I want to create a reporting website and if coding is required, I am familiar with C#. I saw people talking about Crystal Reports but wasn't clear whether it can work well in .NET web application. Besides Crystal, what are the other options? Is there simply a "database browser" web app that only requires a DB connection and all other customization is optional? Sorry for the stupid questions, I have zero experience in reporting.
Thanks
No problem,
It is depend on the report type that do you want to display and data quality that you want to achieve.
You can use traditional spreadsheet like utilizing for MS Excel or other spreadsheet software for half baken report. This report style can be further use or data feed for another report.
This techniques is easy since most of report generated is csv files or xml files that can be imported in spreadsheet.
You can use like Crystal report or report viewer from Microsoft (SQL Server or report viewer). This is an easy way to create report since it intend as presentation or end user support. You can drill down to its detail using report viewer but I suggest you use spreadsheet to do some report operation like pivoting or something.
In this case you concern about data quality too. is it half baken solution;to be processed later; or need cleansing using ETL?
You can use various tools or software like business intelligent tool from Microsoft SQL Server, or IBM tools or oracle tools to do that. There are many of them taht suite to your needs and can be integrate to your software.
If you want a database browser, you can download VS 2010 with SP1 and EF 4.1. I forget the web project template that can use as insert update delete and it is already created for you.
You might want to check Report Viewer for SQL Server Reporting Services or ReportViewer.
Related
Morning all,
I have recently deployed Crystal Reports 2013 and Crystal Server 2013 in a test environment, as we are currently using the 2008 version of both products.
As this deployment is in a test environment; I am keen to implement and try out as much as possible to implement the best solution as possible.
One of the things I have enabled is Auditing. Once set-up I went looking for the best way to utilise this but everything seems to allude to needing a Universe creation tool (Information Design Tool) which I don't have and can't obtain, as our SAP products are provided via a third party and we don't have access to the BI Client Tools.
So I'm back to trying to figure this all out via custom Crystal Reports.... I've read plenty of articles, one which provided me with the links needed between the Database Tables, but there don't seem to be any articles on what tables etc to use.
Has anybody done this?
Thanks in advance for any help, I'm tearing my hair out at the minute!
Direct RBMS access
Have a look at the official SAP documentation (I'm using the BusinessObjects manuals, but information in them should apply to Crystal Server as well), more specifically the Business Intelligence platform Administrator Guide (SP doesn't really matter, auditing doesn't tend to change much within a major release).
There are two sections that are important for you:
The Auditing chapter, more specifically the section regarding Audit events.
The Auditing Data Store Schema Appendix, which contains all the detail regarding the audit schema you could need.
Using a universe
Have a look at the SCN blog post Unlock the Auditing database with a new Universe and Web Intelligence Documents for BI4.1. It contains a download link to an LCMBIAR file which you can import into your BI4 environment, without the need for a universe client tool. There's also a webinar and documentation available. The prebuilt WebI documents should save you a lot of time.
Requirements:
BI Platform BI 4.1 Support Pack 5 or greater for the Web Intelligence Documents
BI Platform BI 4.1.x for the Audit database to be queried
Instructions:
Download the content (take the highest build numbered zip file)
Import one of the five 'Universe' LCMBIAR files into your system using Promotion Management (it will go into BI Platform Auditing folder)
Import the Web Intelligence LCMBIAR file (it will go into BI Platform Auditing folder)
Edit the connection that is imported (in BI Platform Auditing folder) with the correct login credentials.
Open the Web Intelligence document STA1 - Start here - Events over time.wid as your starting point!
The only issue might be with step 4, where you need to edit your connection. I don't know if you'd be able to edit the imported connection through the Crystal Reports application?
I've just started working with Tivoli Common Reporting 2.1.1 using cognos.
Already installed the TCR and configured a datasource to a db2 database by going to: Reporting-Work with reports-Connection-Configuration-Ds connections.
I want to make a small test report connecting to that data base but since I am new to this technology I don't know how to.
Read somewhere that I need to have Framework Manager to create a model and then use Report or Query studio to create a report using that model.
Can anyone help me by guiding me on how to start making this first test report?
From these I am assuming I need this framework, then I have to configure something in that software to point to my db2 then create something of a model.
Then use report or query to handle this model and create a report. I've been reading manuals for a few days but can't seem to get it working otherwise.
Is there anyway to get already made reports and configure them to use my db without using framework manager? since I think framework only works in windows and I installed it in a SUSE.
Tivoli Common Reporting is not an independent product that could be bought separately. It is always shipped with other IBM Tivoli products that have some reporting capabilities. That means you should have some out of the box reports that were shipped with the Tivoli product you bought. You could open these reports in Report Studio and try to modify them. That way you will use the model of these reports, so you won't need Framework Manager.
However when you want to report on data that are not included in the model then you need to use Framework Manager. You are correct that FM is only for Windows, but that shouldn't be a problem. It connect to a TCR/Cognos server on another machine.
Also be aware that there is a license limitation: TCR is provided for free with other Tivoli products, but only for use with Tivoli data. If you want to report on your sells data then you need to purchase Cognos separately.
We are having an SSRS server configured over a live IP. Before I can start building reports, I want to know
What are best practice for developing reports that are easy to deploy
How can I maintain SVN copies of my reports
I was suggested to create shared data sources, what are they and what are benifits?
What are security related best practices regarding the same.
thanks in advance
In my experience in working with SSRS reports, I develop reports using Report Builder 3.0 on the local machine. When it is time to deploy the report upload the RDL file directly (Through Report Builder 3.0) Yes, there is a lot of room for improvement here, but I am not currently aware of any really good SSRS deployment tools and are not custom made.
When working locally on SSRS files, all the files are linked up to source control to track changes across a team.
A Shared Data Source is a separate item stored on the report server that describes a data source connection. I can be reused across multiple reports and subscriptions. This is very useful to have on Development / Beta/ Production reporting servers because you don’t have to re-create connections for each report, and if you keep the data source connection names the same across each box you don’t have to make any changes after you upload your files even though the report may connect to a different database because the connection name is the same. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms159728(SQL.100).aspx
Check out this article on security. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms152825.aspx
I hope this helps a little.
Does anyone know good ways/tools/approaches for using Crystal Reports with Salesforce.com?
I know that Crystal Reports for Salesforce exists but I'm wondering what other possibilities there are...
It looks like your data is tied up with salesforce.com if you can export data you could use crystal reports independent of salesforce.com.
Other links on exporting data:
http://sfdc.arrowpointe.com/2008/04/28/do-you-backup-your-salesforce-data/
http://ideas.salesforce.com/article/show/97976/Export_All_via_Data_Loader
http://ideas.salesforce.com/article/show/23579/Scheduled_Data_Export_to_backup_database
Our solution may not work for you, but we've decided to host our reports on an external reportserver which is written in c# and exposes a SOAP based web service because the Crystal Reports for Salesforce solution you mentioned didn't offer us the flexibility we needed.
The process is essentially:
Salesforce makes a soap based call to the report server
Report server collates data from Salesforce via the Salesforce Soap API
Report server renders the report and returns it to salesforce
To answer my own question, we eventually decided to set up a local read-only copy of the Salesforce database in MS Sql Server, and develop reports based on that. This allowed the report-writing people to use all the familiar SQL tools they know, without the restrictions on what-can-be-joined-to-what that the native Salesforce database has.
We're using a piece of software called DBAmp to do this - It makes Salesforce appear in SQL Server as a 'linked server', and provides stored procedures you can use to download entire Salesforce tables, or just download changes to a Salesforce table since the last time. This makes it very easy to set up a local copy of the data that gets updated every night.
Is there a way to publish my crystal reports and call them throuh html-based parameter page (preferably jsp) to our intranet?
We have developed reports using Crystal Reports, and we want users to be able to call these reports through an HTML-based page through our itnranet.
Any advice?
Well, I see you used the "Crystal Reports Server" tag -- that answers your question right there. :-) It provides web viewing, report scheduling, and all sorts of nifty backend features.
You may also want to consider a solution like rePORTAL at http://www.reportalsoftware.com. It allows you to securely publish reports for web access via your intranet or extranet. No need for coding.