Looking for recommendations for reporting technologies replacements

  • Here at work I've been maintaining an old ASP.NET WebForms app. I was assigned it when I came to this job. I never met the original developers, as they'd all left before I was hired. Anyway, this old app has several problems, include multiple .NET Frameworks have been used for the 9 projects that comprise the Visual Studio solution, some of them being as old as .NET Framework 2. This old app was written using a really old versions of Crystal Reports. I don't know which version of Crystal it was originally written to use. I've got it now on some NuGet packages such as CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Engine version 1.0.0, by zqb971. Anyway, I don't have the Crystal report writer application on my dev box, and I won't be getting it.

    I believe I'll get the green light to upgrade this old app to .NET 8. And one of the major considerations will be what technology to adopt for reporting. Since Crystal is out of consideration, I've been thinking about what other reporting technologies I could use, that will work with .NET 8. Of course, there's always SSRS, but I'd like to consider other possible reporting technologies. I have played around with Jupyter Notebooks. I do like the ease of generating reports using Jupyter Notebooks, and I think it might be possible to incorporate Jupyter Notebooks into an ASP.NET Core Web app. I don't know if it would be possible to write reports using Jupyter Notebooks, that would be canned reports accepting only parameters, such as start and end dates. I want to restrict the users to entering values on agreed upon parameters, so maybe Jupyter Notebooks is not a good idea.

    Anyway, what reporting technologies do you recommend I consider for a new ASP.NET Web app written using .NET 8?

    Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.

  • I've used the DevExpress tools for quite a few reports in the past. I used them in Winforms applications, but they have ASP.NET tools as well.

  • Thank you, Chris.

    Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.

  • Rod at work wrote:

    I don't know if it would be possible to write reports using Jupyter Notebooks, that would be canned reports accepting only parameters, such as start and end dates. I want to restrict the users to entering values on agreed upon parameters, so maybe Jupyter Notebooks is not a good idea.

    Anyway, what reporting technologies do you recommend I consider for a new ASP.NET Web app written using .NET 8?

    Excel that allows users to fill in parameters, click a button, and a stored procedure runs to return the data.  We do it a lot and it has been working very well for more than 12 years now.  Also allows for "AD" security, etc.

    --Jeff Moden


    RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
    First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
    ________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

    Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.


    Helpful Links:
    How to post code problems
    How to Post Performance Problems
    Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

  • Thank you, Jeff. That would only require installing Office, or at least Excel, on the server, correct? I could document which version of Excel is used.

    Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.

  • Rod at work wrote:

    Thank you, Jeff. That would only require installing Office, or at least Excel, on the server, correct? I could document which version of Excel is used.

    No, this is not correct. Users would connect to the SQL Server instance from Office on their own machines. Knowing Jeff, he'll have all of the security configured so that the users can run their reporting procs and nothing more than that.

    My question for Jeff, however, relates to the management of the Excel template files which are used for reporting. How are new versions distributed and how do you ensure that old versions can no longer be used?

    The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
    Martin Rees

    You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead.
    Stan Laurel

  • The following is a .NET reporting solution:

    .NET and JS Reporting Solutions | Design Custom Reports in Code | ActiveReports (mescius.com)

     

  • Thank you, Ken.

    Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.

  • Rod at work wrote:

    Thank you, Jeff. That would only require installing Office, or at least Excel, on the server, correct? I could document which version of Excel is used.

    No.  Absolutely not.  It only requires installing the "ACE" drivers.  They're a bit like the old "JET" drivers, not quite as good, but still incredibly handy if you Keep It Super Simple.

    --Jeff Moden


    RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
    First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
    ________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

    Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.


    Helpful Links:
    How to post code problems
    How to Post Performance Problems
    Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

  • Phil Parkin wrote:

    Rod at work wrote:

    Thank you, Jeff. That would only require installing Office, or at least Excel, on the server, correct? I could document which version of Excel is used.

    No, this is not correct. Users would connect to the SQL Server instance from Office on their own machines. Knowing Jeff, he'll have all of the security configured so that the users can run their reporting procs and nothing more than that.

    That, good Sir, is absolutely correct.

    Phil Parkin wrote:

    My question for Jeff, however, relates to the management of the Excel template files which are used for reporting. How are new versions distributed and how do you ensure that old versions can no longer be used?

    Very fortunately, I'm not the one that has to worry about that.  However, I can tell you that they have a "network drive" and directories for "groups" of people.  The folks on the IT side of the house keep the old versions in SVN and push the new versions to those directories if and when needed.  I'm not privy to how they manage it but, from having worked with some of the users, they have it managed very well.  The "masters" cannot be overwritten and people have access to the spreadsheets/directories according to their respective AD user groups.

    I'm also not privy to how our NetOps group takes care of backups... I only know that they are backed up and it takes little to restore a single file.

    The reason why I don't know much about exactly how they're doing things is because I elected to not know... I have enough to do. 😀

    --Jeff Moden


    RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
    First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
    ________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

    Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.


    Helpful Links:
    How to post code problems
    How to Post Performance Problems
    Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

  • Telerik has some reporting tools.

    There are PowerBI embeds, but that can be a pain.

     

    Is this for auth'd users (on your domain) or non-auth'd users?

  • Steve Jones - SSC Editor wrote:

    Telerik has some reporting tools.

    There are PowerBI embeds, but that can be a pain.

    Is this for auth'd users (on your domain) or non-auth'd users?

    Good question. Authorized users in our domain.

    Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.

  • Authorized users means that the Power stuff  from MS (check licensing) makes adding reporting and interactive apps easy.

     

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