A good alternative to crystal reports over the internet

Question

I have so many problems with using crystal reports over the internet.

I admit that the web viewer looks good and the reports you can produce with it are really good but...

I have issues with diffrent versions on diffrent servers The development tools are worse than access I dont understand it.

Does anyone have any good alternatives for displaying and outputting reports over the web?

Answer 1

Telerik reporting is good. I am a huge fan of Telerik

http://www.telerik.com/products/reporting.aspx

Answer 2

I use Telerik Reporting because it comes with the Rad Controls suite I already subscribe to. That said, if you have any use for other ASP.NET, WinForms or WPF/Silverlight control suites, then getting Telerik Reports as part of a bundle is an absolute steal.

Compared to Crystal reports it is far easier to configure and use although a bit more simple. That said, I haven't run into a scenario yet that it didn't provide for. One major caveat though, it uses Visual Studio 2005 or 2008 as the design studio, so if you are using Express or not using VS at all, you are out of luck.

I have trouble recommending Crystal Reports anymore, unless you have in house knowledge of Crystal Reports already or you intend to offload reporting tasks to a non-developer position. Even then, I think Crystal Reports has become overly complicated for most secretarial type positions to get by. One big plus in CR's favor though, is the wealth of resources available.

Answer 3

We are using jasper reports. It is open source and fullfills our requirements with no problem. You can use Ireport as wysiwyg tool for writing the "source" of your reports. Every Jasper report is an XML file which contains DB queries for the values.

Answer 4

Hi

I guess you are using Microsoft suite, then how about using SQL Server Reporting Services.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL_Server_Reporting_Services

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms159106.aspx

cheers

Answer 5

We use Tableau Software - http://www.tableausoftware.com/ . It's Windows based.

You use their Desktop product to create the reports/views and then upload them to their server software which can show them through a web browser.

Answer 6

(disclaimer: I work for i-net software, but this is still my personal opinion, albeit a bit biased...)

i-net Crystal-Clear

• can read Crystal Reports templates
• powerful and simple API
• much more cost-efficient
• platform-independent because written in Java.
• can export to HTML or also a nice Java applet with zoom, search, and highlighting capabilities...

Answer 7

I agree, I have found Crystal reports has many great features but I'm not an advanced database programmer or business analysis. Having to wait for someone else to create reports is frustrating as reporting gets the lowest priority. I have been using a program called Stonefield Query. Simple, fast, and powerful report generator that works with any database. Give it a try. I love it!

Answer 8

FastReport.Net

With FastReport.Net, you can create application-independent .net reports. In other words, FastReport.Net can be used as a standalone reporting tool. See yourself:

• you can connect to any database, use any table from it or create a query;
• you can add dialogue form(s) to your report to ask some parameters before running a report;
• using built-in script, you can manage interaction between dialogue form’s controls, perform complex data handling;
• finally, you can view the result, print it and export to many common document formats.

Answer 9

We are using FastReports.Net. There are some areas to improve, but overall impression is very good.

Answer 10

Take a look at Windward Reports online solution, arrow. This blog goes over the offline template creator: http://blogs.windwardreports.com/matta/.

Answer 11

Report Runner Web Portal ($2500)

http://www.jeff-net.com/jnrrbw.htm