SSW Update - Do you know when to use Reporting Services?
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Do you know when to use Reporting Services?

Like any solution, Reporting Services has its pros and cons. From our experience, we have discovered these things about Reporting Services:

Cons

  • Parameters - you are forced to use built-in controls
  • Query string - when you change the parameters and refresh a report, the values do not appear directly in the query string, making it hard to copy/paste URLs
  • Can't separate SQL into a strongly-typed dataset or middle-tier object like in ASP.NET
  • There are potential difficulties with the deployment of RS reports and the exposing of them. However, once we have the infrastructure...

Pros

  • You can develop read only reports faster in Reporting Services than ASP.NET
  • Maintenance with RS is easier as in most cases you don't have to write any code
  • Flexibility with groupings and totals is easier ?in ASP.NET you would need to iterate through the DataSet keeping variables with the totals
  • Parameters are built-in ?in ASP.NET there is code
  • Drilldown interactivity ?in ASP.NET you need to code up a treeview
  • Users can have reports emailed to them automatically on a schedule
  • Users can export natively to PDF and XLS, plus a variety of other popular formats

So in conclusion, if you will only ever need 1 report, go with ASP.NET - it is easier to get up and running. If you plan to have more than one report, use Reporting Services - it's worth the time to set-up.

For a more detailed comparison between reporting solutions, take a look at our Guidelines for Report Solutions - Web Clients.


More on Rules to Better Microsoft SQL Reporting Services...

Cheers until next time,

Adam
SSW Chief Architect and Microsoft Regional Director, Australia

Got a comment for Adam? Email Adam

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User Group

20 days to go!

Sydney .NET User Group
Wednesday 18th October 2006
5:45pm - 9:00pm
Microsoft, Sydney

Software as a Service - Catching the Long Tail

The guest speaker Nigel Watson from Microsoft Australia will be talking about how from small start-ups to large enteprises, software as a service (SaaS) is changing how software is designed, developed and consumed. This session discusses the business drivers behind SaaS, and then looks at how these in turn drive the architecture of SaaS solutions as opposed to 'on-premise' software.

Along the way, he will discuss the technical issues that any current or prospective SaaS vendor will need to grapple with in order to successfully deliver software as a service.

Atlas

Tim Kremer will continue to discuss the Microsoft Ajax Library from last month's session and will further reinforce its benefits and features such as:

- Ability to integrate cross-browser client script libraries with the ASP.NET 2.0 server-based development framework.

- Atlas' ability to take advantage of AJAX techniques on the web, thus enabling you to create ASP.NET pages with a rich, responsive UI and server communication.

- Due to Atlas' extension of ASP.NET, it is fully integrated with server-based services.

Throughout his presentation Tim will take a one step further by providing you with worked examples of the new client libraries as well as using the server side libraries to add ajax functionality to your ASP.NET existing applications.

See You There!!! | Sorry I can't make it

Gain the knowledge and skills required to deploy and manage reports using Microsoft Reporting Services

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services - 2 Day Program

Sydney

8 days to go!

Microsoft SQL Server 2005
Reporting Services

Monday 16 & Tuesday 17 October 2006
9:00am - 5:00pm
Location: SSW, Sydney

This 2 day course has been specifically designed by the Sydney based SQL Guru and MS Regional Director Adam Cogan. Throughout this course Adam will cover the most popular reporting technologies in the industry, comprehend the new Report Designer, the important differences between Access Reports and Reporting Services and much more.

There is also a practical side to this course as you will get to be exposed to real life examples of Microsoft's landscape of enterprise reporting and learn the right and wrong ways of developing reports. 

To find out more about the course's content, please see More on Reporting Services Training

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