Which Reporting technology?

Question

Which reporting technology would fit for the best situation/type of product? I am now thinking of 3 technologies:

1. Embedded Reports (Crystal Reports;MS Reporting services)
2. Server reports (MS Reporting Services)
3. OLAP Databases (MS Analysis Services)

Which report technology would you use for an off the shelf product? Is it possible to have a OLAP type based reporting side of things from a off the shelf product?

Which technology is best suited for historical data? I would guess here OLAP database would be quicker, but that would depend the size of the database, because I reckon you could also use Embedded Reports for historical data.

Which technology would be best for custom software solutions?

I like the idea of having reporting on the server where a user can go log in and run reports like with MS Reporting services. And really only have reports for stuff like invoices, bills, customer information sheet etc as Embedded reports. And also have Reporting services over an OLAP database for historical data.

Unfortunelaty does management not see this layout and wants a off the shelf product, with olap reporting right inside the application with all other reports.

Answer 1

We are using XtraReports from DevExpress. The ratio price/productivity is very high and you can get source codes.

You can use it for desktop or web applications ( or export to pdf, doc, html, etc...) and end-user designer is delivered natively by DevExpress. I believe, this is one of the best reporting suite ( with Telerik Reports ).

Answer 2

I like reporting services. It can be used as you say, with the customer logging into the reporting services web site. But there is also a component you can add to your application which uses reporting services on the back end. Best of both worlds.

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

Answer 3

I really like Reporting Services. You can embed reports into web pages, you can give users access to your reports over the web, you can even automate report delivery by having reports emailed to users at a set schedule. You can also create reports off OLAP databases. Plus Reporting Services comes with SQL Server so it can save some money.

Answer 4

OLAP isn't a reporting platform, it's in the database layer.

If you're going to have a collection of pre-planned, canned reports, then Crystal or RS are the best ideas. Personally I prefer Crystal but it can be quite a pain to develop reports - but when they're approved, Crystal is a rock steady platform. (We integrate Crystal with .NET apps.)

RS integrates just as nicely, but you do have to maintain the server. Their big advantage is dynamic/reactive menuing, but they are just as tricky to develop and maintain when not quite perfect.

OLAP is a really powerful technology - but if you've not got local knowledge, it's a really challenging product to deploy accurately. But, again, it's not a reporting product - but there are some interesting layers on top of it (e.g. ProClarity, Excel plug-in).

Answer 5

Also you could take a look at i-net Crystal-Clear. Fully Java-based, can read Crystal Reports templates, and offer both a nice and simple API as well as a servlet for any major web server. Has nice charts using JFreeChart. Can export to PDF, HTML, SVG, as well as to a Swing Java Viewer you can embed into your own applications.

Costs a lot less than CR, also.

Answer 6

Crystal reports is very easy and quick to use but it is also fairly limited. If all you need to do is slap some aggregate information onto a report, right out of a database, then crystal reports will be fine for you. Not sure about the others.

Answer 7

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