Best way for creating reports in ASP.NET MVC

Question

Hi,

After building my application in ASP.NET MVC and MS sql server, I would now like to display some statistics regarding my data.

What would be the easiest way to create HTML reports which are built of data crossing several tables? (Once the fields are picked they'll be static, meanning a single view is required)

I though their ought to be something in the lines of a wizard letting you drag fields from your tables to a form and generates the logic behind...

Thanks

Teddy

Answer 1

Microsoft Reporting Services?

Answer 2

"I though their ought to be something in the lines of a wizard letting you drag fields from your tables to a form and generates the logic behind..." - this is the basic idea behind ASP.NET WebForms. But, please do not abandon MVC in favour of WebForms.

One way to achieve what you want is to create a class representing your stats, e.g.

public class Statistic
{
    public string TableName { get; set; }
    public int RowCount { get; set; }
}

Your Model code could populate an IList<Statistic> instance which is passed to your View, which renders the stats accordingly.

Answer 3

I wrote a blog post about this in September. It's a way to render a PDF content type using an RPT file in the application. It covers everything except the creation of the RDLC file, including how to write unit tests for the controller.