Reporting Solutions

[Mitchell Vincent]

I run a small development shop that develops some financial software and
other utilities and I'm looking for a reporting solution. Crystal Reports
looks excellent but is way too expensive. I'd like to keep the cost under
$1000 and would like to have some tool available to end users so that they
can design their own reports as well. Can anyone make any suggestions? I've
been searching places like ComponentOne.com and there seem to be quite a few
alternatives to Crystal out there but I would like some input from fellow
developers!

Many thanks!

 

[JD]

If you have SQL server then you may want to look at Reporting Services for
SQL 2000. Another option would be Active Reports from DataDynamics, check
them out here http://www.datadynamics.com/Products/default.aspx

Hello Mitchell,

 

[Greg Burns]

Not sure Reporting Services would be a good fit for end users designing
their own reports. They all would have to have a copy of VS and know how to
use it, no?

I thought I heard SQL 2005 will come with a more end user friendly report
designer (ie not VS)

Greg

 

[JD]

Yes, you are correct in that they would need the design tool, but incorrect
they would need VS.
The $99 VB Standard edition will work just fine, but yes they would need
to know how to use it.
Having the users define their own reports is always a tricky issue.

Hello Greg,

 

[Darious Snell]

Just throwing this out there....
Have you tried using Excel for your reports?
We use Crystal. However, in many cases, it has proven
very useful to write SQL queries in Excel.

You can achieve a high level of automation between Excel/VB/SQL Server.

 

[Thomas Wenning]

I run a small development shop that develops some financial software and
other utilities and I'm looking for a reporting solution. Crystal Reports
looks excellent but is way too expensive. I'd like to keep the cost under
$1000 and would like to have some tool available to end users so that they
can design their own reports as well. Can anyone make any suggestions? I've
been searching places like ComponentOne.com and there seem to be quite a few
alternatives to Crystal out there but I would like some input from fellow
developers!

Many thanks!

Hi Mitchell,


Framework:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnadvnet/html/vbnet01282003.asp

Other:
http://www.uniswift.com/index.php?pagetype=0
http://www.9rays.net/cgi-bin/components.cgi?act=1&cid=93
http://www.componentsource.com/Cata...12745&option=7124&RC=CS_P_B_F_BS&ml=en&bhcp=1
http://www.datadynamics.com/Products/ProductOverview.aspx?Product=ARNET


Greeting

Thomas

 

[Guest]

The $99 VB Standard edition will work just fine, but yes they would need
to know how to use it.
Having the users define their own reports is always a tricky issue.

For these reasons I finally decided to write my own Reporting tool.
Yes, it's not full of features but it can be used with evry .Net app,
whatever the used IDE is, ad it is rellay simple and intuitive, so also your
customers could make their own reports
Give a look at it: www.neodatatype.net