What BI Reporting Software do you use?

foozball3000

foozball3000

Executive Member
Joined
Oct 28, 2008
Messages
5,828
Our reports are all web based (.Net), with SQL doing all the hard work in the back.
And currently they're quite simple: Set your preferences, SP returns some data and we display it in a Repeater (Custom DataGrid). We need more power! And I'm not planning on developing every single component/tool/chart/table that I need. (Why reinvent the wheel?)

After a long quest of googling and reading, I ended up trying LogiXML. Brilliant software. But the free version is almost like a Ferrari that's limited at 180km/h. Just enough to annoy you senseless. But more than enough to break the speed limit.

I've worked around most of the snags that the free version offers, but it seems that creating a flexible data table seems like quite the challenge. And on their forums, it seems like the people there never tried to use (or misuse) the program like I'm trying to.
(Visual Studio + LogiXML Fusion! ..../puts on goggles)

So, with the background painted, back to the topic.
What do you use to generate reports on data for clients? Surely, there must be a great need on this field of software...
 
xrapidx

xrapidx

Honorary Master
Joined
Feb 16, 2007
Messages
40,312
Can't you just slap a cube on the data and use excel to query it (pivot tables)
 
N

nfbs

Expert Member
Joined
Jul 15, 2008
Messages
3,296
Use excel as your front end to connect to an sql or olap source.
 
D

diabolus

Executive Member
Joined
Feb 4, 2005
Messages
6,312
You tried SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) ?

It is free with a SQL Server license. Even the Visual Studio part where you design the reports in is free with that.

Now throw in Excel and SQL Analysis Services [Cubes] as mentioned above and you're already doing stuff that'll impressive clients [because excel they know and most people like it] .

What is it you're doing though? SSRS = static reports and SSAS/Cubes with Excel = dynamic drilldown/pivot "play with the data" reports.

If you're just throwing out a table or chart that is static, try SSRS .

And then you can step up a gear and deploy a Sharepoint Server with Performance Point ....the Performance Point component for Sharepoint is just awesome.


Microsoft got some really nice tools, the problem generally is, it's all so disjointed and over the show that you need to do a little work to get it all together, but ultimately you can do alot more with it for alot cheaper. If you look at how much the big BI solutions cost [COGNOS / Business Objects / Webfocus etc etc] compared to the more "loose" Microsoft solution, it's alot cheaper. Even Sharepoint itself is dirt cheap compared to those things....scary really.
 
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