Breaker187
Well-Known Member
Hi Everyone
I've been using Crystal Reports for the last million years and I've decided its time to move on.
I need an alternative based on some basic requirements I'll try to describe below:
Now I have accomplished most of the above with Crystal Reports but with lots of pain. I've researched alternatives like SSRS, DevXpress's Active Reports and Windwards AutoTag.
Unfortunately its always a case of the product has 90% of what's needed but can't do that last 10%, could very well be that I'm not sure how to do that 10%, but it doesn't seem to be that easy.
Am I asking for the impossible? Any feedback and suggestions good or bad is always appreciated thanx
I've been using Crystal Reports for the last million years and I've decided its time to move on.
I need an alternative based on some basic requirements I'll try to describe below:
- Letterhead/footer capability:
We have multiple clients, with their own layout of letterheads and footers that tends to change now and again, however there are many reports and more so forms, wherein the content layout is exactly the same, idea here is update one place and all the forms and reports are changed accordingly - GUI Designer
Often changes to the forms and reports are minimal, I would therefore need a GUI to provide an end user to do these sort of tasks. I can not in good conscience give the Crystal Reports designer to an end user. Basic needs like table layout support and your typical msword like editing options helps here. - Design against Stored Proc or XML doc as a data source
The goal I would like to achieve is for our Developers to write the SPs and the end user to design the reports, Currently our devs feels their time is being wasted creating and maintaining reports esp with frequency in which basic changes are requested (I feel their pain).
Again our reporting requirements are not that complex and 90% of the time data could be displayed in a grid like fashion or Forms that would contain text and minimal variables. - SP's returning multiple tables
Currently most if not all our SP's returns the first table in the dataset as the report heading info, Title,User,parameter info etc, and the subsequent tables would contain the report or form data.
Would be great if we didn't need to rewrite these sp's but if not, and for the greater good, it should not be a deal breaker. - Export functionality
Primarily need to export to PDF and excel with columns formatted. Word would be a bonus - Spell Check
Too many forms have gone out with atrocious spelling due to lack of spell checking. - Multi Platform
We have apps written in ASP.net web forms, win forms and Delphi. Would it be too much to ask that we would be able to design one report and have it accessible in all these apps? If not I think the work around would be export to PDF, and display them that way in the apps. - For More Complex reports
Some form of event/code access: a good example is that we have a report that displays a text box and its text based on the style options listed in the data source eg the data source specifies font, top border and or bottom border and or side borders, border size etc.
Now I have accomplished most of the above with Crystal Reports but with lots of pain. I've researched alternatives like SSRS, DevXpress's Active Reports and Windwards AutoTag.
Unfortunately its always a case of the product has 90% of what's needed but can't do that last 10%, could very well be that I'm not sure how to do that 10%, but it doesn't seem to be that easy.
Am I asking for the impossible? Any feedback and suggestions good or bad is always appreciated thanx