Q1 2008 Reporting RoadMap updated

Well into the Q1 2008 release, I am pleased to announce the development plans for Telerik Reporting Q1 2008. With the release expected in April, we will introduce several awesome features:

UI for Report parameters
Telerik Reporting will expose dedicated parameters UI to allow end users to pass parameters to a report in both Win and Web Viewers. Parameters are used to manipulate the report’s data. This will help the user to vary the output of a report at runtime based on values that are preset.

Label reports
The label addition to the report wizard will let the end users to create label reports with ease, choosing from a number of standard label formats (avary, etc.).
When creating a new report with the Report Wizard developers will have the option of selecting a label from a number of standard formats, or creating a custom one if needed; the generated report will be customized according to the selected label specification.

Export to RTF
In 2007, we introduced Export to Excel, so naturally the next in line is support for document that we can open and manipulate with MS Word-like applications. Exporting reports in RTF will enable the end users to view/edit them through MS Word, Open Office or whatever word editor they are using, regardless of the version and operating system. RTF uses the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), PC-8, Macintosh, or IBM PC character set to control the representation and formatting of the document.

Custom Report Items
Our customers are still in front of us, especially when demanding better support of custom implementations. In Q1 2008, we have decided to end the “catch up” game by providing an extension to the reporting engine that would enable developers to add custom functionality and/or extend existing Telerik Reporting functionality. We will document the custom report items in order to make the extension process easy and effortless.

These are the major features we will introduce in Q1 2008. We also expect to enhance several aspects of the existing functionality to bring the usability of the tool to a new level. We are very exited about all the new stuff, and we will do our best to keep you posted on our progress towards Q1 2008.