Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Reports in Web Application

I am working on an intranet web application and there are some reports required, I never done reports before and I don't know how to display in web page, am I supposed to retreive the data from the database and dump it for example through label controls on a web page or is there is something else more professional?
Thanks in advance.Typically it is best to use an iframe. You could use the report viewer object provided by microsoft but you may need to do some customization.|||

Do you mean that I put the report viewer in an iframe?

I found a CrystalReportViewer control in the toolbox, is that what you're talking about?

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SQL Reporting services has a web interface. Take the URL for your report and place it in an iframe (the src) within your application. You will need to look up the syntax for passing parameters to your report.

The ReportViewer component just wraps this functionality for you to make it easier to pass parameters programmatically in an OO manner. If you are going to be doing many reports and want them to be easily maintained I'd use ReportViewer. Which by the way comes with reporting services, check the Samples folder.
There are tutorials on the web, search google-http://www.odetocode.com/Articles/128.aspx for example.

|||no, just put an html iframe on your page and view the report via that. Don't use the crystal report viewer
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One more question please, which is easier to use for someone who never used any reporting tool before, Crystal Reports or SQL Server Reporting Services. All I need is 2 reports but they are not simple ones, which one I can have a quick start in it and easily learn?

Thanks.

|||Easier will be a matter of opinion. However reporting services mighthave tighter integration and less of a learning curve that Crystal.
|||if you've used access reports before, i'd say go with reportingservices. If you have an oracle data source tho, i'd suggest looking atalternatives because RS can be a bit of a nightmare working with SQL.I'd say tho that RS would probably be easier to just start workingwith, however the online tutorials etc that are around can be a bitlimited in terms of covering advanced topics. Also get used to usingIIF() statements.
|||Crystal is big money, if you have SQL 2K, reporting services is free. With both you are going to have to sit down and learn how they work, especially if your reports are complex. Crystal is feature rich while with RS you have to do a lot of custom coding to get things done on complex reports.|||Thanks for the help.

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