I want to take data from a SQL server ans show it in to the user. I have to update the UI as the user's requirement. what are the advantages and disadvantages of both reporting tool?. Also anyone know about the licensing cost for both?
Alias,
both reporting tools are very similar in terms of features. ActiveReports has royalty free distribution and is licensed per developer. the cost ranges from $799-$1599 per developer.
If you are asking about SSRS server, then it is included as part of the SQL server license, however read the license carefully. You cannot install SSRS on a separate server from SQL Server, it requires IIS, both of these items add pressure on your DB installation, which could be an issue in the future. You would need another SQL server license in order to deploy them separately.
I would suggest that you download and try them and see which one is easier and would fit your needs better and review the licensing based on your requirements.
disclaimer - I work for Grapecity maker of ActiveReports.
I am currently working on TFS 2013 and would like to know how to generate custom reports.
Tried google to find out a tutorial but couldn't find anything great. If someone has then please let me know.
Whether SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Reporting Service will be ok for TFS 2013 to generate reports?
TFS has a few mechanisms for doing reporting:
Work Item Queries (WIQ) - Work Item Queries can be created and saved for reuse. Work Item Queries are easy to create, and can answer the majority of questions that users have.
Excel Reporting - Work Item Queries can be exported to Excel to provide more advanced capabilities around analyzing the data resulting from the Query. Various different views of the data along with charts/graphs can be created using standard Excel functionality. Creating Excel Reports requires some expertise in Excel, but the resulting file can be saved and the data can be automatically refreshed from TFS.
SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) - This is the most advanced Reporting option. SSRS reports require a developer to create, but it provides the flexibility to report and analyze any data stored in TFS in almost any way imaginable.
TFS Web Access (TWA) - TFS Web Access provides some basic charts/graphs that can be viewed in the browser (Burndown, Cumulative Flow, Velocity Chart, etc). In addition, web-based Charts/Graphs can be generated based on the results of Work Item Queries. This is less flexible than the Excel option, but also more user-friendly and usable by any TFS user.
The advanced option - SSRS Reports - are just your run-of-the-mill SSRS reports that use the TFS Data Warehouse and/or the TFS Cube as a data source. You can read a guide about developing custom SSRS reports for TFS here: http://vsarreportguide.codeplex.com/
For example I have a database, and want to have good automaticly generated admin for it. Is there software for this?
Not sure what your question is. What kind of admin tasks are you trying to automate?
The SQL Server Agent service can handle a lot of the scheduled aspect, as well as alerts for certain conditions. Policy Based Management can log and restrict certain database params across a single instance or multiple ones.
What more are you looking for? SSMS is the gui that sits on top of SQL Server for an easy implementation.
To all,
I have noticed that other reporting tools allow you the option, at the time of running a report from the web interface, to either have it rendered to the browser or allow you to enter an email address have have the report sent to that address. This would be helpful for long running reports or reports that are fairly large.
My question is whether this can be done with the existing sql server 2008 report server toolset or if there are third part solutions available?
Thanks.
--sean
I don't think that what you are wanting to do is possible out of the box.
This may seem like overkill for your situation, however, I have worked for a client who wanted some custom features like this. Given that Report Manager is so inflexible out of the box, we wrote a new front end leveraging the Reporting Services Service. We could then write our own extended capabilities right into the new viewer.
This link describes it a bit more.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms159218.aspx
You can setup a subscription on a report which will email it too you once or at regular intervals.
This Link give you more info. Be aware that if you want data driven subscriptions you need enterprise sql server.
Our centralized IT department has suggested two primary ad hoc query tools for our general user base of approximately 200 staff members:
Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 2008 (SSMS)
Microsoft Access 2003
Environment
The backend database is a read-only Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database.
The schema is 400+ tables; allowing access to the raw data for our general staff would be a disaster.
We will be building an "abstraction layer" over the raw data for our general staff to run ad hoc queries against.
The abstraction layer will most likely contain a number of views.
A number of users have basic knowledge in Microsoft Access; none have used SSMS.
Which of the above tools (or alternative) would be best for a decidedly non-techie user base of approximately 200 people? What are the pros and cons of each?
Also, the IT department has suggested teaching people T-SQL so they may use SSMS. Is this reasonable?
How about this one? i-net Clear Reports (used to be called i-net Crystal-Clear) has a powerful ad-hoc reporting component that is made to be an easy-to-use thing for non-technical users. Your users won't have to know anything about reporting at all. They simply select the kind of report, the data et voila there is a report suiting the needs.
The data abstraction can be done easily by creating so called data-views which can be designed by e.g. your administration. There are various ways to access the ad hoc reporting GUI. We have a web GUI, a Java Applet or a standalone Java program.
The end users will not need any training since the GUI is highly intuitive.
The views can easily be build by drag and drop in addition to setting datatypes, formats and so on.
All reports (depending on security settings) can be accessed via DAV our a report repository gui.
The server supports different security settings on a per user or per group basis.
The standalone report designer is free and fully functional.
Disclosure: Yep. I work for the company who built this.
Your "abstraction layer" is the right approach to take with Access. Create an MDB with the basic views required linked into it and distribute to the users. Allow them to create new queries and reports in their own MDB as required.
Now how you are going to stop them from running a Cartesian join on tables with a million records or more I'm not quite sure.
Microsoft have a free tool for business and end users which called "Report Builder". It supports the full capabilities of SQL Server Reporting Services. The good thing it is provides a Microsoft Office look-like user interface.
You can download latest version "Report Builder 3.0" from here
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?DisplayLang=en&id=6116
And for more information about MS Report Builder check this link
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd207008.aspx
Attempting to teach "non-techie" people T-SQL to query a schema with 400+ tables probably isn't going to do well, unless they are limited to querying the views only, and the views hide all the ugly complexities of various joins, grouping etc.
Our company was in a similar situation where Access was used early on, and then we switched everyone over to use T-SQL and SSMS. IMO, this is the approach you'd want to take.
Again though, the success of this will depend on the quality of your views, or better yet, reports you provide your end-users.
Randy
I would look more into something like Stonefieldquery.com that is designed for non developers to build reports. Not that the report writer or query builder in Access is bad, but may be too much. I think they also provide a way to centralize reports and queries where they can be shared. Multiple people are not going to be able to open a single access file and create a report (I think query building is OK.).
Most will use the drag and drop capability, but about 5-10%will come thing a need for SQL and then you can take advantage of the "teachable moment" and get them some training.
Cons for Access certainly would be cost; SSMS should be free assuming you're properly licensed for the SQL server.
Depending on the actual needs, some users might actually be better off with Crystal Reports (never thought I'd say that), or Reporting Services.
you could create a series of sql server analysis cubes and have the users conenct to those using excel so that they can use excel's pivot tables.
Being a newbie at ad hoc reporting and doing the work myself, I used Izenda.com ad hoc reporting. It was very straight forward, and I could do it myself versus outsourcing.
Check SQLS*Plus - http://www.sqlsplus.com
I found SQLS*Plus to be a very effective command line SQL server reporting tool - this is a free tool (for personal use) and allows me to generate reports with the titles, headers, in HTML and CSV formats, format columns in custom masks, set report length, pagesize, etc. As I understand it is very similar to very well known Oracle SQL*Plus reporting tool