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Feature comparison for Report Builder with other adhoc reporting tools

  • July 23, 2009 at 2:32 am

    #134458

    Dear Forum Members & Guest viewers,

    Requesting your help in directing or providing me with some texts / links or materials in any or all formats to know about the feature comprison between SQL server 2005 report builder and MS - Access and / or Crystal Reports.

    Actually I am preparing a presentation on Report Builder for imparting training to a set of IT Managers and Administrator who are currently using MS Access / Crystal Reports for generating Adhoc Reports. In order to give them a better understanding I want to tell them the advantages and disadvantages too of using Report Builder as compared to other above mentioned reporting tools.

    Looking forward to your kind help and suggestions.

    Thanks A Lot.

    GOD bless you and all...

  • July 23, 2009 at 4:32 am

    #1028843

    http://www.devx.com/codemag/Article/36397

    http://www.silicusblogs.com/kb/software-development-platforms/dotnet-software-development/a-comparative-analysis-of-sql-server-reporting-services-and-crystal-reports.html

  • July 23, 2009 at 6:12 am

    #1028884

    Thanks sql_lock for the quick reply. Quite a help in building the basics.

    The article seems to be more on comparison with SSRS. Can you please guide me in having some article which deals with comparing Report Builder with Crystal Reports / MS - Access report?

    Additionally can you please let me know where I can download PDF tutorials for taking Report Builder from Novice to expert level.

    Thanks a lot once agains for your kind suggestion and help.

    Thanks

  • July 23, 2009 at 7:12 am

    #1028925

    Report builder itself is for novice users (with the exception of formula's - but anyone with Excel exp can pick these up pretty quickly).

    IMO, keep report builder simple for end users to get data from a well defined model.

    A model can be based on a view of collection of tables. Make this easy to use so that users understand the data that is being returned!

    For more complex reports that require SPs then you will need to use the report tool within Visual Studio (shipped with SQL 2005/20080. These can be difficult to novices and I would advise looking and the MS sites and/or buying a book (some good ones out there).

    The building for a report with CR is not really for novices (IMO), but more for intermediate/experts.

    If your going with SSRS I would advise to make various "models" for different areas of the business, so that each end user can create their own reports (my training for this only takes 1 hr) and see the data relevant to their job/role! Implementing this has cut down data requests to systems by 70%, as data wasn't easily extracted from the DB.

    Report builder tutorials

    http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa337398.aspx

    Hope this is clear???

  • July 23, 2009 at 7:43 am

    #1028950

    Thanks sql_lock for your marvellous support.

    Hope I can give better touch to my presentation now.

    Thanks a lot once again.

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