Several questions

[damian]

Hello, Im new at this, I am watching how the Telerik Reporting and I have the following questions:

We need a developer to download and install the Telerik Reporting Trial solution to see if it addresses our needs.  We need to specifically look at the following feature evaluation:

1. What type of data source specifications are supported?  Can we specify a data source at run-time?  This may be necessary to properly implement our multi-tenant reporting solution.
2. Can we build a chart/graph only report that would work in our dashboard.  These would have a different data source than the standard reports.
3. Can parameters be passed via URL to a report?
4. How is the reporting solution installed?  Will it require a dedicated server?
5. Can we foresee any security issues?  Will we have to expose the reporting or transactional database to the web tier?
6. How effective is it's support for MySQL?
7. How do we implement hidden parameters in a report?  We need to be able to implement a CustomerID parameter that is programatically set which cannot be intercepted or modified by the end user.  This is required for multi-tenant security.
8. Need to determine if we need to purchase the source code.
9. Can we programatically invoke an existing report, intercept the output and send it to a mail server as an attachment to an email?  Basically, this would be a roll-your-own report scheduler.
10. How are reports persisted (file system, compiled code, etc.)?  How difficult to add new reports to the system?

I hope you can help me.
Thank you!

Greetings. Damian from Argentina

[Rossen Hristov]

Hi damian,

Thank you for the interest in our product. Now on to your questions:

1. Telerik Reporting supports all the standard .NET data source objects. You can specify a data source at runtime.
2. Telerik Reporting does have a Chart report item. The Chart has its own separate data source set in the event handler of its NeedDataSource event, so that should be entirely possible. A demonstration of this can be seen in the ProductLineSales sample report that is installed with Telerik Reporting.
3. While not automatically, parameters can be passed, but that depends on the developer, i.e. he can pass any URL parameters, read them in the Page_Load method and then pass them down to the report by using Report Parameters.
4. Telerik Reporting is an embedded reporting engine and as such can be used in any .NET application, be it Windows Forms, ASP.NET or a console application. You do not need to install Telerik Reporting on a Web Server, you only need to have the required assemblies in the Bin folder of the ASP.NET application using Telerik Reporting. Same applies for Windows Forms applications.
5. Since Telerik Reporting does not rely on its own reporting database, data layer, or report server you will not need to expose anything. Telerik Reporting uses the ADO.NET data providers and data objects to connect to its data source, so it is not different from any other .NET application connecting to data in the same manner.
6. Generally, the ADO.NET 2.0 data providers are all used in a similar manner. All data provides come with a standard set of objects. All these objects are derived from base classes mandated from the ADO.NET 2. This way all data provider-specific objects have similar and well known interfaces. The base classes I'm talking about are defined in the System.Data.Common namespace (System.Data.dll) and here are some of the most important:
   
   • DbConnection
   • DbCommand
   • DbDataAdapter
   • DbDataReader
   
   A good place to learn more about the ADO.NET 2 data providers is MSDN: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cy5kfe3c(VS.80).aspx .
   
   The idea behind the ADO.NET2 data providers is that they simplify their usage and are interchangeable. This means that they all follow the same pattern regardless of your connection to SQL, Oracle, Access, MySQL or other data base. The only thing that you should do is to use the correct set of objects.
   
   Here is a link to one of our forums that provides a sample demonstrating how to connect to MySQL. Please take a look at it to get a better understanding of the topic.
7. Each report is a .NET class. The Report class has a Parameters property that exposes a collection of report parameters. Unless the developer explicitly provides a way for the user to modify those parameters, for example an UI, they cannot be seen by the end users. In other words it is up to the developer to decide what to expose to the end-users and what not, like in any other .NET application.
8. The source code comes as part of the Subsription package, which is the best deal in terms of what you get. If you chose to purchase Telerik Reporting with subscription you will get the Gold Support Package and the source code as well. Another benefit is that as a subscription holder you are entitled to all new major and minor releases of Telerik Reporting for one year from the date of purchase.
   Non-subscription licenses come with Silver Support (48 hours guaranteed response time) and get only minor version upgrades.
9. Yes, it is possible to meet your requirements with our product, even thought you do not have this functionality out of the box.
   
   There are two subtasks:
   1. Export the report programmatically to PDF format.
   2. Email the resulting stream/file as an attachment.
   
   There is a Knowledge Base article called Saving a report into PDF format programmatically that addresses the first task. And a full sample covering the whole scenario you can find at the forum thread Send a report by email. Additionally there is CodeLibrary entry that provides the implementation of this task.
10. Reports are .NET classes and as such they are compiled and stored in .NET assemblies. A new report is added by opening the respective Visual Studio Project, adding the report to it in the same manner that you add a new WebForm for example, designing it with the provided Visual Studio Report Designer and re-compiling the project. The latest version of the .NET assembly has to be replaced on the WebServer if the new report is to show up.

I hope that those answers will provide you with the needed information to get you started.

I strongly suggest that you download the free trial version of Telerik Reporting and test it in your environment in order to see whether it will fulfill you specific requirements. This is the best way to evaluate the product. The trial version is fully functional and free to download. It can be used for building real-life applications and its only limitation is a trial message appearing in the different report formats. If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to contact us again -- we would be glad to help.

Greetings,
Ross
the Telerik team

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