What is reporting technology?

Question

What reporting technologies are suitable for the best situation / type of product? I am thinking about 3 technologies now:

• Embedded Reports (Crystal Reports, MS Reporting Services)
• Server Reports (MS Reporting Services)
• OLAP Databases (MS Analysis Services)

What reporting technology would you use for a product off the shelf? Is it possible to have an OLAP-style reporting part from a product off the shelf?

Which technology is best for historical data? I would suggest that the OLAP database will be faster, but it will depend on the size of the database, because I believe that you can also use inline reports for historical data.

Which technology is best for custom software solutions?

I like the idea of ​​creating reports on a server where a user can log in and run reports, for example, using MS Reporting services. Indeed, there are only reports for such things as invoices, invoices, customer information sheets, etc., as nested reports. And also have OLAP database reporting services for historical data.

Unfortunelaty does the manual does not see this layout and does not want the finished product, and olap reports directly inside the application with all other reports.

Answer 1

OLAP is not a reporting platform; it is located in a database layer.

If you have a collection of pre-planned, canned reports, then Crystal or RS are the best ideas. Personally, I prefer Crystal, but it can be a big problem for reporting, but when they are approved, Crystal is a stable platform. (We are integrating Crystal with .NET applications.)

RS integrates just as well, but you need to maintain a server. Their great advantage is the dynamic / reactive menu, but they are just as complex to develop and maintain when they are not quite perfect.

OLAP is a really powerful technology, but if you do not have local knowledge, it is a very complex product to deploy for sure. But, again, this is not a reporting product, but there are interesting layers above it (for example, ProClarity, the Excel plug-in).

Answer 2

I like reporting services. It can be used, as you say, when a client logs into the reporting services website. But there is a component that you can add to your application, which uses the reporting services on the rear panel. The best of both worlds.

In addition, you can access data in analysis services or any other database.

Answer 3

You can also take a look at (our own) i-net Clear Reports (used for i-net Crystal-Clear). Fully Java-based, it can read Crystal Reports templates and offer both a simple and a simple API, as well as a servlet for any large web server. Has good charts using JFreeChart. It can export to PDF, HTML, SVG, as well as to Swing Java Viewer, which you can embed in your own applications. We also offer a free and fully functional standalone report designer .

Costs are much less than CR.

Answer 4

We use XtraReports from DevExpress. The price / performance ratio is very large and you can get the source codes.

You can use it for desktop or web applications (or export to pdf, doc, html, etc.), and the end-user developer comes from DevExpress. I believe this is one of the best reports (with Telerik reports).

Answer 5

I really like Reporting Services. You can embed reports in web pages, you can provide users with access to your reports via the Internet, you can even automate the delivery of reports by sending reports by e-mail to users according to the established schedule. You can also create reports from OLAP databases. Plus Reporting Services ships with SQL Server, saving you money.

Answer 6

Crystal reports are very easy to use, but also quite limited. If all you have to do is click some summary information into the report, right from the database, then crystal reports will be good for you. Not sure about others.