Your database works a treat, the user interface looks great on screen and then your customer spoils it all by asking - "how do I print an invoice" ?
Mmmm - never thought about that !
Well, I'm just a dumb developer who has been writing Windows app's for 10 years and is used to easily creating all the reports once the main application is working.
What is Microsoft's excuse ?
Why is there no reporting capability for ASP.Net ?
Their "partners" who have just such a product to fill the gap, must be raking it in - especially as they all provide a license on a per server basis !
I'd like to know how other developers are currently reporting and printing from their ASP.Net applications and if any improvements are planned for the next version.
Steve.Crystal Reports is included with VS.NET, if you have that. That's the reporting solution. You can also use Microsoft's SQL Server Reporting Services, a free add-on to SQL Server 2000.
Or you could create a PDF file from the server with it. Or you could just have them print the Web page (admittedly this is less than desireable).
Lots of options. Any of these work?
Don
Well, actually MS just release SQL Reporting Services that is based on the .NET framework, and can be expanded using .NET.
Don,
Thanks for the suggestions.
Some time ago, I wasted several hours and could not even get a connection to SQL Server from Crystal Reports. I wasted many more hours trying other things with it. Some of my applications ship to customers to run on their intranets and I would not want them to go anywhere near Crystal Reports. There is also very little support - unless you flash the cash of course !
I have been looking at PDF writers for over 12 months in the hope that one will appear where you do not need a license for each server. I have still not found any.
I am not familiar with the SQL Server Reporting add on - can you point me in the right direction as I would be very interested to find out more.
Matt,
Sounds good - where can I find out more.
Steve.
Steve,
i'm using ActiveReports.NET to generate Reports as HTML Pages, Excel Sheets and PDF's within my web site. It works well and it is easy to use. You can download a trial version at
Data Dynamics
Tom
Thanks Tom,
I've been considering Active Reports. Would I be able to design an invoice report and ensure that it prints out exactly as required - regardless of the users browser or screen resolution ?
Steve.
I use ActiveReports. Very easy, extendible, and affordable.
You have several options, but usually you would generate PDFs,
which do print exactly as required, regardless of browser, etc.
You can find SQL Reporting Services at http://www.microsoft.com/sql/reporting
I wrote a small vb.net windows app which is using the crystal report components integreated in VS.net. I had to create a setup project and put in the licence keys. Now it works perfect on the machine I installed the app.
So I think it's very easy to use Crystal Reports. You can do the same with webprojects and generate pdf's there.
Just an idea ...
Many of my clients use MSDE. When asked if MSDE is supported - the FAQ from SQL Server Reporting states...
"Although Reporting Services can use data from MSDE databases, the Report Server Database cannot be stored in an instance of MSDE."
I'm not too sure if that's a Yes or a No ?
Can anyone expand on that ?
Thanks for the other suggestions - I'm looking into those too.
Steve.
I might be missing something here, and I'd like one of the ActiveReports users to correct me if I'm wrong, but...
I use Crystal Reports. I'm a big fan of the product froma development point-of-view, but have always hated it from a deployment perspective.
That said, at $9,000 + for each per-site license of the professional edition of Active Reports, what exactly am I getting that the 'free', out-of-the-box .net edition of CR doesn't already give me? With a few lines of code, I can export to pdf. I can do HTML reports. I can export effortlessly to word and excel and RTF.
Trust me, I'm not an avid CR defender; I'm really just curious here...
Well, I would start by reading the license for the "free" Crystal Reports edition.
Note that I'm not a reader of "legalese" either, but people I work with do read it,
and I can assure you many places pay a heck of a lot more than $9000 for CR.
Its also a question of you get what you pay for -- CR just sucks most of the time.
Well, we'll have to agree to disagree on that last point. I think that there is real value in CR< though the support sucks.
But I've implemented numerous site with the CR that comes bundled with enterprise edition. And I didn't see anything that suggested to me that Active Reports offers anything above and beyond. What are the features that it offers that make it a solid alternative to CR?
By the sounds of it - I think that licensing seems to be the key issue as both CR and Active Reports are very powerful products.
The problem I have with CR (other than not being able to get it to work) is that they have given very little in the free version for developers requiring a runtime-free product. They have "dangled a carrot" by getting it bundled with Visual Studio.Net - but it's really not worth taking a bite.
A $9,000 licence fee may be acceptable for large projects, but unfortunately, I rely on selling ASP.Net applications to smaller companies - at a lot less than $9K a go !
Looks like Active Reports is favourite for me.
By the way - don't Microsoft own Crystal anyway ? - that would explain a lot.
Steve.
Well that is my point. For the Professional Version of Active Reports, at least according to the website, you'll be paying that $9,000 per site liscensing fee. And given that, I wonder just what it has and does that Crystal doesn't...
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