reporting via vb frontend

  • My goal is to design a reporting tool to allow users to run reports. The goal is for me to be able to add new reports with the little or no coding changes made to the main report screens.

    My company won't buy a reporting portal tool, like Crystal Enterprise. (I know there are some cheaper ones.) I'm thinking of creating a visual basic program that allows the user to choose from some reports. The program will call stored procs to generate the result sets which I will display using ADO in datagrid or flexgrid control and perhaps the crystal activex as well, depending on the report.

    A handful of input criteria should be enough for most reports. For instance, I will provide a date picker to choose a date range, dropdowns or text boxes for them to enter customer numbers, order numbers, etc.  

    If anyone has any sample code for such a interface or tips, I would greatly appreciate your input. Thanks!

     


    smv929

  • If you are using Visual Basic.Net, you might consider using SQL Server Reporting Services.  This is a free add-on for SQL Server, and I believe it does have a Report Designer component to include in your application.

    Hope this helps



    Mark

  • I would:

    1. Store the report id and name in a table

    2. Put a grid control on the front-end

    3. Populate the grid with values from the report table

    4. Let the user double-click the report wanted or highlight and click a Run button and call your sp.

    Let the user pick the report they want from the list by scrolling up and down. This way, all you need to do is keep on adding new reports to the table without modifying the front-end except for parameters needed in the new reports.

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