Good reporting solution

[Jay Douglas]

Greetings.
For the most part, my reporting solutions have been ad-hoc (usually html
for web apps) to the current project. I'm currently trying to figure out
what would be a good reporting solution for primarily asp.net apps, but also
my winform apps. I know .net comes with Crystal Reports ... My past
experiences with Crystal Reports isn't all that great. I'm also not to
fired up about the crystal report viewer that web clients will have to
download. I was wondering if anybody knows a solution that can meet the
following requirements:
- Works well with the VS.net IDE and the .net framework
- Has the abilities to tie in custom code (preferably c#)
- Displays to web clients in PDF format
- Ties in well with winforms
- Cheap. Doesn't take an extensive application that needs to be installed
with distributed applications.

Who knows, maybe Crystal Reports is the answer and I should spend some
serious time looking in to it.

All suggestions and feedback are appreciated.

 

[William Ryan eMVP]

XTra printing by Devexpress is pretty cool
http://www.devexpress.com/?section=/products/NET/XtraPrinting&reffrom=

and they are building a full reporting tool.

Also, ActiveReports http://www.datadynamics.com/default.aspx by DataDynamics
is very reasonable priced and is excellent IMHO.

 

[Philip Rieck]

Sql Reporting Services may be a good thing to look at.
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/reporting/default.asp

It fits all of your requirements except "cheap". Note that you need a SQL
Server license to run it (no cost above that). If you already have it, then
it's free. If not, it's not cheap.

It also assumes you are not selling/distributing your applications --
basically, your reports are coming from one central server that all clients
have access to.

If these two points are fine for you, then you'll probably love SRS.
Otherwise, keep looking. (I'd recommend a good look at Active Reports as
well... great product)

 

[Michael Pearson]

Take a look at ActiveReports.net. (http://www.datadynamics.com)
It's fairly cheap, and they have great web-based support forums.

Michael