Reporting Tutorials

[Randy]

I purchased DevCraft Complete and I'd like to get started with reporting. Does Telerik provide any tutorials for getting started with Reporting? I was able to find one tutorial but that was from 4 years ago. I'm sure a lot has changed since then.

[Stef]

Hello Randy,

Our recommendation is to use the online help.
Telerik Reports are templates that can be designed with the available Report Designers. The result is a .NET class inheriting Telerik.Reporting.Report or a TRDX file containing the serialized in XML Telerik.Reporting.Report object. The report must contain items bound to fields of the assigned data in order to display content - Quickstart (details how to create a report).

There are data source components allowing you to specify how data to be retrieved. For example, the purpose of the ObjectDataSource component is to provide data to the report in a declarative manner. The ObjectDataSource.DataSource should be the assembly qualified name or Type of the data access layer (class), where the reporting engine will use System.Reflection to create the instance of the class (by using its default constructor) and to execute its method specified by the ObjectDataSource.DataMember.
If you want to use already created data objects, you can skip the creating of a data source component.


Once reports are designed, you can display them in viewers - Using Telerik Reporting in Applications. To specify which report will be displayed, you need a ReportSource object, which purpose is to let know the reporting engine in what format is the report (report designed in VS Report Designer, a run-time instance, TRDX, TRDP file or else).

You can check also the local examples installed by default under C:\Program Files (x86)\Telerik\Reporting R1 2017\Examples\CSharp. It is recommended to have reports, data access layer and UI in separate projects.


If you are interested in other resources like training courses, please check Education Services.


Let us know if you need further help.

Regards,
Stef
Telerik by Progress

[Randy]

Thanks Stef. I took a look at the links included in your reply, and none of them seem to address what I want help with. I know how to create a Telerik report. I've already created one. Now I need help in learning how to display the report in my MVC app, using, I presume, the HTML reporting helper. Please note that I am not using a Telerik reporting server. I just want to learn how to display a local Telerik report in my MVC app. 

Thank you.

[Randy]

Hi Stef,

I know how to create a Telerik report. I've already created one. Now I need some thorough documentation on how the display this report in my MVC app. Please note that I'm not using a Telerik reporting server. These will be local reports that need to be displayed on a page in an MVC app. I have very litte documentation on the HTML helper function to do this.

Thank you.

[Stef]

Hello Randy,

The MVC Viewer is a wrapper of the HTML5 Javascript Viewer allowing you to make the initial settings of the viewer in code. Further updates on the viewer can be done in Javascript.

All reports are processed and rendered server-side, where an instance of the Reporting REST Service handles requests what resources have to be produced on the server and returns the rendered content to the client(viewer). The service handles the cache storage as well.


Please check the attached video that illustrates how to add an HTML5 Viewer and Reporting REST Service, and how to update the displayed report. The video can be previewed in IE browser.

The demo is based on the following help articles:

• How To: Use HTML5 ASP.NET MVC Report Viewer in an application
• How To: Add Telerik Reporting REST Web API to Web Application
• reportSource(rs)
• How to: Set ReportSource for Report Viewers operating via Telerik Reporting Services

Regards,
Stef
Telerik by Progress

[Randy]

Thanks Stef. I'm a little confused. Are you saying that in order to use Telerik reporting I have to create an instance of a Reporting REST service hosted on IIS? Even if I don't plan to use the Telerik Reporting Server? My MVC app is hosted on Azure and I was hoping to simply be able to have a controller method called, have the report rendered and returned to the client viewer. It doesn't work this way?

[Stef]

Hello Randy,

Reports are processed and rendered server-side. The HTML5 Viewer is only a container that is filled with content produced on the server by the Reporting REST Service.

On a side note, Telerik Report Server is an application based on Telerik Reporting libraries which also includes REST API that can be used with Telerik Reporting viewers. In this case the Reporting REST Service is not the same as Telrerik Report Server' REST API.


If you are interested in client-side export of documents, please check Telerik Kendo UI libraries e.g. grid and Export API.

Regards,
Stef
Telerik by Progress

[Randy]

Stef - Can the Reporting REST Service be hosted on Azure?

[Stef]

Hello Randy,

Yes, the reporting REST Service can be hosted in Azure with proper Storage settings for a web farm. Also the rendering uses GDI+ methods, and the Azure plan must be considered with the export options you want to support (PDF and XLS required GDI+ support from the hosting).

Regards,
Stef
Telerik by Progress

[Randy]

I've taken a look at Telerik reporting and the documentation, and it sure seems to me Telerik has architected their reporting solution so that no one would ever want to use it. It is over complicated and the documentation is high level at best. No where have I found a step-by-step tutorial on how to implement Telerik reporting  for MVC. The Telerik support staff just keeps providing the same links that do nothing but explain everything at a 30,000 foot level. I am really impressed with Telerik's Kendo UI offering. But your reporting solution leaves a lot to be desired. I'm afraid I'm going to have to find another reporting solution.

[Katia]

Hello Randy,

We would appreciate if you elaborate in details what issues you experience when integrating Telerik Reporting with your MVC application. Did you have a chance to try the suggestions offered by my colleague in this post?
There is a video tutorial attached to this post that illustrates the steps from How To: Use HTML5 ASP.NET MVC Report Viewer in an application help article.

Let us know if you have tested the approach demonstrated in the video and what issues you have faced during the process.


Regards,
Katia
Telerik by Progress

[Randy]

All you guys keep doing is supplying the same help links over and over again. But these links are so piecemeal and high level it's very difficult to put all of it together. 

Why can't you provide a video tutorial on how to implement Telerik reporting report viewer into an MVC app, from start to finish? That would be so helpful. 

This seems to be a common theme with Telerik. I have great respect for Kendo UI. It is a fantastic tool. But the documentation, while there is a lot of it, is often very shallow, not useful and scattered all over the place. Telerik reporting might also be a wonderful tool, but I have no clue on how to implement the viewer in an MVC app. I know how to create a report. But I have yet to see a step by step tutorial on implementing the viewer into an MVC app. On the other hand, I've been supplied, by you folks, a number of links that describe the viewer at a rather high level but that isn't all that useful.

[Randy]

Also, I didn't see any sort of attachment to your last post.

[Stef]

Hello Randy,

Please double-check my post from March 28, in this forum thread - MVCDemo2017R1.zip. The attachment contains a video illustrating the following steps:

1. How to use the design-time support provided by Telerik Reporting in order to add a view with the MVC wrapper of the HTML5 Viewer and a WebAPI controller representing the Reporting REST Service;
2. How to create a report in VS Report Designer by using the available design-time support;
3. How to change the currently displayed report (TRDP and VS Report are used in the video) by adding manually JavaScript code.

The video is a SWF file that can be previewed in IE browser having Flash.


The video does not cover manual settings and modifications of the default VS item template. Let us know more details about the searched functionality in order to provide you further instructions and materials.

Regards,
Stef
Telerik by Progress