I'm essentially new to the Telerik reports, I've fixed a few reports, but that's the extent of my knowledge. I'm looking for recommendations on how I can implement them. Here's what I was thinking but I have no idea where to start.

• I'd like to be able to build a report as a standalone dll.
• Drop it into a directory
• Have my application be able to read up enough information to figure out the name of the report
• Then be able to execute it from a menu.

Essentially I'm trying to get to a point where I can dynamically add reports to the environment without any need to modify the application. Any suggestions are welcome.

Hello Rodney,

Reports can be built in DLLs and in XML files.

If you prefer creating DLLs, you need the VS Report Designer - How To: Create a Report (Visual Studio). To display the reports the DLL will have to be referenced in the project where they are processed. Thus adding new reports will have to be done by updating the application.
To read the available reports, you will need to read the loaded assemblies and the types in them. Please consider the example with the ReportManager class in the local examples, installed by default under C:\Program Files (x86)\Telerik\Reporting R2 2016\Examples.


The Telerik.Reporting.Report object can be also serialized in XML (TRDX) or compressed in TRDP, and opened in the Standalone Designer tool. The designer can also directly produce reports - How To: Create a Report (Standalone Report Designer).
The plus is that these files - TRDX and TRDP - can be added without interrupting the running application.
The available reports can be read from the file system.


Designed reports, regardless their format, can be displayed in the existing viewers - Using Telerik Reporting in Applications. Viewers come with VS item templates to ease you in adding them. Reports can be processed without being displayed by using a ReportProcessor instance e.g. Exporting Report Programmatically.


Let us know if you have further questions.

Regards,
Stef
Telerik