telerik report designer for customers with restricted database access

[Shanthi]

Hello,

 

I have a scenario like I need to give my customers the ability to create ad- hoc report based on their customer ID. And I realized using Telerik report designer , we can’t integrate the report designer to my website for creating ad hoc reports to my customers. So I thought of installing the report designer in customer machine. My concern is do we restrict the customers to see/access the database based on their ID. So each customer can create report only based on their id.

Waiting for an early reply.

 

Santhy

[Peter]

Hi Shanthi,

Generally the DBMS have very good user management tools. Thus our suggestion is to give your clients unique user credentials for database access with the appropriate permissions and restrictions. 

Greetings,
Peter
the Telerik team

[Keith Heilveil]

We are also hoping to using Telerik Report Designer Standalone for clients who want to create there own reports. 

Are there best practices on collaborating with a client that is using Telerik Report Designer Standalone?  

We see that reports created with VS Report Designer can be imported.  Can reports created with Telerik Report Designer Standalone be imported back into VS Report Designer?

[Peter]

Hello Keith,

The trdx report definitions can not be imported/used in the VS report designer. However the standalone report designer is full featured report designer and we encourage our clients to use it. Additionally all of the report viewers and ReportProcessor are compatible with the trdx report definitions.

Greetings,
Peter
the Telerik team

[Mary]

I also have a scenario where I need to give my customers the ability to create ad- hoc report based on their customer ID.  I plan for them to use Report Designer.  I saw a recommendation to use the DBMS to restrict the customers to see/access the database based on their ID. 
I was wondering several things:
1.  Is there another way for this to occur?  For example, can Report Designer somehow access Models/classes built into the code/website?  If so, do you have any documentation or tips on how this can be done?
2.  Do you have any resources with hints or suggestions on the best way(s) to handle DBMS user access/permissions/restrictions?  
3.  Has anyone come up with other solutions to this scenario?  For example, having end-user/custumer point to a dummy/demo database to design the report, and then redirect it somehow (securely) to the live database?  

[Stef]

Hello Mary,

On your questions:

1. You can extend the Standalone Designer with external assemblies containing data and user functions based on the Extending Report Designer article and the resources linked at the bottom. The articles at the bottom provide step-by-step tutorials for extending the designer, and for deploying the report later.
2. In your data base you can create a role and user which have access only to specific objects, where you can add your logic what data to be retrieved. Then on providing the Standalone Designer tool, you can add templates or/and add a global connection string, which connection uses the special user credentials.
3. You can also allow end-user to access a test database, and then change the connection strings at run-time by iterating the deserialized report's Items collection and changing all data items' DataSource properties - Changing the connection string dynamically according to runtime data.

I hope the above information is helpful.

Regards,
Stef
Telerik