Hi, Long time Telerik customer / developer here :)
I have a large customer who has been exploring reporting portals to be used for a Hosted service they want to provide to their customer base.
I have been doing the development of the solution and left them to pick a reporting solution, but they have failed to do so and now run out of time.
Long story short, I have only a few days to come back to them and say if the Telerik Reporting Server is suitable and then they will buy licensing for it. I have not used the Report Server before ( I have it installed as part of my DEV package, but never played with it!) and I am flat out with work.. so I hope someone who knows the system well can answer some questions please.
1) Is this suitable for a Public facing reporting server ( Public URL) , to be shared with multiple customers, each with their own logons. (Tenanted). What features are not available in this scenario. It is possible they could set up access via VPN rather than having it totally public.
2) Each Tenant will have the same tables for reporting so the same reports should be used for each customer, BUT each tenant has it's own database. Can we set up each tenant to use the same reports but using their own data connection? ( Please note that each tenant may have multiple logons and each logon maybe limited to the data available to select from ( the reporting objects, not the reports)
3) General use question.. basically we want the customer to have access to a bunch of canned reports and be able to select these to run, along with parameters such as data objects to report on, time frames, grouping etc. I think they want Scheduled reports as well.
4) The customers are all in Sweden , so I think they will want the interface in Swedish ( but probably not a showstopper)
I'm sure I have lots more questions.. but I think these are the key ones... any help greatly appreciated.
Rob
7 Answers, 1 is accepted
Thank you for choosing Telerik products.
In regards to your questions:
- Telerik Report Server is an application which uses the Reporting REST service, Reporting HTML5 Viewer and Reporting Standalone Report Designer. The application includes admin module for managing resources like reports, report categories, connections, user accounts, scheduler tasks. This module can be accessed only by the Admin account and users registered by the admin (CALs). To authenticate users you can integrate the Report Server application with AD or other external authentication provider - the mechanism is elaborated in Configuring Report Server to be used with external authentication provider.
Reports can be designed through the Standalone Report Designer, distributed via ClickOnce in IE. You can use any other Standalone Report Designer exe built with the same Telerik Reporting version. On creating a report you can connect to the Report Server application via URL and user credentials.
Reports published on the server can be previewed via URL - the loaded page uses the HTML5 Viewer. The server can be connected to web and desktop applications which have Reporting WPF, WinForms or HTML5 Viewers e.g. How To: Use HTML5 Report Viewer with Report Server.
For users not managing reports, you can use the Guest account (no credentials) to get reports in preview. - To support multitenant scenario, you will need a separate Report Server per tenant.
If you want to use one Report Server, reports can be separated in categories and each report will have to use SQL query or CSV data (the supported data sources) suitable for the tenant. Connection strings will also be per report. Users will request reports anonymously, where in a custom application with the HTML5 Viewer you will be able to add control over the reports they can see, based on the report category. - The listed operations are related to creating and designing reports, which can be done only by users registered on the server. Such users can download the Standalone Report Designer and create, edit reports. Note that the supported data sources are SqlDataSource and CsvDataSource. Custom data objects are not included.
Registered users can also schedule published reports for export and mailing - Scheduled Tasks Management.
- Localization is not supported by the Standalone Report Designer and the Report Server. If you connect the Report Server to a custom application with a Reporting viewer, you will be able to localize the viewer.
Regards,
Stef
Telerik
Rank 2
Iron
Veteran
Iron
Hi Stef
I have spent a day playing with the report server and looking into what you have explained.
Thank you very much for the detailed reply. Unfortunately it does appear that the report server does not accomplish what the customer is wanting.. but perhaps can be a component of it. However I don't really have the time to look into the feasibility of that.
I wrongly assumed the report server was an 'end user' interface, but I think in my case is cannot be. I assume I would need to develop an interface infront of this.. I think the only thing that is of interest then is the scheduling part, but I have not looked at how this can be setup and defined via an API's
Once again , thank you for the information.. but unfortunately it seems I will have to find another solution. ( Well my customer will have to!)
Cheers
Rob
End users can work with Report Server according to their roles - User Roles. However, to create and modify reports they need to download a Standalone Designer tool.
Regarding the scheduling feature, it can be controlled from Scheduling view where you can manage scheduled tasks, review the created by the tasks documents and manage subscribers.
More details are available in Scheduled Tasks Management help article.
We also have plans to provide a public API for Report Server (Roadmap) through which it also would be possible to control the scheduling.
Regards,
Katia
Telerik by Progress
Rank 1
Hi Rob,
I have a similar requirement here too.. What did the client end up going with?
thanks Tony
Rank 2
Iron
Veteran
Iron
Hey Tony
No Idea.. I think they are still struggling to find something.
Good luck !
Rob
Rank 1
Hi Rob,
thanks - looking at another solution (been around for a while) with "No CALs or Per-User Fees" - which is the issue with the telerik server (I also want a white label solution). I have a multi tenanted solution with 10,000users I need to give access to run reports - happy to have admin users who manage user setup and even scheduling (as a CAL), but I can't afford $100 for an end user which 99% will never actually run a report.
cheers
The approach we can suggest you is:
"To support multitenant scenario, you will need a separate Report Server per tenant.
If you want to use one Report Server, reports can be separated in categories and each report will have to use SQL query or CSV data (the supported data sources) suitable for the tenant. Connection strings will also be per report. Users will request reports anonymously, where in a custom application with the HTML5/WinForms/WPF ReportViewer you will be able to add control over the reports they can see, based on the report category."
The number of CALs should be only the number of users who will generate content (reports) for the Report Server. Then you can have unlimited number of users previewing this content.
As of R3 2016 the Report Server API is exposed for usage in custom applications e.g. one with the HTML5 Viewer - How To: Use HTML5 Report Viewer with Report Server.
Regards,
Stef
Telerik by Progress