such as an SFTP, by writing.Net code. 3) Using Report Models, end user can drag and drop columns and develop customized reports To Note: 1) It can get trickier once you develop really complex graphical/dashboard kind reports - which involve few charts and small tables to be displayed in A4. Report Designer (the tool we use to design reports) and Web display use different rendering engines. So it is better if you deploy the reports often and see how they look, if you develop complex graphical reports 2) If you write custom functionality, you may have to change the XML configuration files(RSReportServer.Config etc). If there is any problem in the edit, ReportServer service may stop. So be careful to back up before doing anything custom.
SQL Server Reporting Services provides a full range of ready-to-use tools and services to help you create, deploy, and manage reports for your organization, as well as programming features that enable you to extend and customize your reporting functionality. Reporting Services is a server-based reporting platform that provides comprehensive reporting functionality for a variety of data sources. Reporting Services includes a complete set of tools for you to create, manage, and deliver reports, and APIs that enable developers to integrate or extend data and report processing in custom applications. Reporting Services tools work within the Microsoft Visual Studio environment and are fully integrated with SQL Server tools and components. With Reporting Services, you can create interactive, tabular, graphical, or free-form reports from relational, multidimensional, or XML-based data sources.
You can publish reports, schedule report processing, or access reports on-demand. Reporting Services also enables you to create ad hoc reports based on predefined models, and to interactively explore data within the model.
Sql Reporting Tool
You can select from a variety of viewing formats, export reports to other applications, and subscribe to published reports. The reports that you create can be viewed over a Web-based connection or as part of a Microsoft Windows application or SharePoint site. Reporting Services provides the key to your business data. For the latest downloads, articles, samples, and videos from Microsoft as well as the community, visit the and the. For information about other SQL Server components, tools, and resources, see.
Best Reporting Tool For Sql Server
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