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Run Time Designer

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answered on 27 Apr 2010, 08:56 AM

Hi Garry,

We currently don’t have a stand-alone/end user report designer. This is in our TODO list of features and once we start working on it, the Reporting RoadMap would be updated accordingly.
However, your feedback will help us shape our decision when it comes to an end-user report designer, so we have the following questions:
How do you envision the end-user report designer to function? Do you see it desktop-based (WinForms, WPF) or web-based (ASP.NET, Silverlight)? Do you need an application which will allow your users to create reports from a predefined set of database fields (similar to the current designer in Visual Studio), or do you need an analytical application which to allow your users to analyze data (KPIs, trends, cubes, etc)? What is the expected outcome that your users will need to produce?

Sincerely yours,
Steve
the Telerik team

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answered on 27 Apr 2010, 03:03 PM

Steve,
Thank you for your response and I would be glad to help in anyway I can. Basically what we need is a report designer that would allow my end users to create reports based on a certain set of data. They would also need to be able to add parameters/prompts to their reports and share their reports with other users.

I have never really seen the need for advance trends or cube reporting with most clients I have worked with. It's usually just creating basic information out of a system. Most reports are basically just lists that organize all the data into one place and then does some basic calculations on the data returned.

Most of the time to keep the data simple and organized I create views that already contain the tables and fields the user needs by category. For example in our payroll system I have a view called Employee_Company_Information. In that view I basically have everything that report users need to create an employee listing by company. So in terms of data I do think a pre-defined set of data for simplicity sake would be good. It should of course be expandable though so that we can add to it if need be.

As far as environment it would be awesome to have a report designer control(s) that I could add to my application to give this type of functionality. That way the functionality is built into the application my users are already using rather than having a stand alone reporting app. Basically what happens now is that my users develop reports in Crystal and then publish them either to various Windows apps we use or to our companies Intranet which is powered by Sitefinity by the way. :) They can then be viewed using the Crystal Report Viewer control on both the Web or Windows app(s). On the Intranet a custom Sitefinity module, we designed in house, enables them to store their reports in a library and then create report listings they can then place onto pages. When a report is selected it is then sent to another page which then displays the report in the Crystal Viewer. Works pretty good, but again the designer for the reports is not only expensive, but is totally separate from the delivery mechanisms and requires installation on every users machine that needs to create reports.

This is a fairly high level overview of what I would like to see in a run time designer, but will be glad to get more detailed if need.

Garry

answered on 28 Nov 2011, 11:32 PM

Would just like to add that this feature would be very important to me as well. I noticed above the quote "Currently we are working on an end-user designer and we hope to be able to deliver a first version by the end of the year." however I still don't see it on the 2011 roadmap. I am looking to purchase the Telerik asp.net package along with the reporting tool to integrate into my asp.net application currently in development. I will be designing some custom reports ahead of time but it would be very convenient to allow my clients to take it a step further and design their own as well and that would sell me on the whole package.

Thanks!

Rob

answered on 13 Mar 2012, 10:17 AM

Hey Steve,

For now it wouldn't be a problem to use the desktop designer. The only concerns I have are the following requirements:

When a report is created in the desktop designer, it must be possible to upload the XML format file into the ASP;NET solution, to use it in the online reporting tool of ASP.NET.
The customers may not use the SQLDatasource, because the application has more than 100 Tables, .... The requirement is an Object datasource funtionality or webservice.

If the requirements aren't met, we are mandatory to look at other products...

Can you give feedback about this?

Thanks,
Jan

answered on 15 Mar 2012, 04:48 PM

While I agree with Jan that an end user designer that works in some kind of web environment would be nice, I know that it would be extremely hard to develop anything beyond a basic customization of an already defined report. Probably because accessing the entire database or a large sub-section of a database through the client web side would be tough, especially if there are different users with different access levels. I also think that no other Report Viewer engine provides that kind of end user web based report generator.

Still, I think Telerik should look into it for the future. In my opinion it doesn't fall outside of the purpose of what Telerik Reports should be used for. Correct me if I'm wrong.

If you look into it and you decide not to develop it, please give us a reason. Don't dismiss Jan's idea so quickly, because I'm pretty sure many people will be looking for this from a Report Viewing tool that is used on web applications.