I know there have been lenghty threads on this topic, but I'd like to hear everybody weigh in considering recent new versions of various products. My problem is that even though I had previously abandoned Crystal, it seems that one of the big issues, deployment, has been pretty much solved with the current bundled version according to a colleague. And I've been pretty disappointed with Xtra Reports. Here's my thoughts:
Xtra Reports: While the price was right and you can get source code, it's all too obvious after working with this product for a few months that it's a relatively immature product as far as features and ease of use. There's great newsgroup support, but all too often it's only to say "we're planning to add that feature in the future." One of the big attractions for me, the end-user designer, is really a no-show because doing anything significant would require the user to use scripting. Since the report designer uses the BindingSource object, it handles CSLA collections easily.
SQL Reporting Services: I finally verified just a month or so ago that there is really two "flavors" of this product. I dismiss the SQL Server based option outright as I never want my entire application's reporting to be tied to that kind of server requirement. Nice try Microsoft, but no thanks. There is, however, a local (visual studio) version of the technology that doesn't require SQL server. I have not investigated it much, but expect it suffers from the same immaturity issues I believe plagues the server version (and Xtra Reports). I don't know what the capabilities are for printing from CSLA business objects.
Crystal Reports: A very powerful and feature-rich reporting system. The biggest drawback at this point seems to be that automating reports such that they are delivered without human initiation requires rather expensive licensing. I don't know what the capabilities are for printing from CSLA business objects.
I guess my bottom-line question at this point is if there are still reasons to continue to avoid Crystal?
ajj3085:
I haven't used it much yet, but I have built a 'report' using ReportViewer (FYI, there is very little difference between a local report and a server report; the reporting technology is the same either way though). Its worked very well, and I don't need any extra licensing to deploy it. Also, using client reports doesn't tie you at all to Sql server; server reports are the only option that would lock you in.
The nice part was that I could use a Csla object as the reports datasource; I believe you can do this with the newest Crystal as well.. but it seems like they offer much the same functionality.
HTH
Andy
Have you done some of the more complex stuff like multi-level grouping, subtotaling, subreports, etc.?
One of the big things that seemed to be missing with the ReportViewer/ReportingServices product (from the really high-level overview webinars I watched anyway) was the way you can manipulate the report at runtime via the DOM like in Crystal or the other products mentioned. For example, let's say I have a criteria form and then want to change the subtitle on the document based on that criteria.
This is what I remember liking about Crystal - it's a very elegant gui report designer but you had the raw access when you needed it. The other options seem to emphasize one thing at the expense of the other.
Another product to consider is Active Reports. I tried it about a year ago, but never got the opportunity to make any serious progress with it - we got sidetracked off reporting. I know it was mentioned on the old forums as well.
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