Sql Server Reporting Services (SSRS) or Microsoft .net 3.5 Chart Controls

Question

Under what circumstances would you use SSRS rather than Chart Controls? I'm trying to determine if it makes sense to use reporting services to produce charts for a .net project, but I'm not sure about the learning curve, potential benefits, potential drawbacks. The only benefit I can immediately see is the ability to setup reports to be e-mailed to users.

Anyone have insight into the differences?

Answer 1

Using SSRS separates the reporting out of your application. Reports are one of the most likely things to be added and changed in business applications, so using SSRS prevents you from having to redeploy your application in favor of redeploying a single report. In addition to the e-mailing benefits, you get export options and Report Builder. Why not have the users set up their own reports with Report Builder! People at our place love it. They don't have to wait for us to develop and deploy a one-off report.

Answer 2

SSRS Pros

• Central portal for managing reports. (Create, update, view, permissions, etc.)
• Ability to embed reports into other applications without updating the actual application.
• Easy for non tech people to create and manage reports.
• Exportable into an extensible list of formats.
• Tied nicely into SQL server allowing for very complex reports (Analysis Services etc.)
• Scheduled reports, snapshots and delivery.

SSRS Cons

• Some of the actual graphing abilities are limiting and harder to customize.
• Directly dependent on SSRS to render reports (less portable)
• Not fully cross browser friendly without some major tweaks.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/507470/sql-server-2005-reporting-services-pros-and-cons

Summary:

If you just want some really slick pretty graphs inside an application stick to the graph controls or another library, if you need a full blown solution for managing reporting SSRS is the way to go.

Answer 3

SSRS big pro: auto export in the report viewer to export reports to PDF, excel, etc. It really depends on your requirements. SSRS has a lot more features than just charts and such, which the chart doesn't have.

Outside of advice that was already given of course.