Data Preview and Object Data Source

[Gabriele]

Hi,

I've a WPF application that use Reporting to display data. The application use web services to connect to the server and underlying database. Report are designed using visual studio and ObjectDataSources. Now I need to give users the ability to design report using the telerik standalone designer.

Using the procedure described here I can expose my business data to users; the question is: how can I display the preview data? The designer will run on the client machine that have no access to database (the data access is done by Web Service on the server).

Furthermore, is there a way to intercept save command on the designer to save report directly on the database instead of on the local file system?

Thanks in advance for any kind of help

[Stef]

Hello Gabriele,

You can consume your data service in code and extend the Standalone Designer tool to use it e.g. as in the Connecting Telerik Reporting to OData feeds blog post. In code you can implement authorization or other security feature to prevent users from retrieving specific data.

Other approach I can suggest you is to provide users with the data model and hard-coded sample data just for the purpose of previewing their reports, and on preview in the actual application to use other assembly connecting to your service. For more details about to changing the used data check the Deploying trdx (XML report definition) that uses external assembly (shows how the actual application can be configured to use other assembly than the client's one) and Changing the connection string dynamically according to runtime data (illustrates an approach for accessing data items DataSource properties at run-time).


About saving the report, the Standalone Designer produces a TRDX file and the save operation cannot be changed to work with a custom database. Thus you need to implement logic for uploading the TRDX file on the server, or reading and saving its XML.


Let us know if you have any further questions.

Regards,
Stef
Telerik

 

 

[Gabriele]

Hi Stef,

thanks for your support... I'll try it.

Finally, in the future, is planned to give the designer ability to save reports in other places such as database or send them to a web service?
Thanks a lot.

[Stef]

Hello Gabriele,

We consider having such feature in the Standalone Designer, where developers will be able to plug their custom logic for saving the produced reports. Features are selected based on the demand for them and the required resources for their implementing.

Your vote for the feature is already counted.

Regards,
Stef
Telerik