rofl

Keith Chisarik

The computer field is the only one that I know of that has more acronyms than the US military

NM, Keith.

AFAIK, IMO, NTF.

IAC, Trent, BTW, helped me with that.

TTYL.

Sorry about that Ivan, I will refrain from using acronyms here.



Alos, I talked to my Active Reports guy, he is currently having trouble with it due to a new release that has some problems. He still thinks it was the best choice based on the features, but is currently working through some issues.



One thing we are missing about Crystal is the slicknes of the drilldown reporting, it seems ActiveReports uses links instead of displaying the drildown in a treeview like Crystal does.

Keith Chisarik

Ivan,

Just for future references, you can always go to www.acronymfinder.com to figure it out   ATM = At the moment.

Just for a good laugh Keith.

I went everywhere trying to find what sort of subscription ATM was.

At the moment, I'm feeling really silly.

Yes, I dont have one ATM.

Keith Chisarik

Thanks, Mike

I do not have as much experience with SQL Server Reporting services.  Overall, SQL Reporting Services is a very good tool and has some features unique to itself that the others do not.  For example, report delivery allows you to have the reports sent to a web page or via email.  Obviously it has enhanced SQL Server support which is very integrated and fast and supports many background working features.  Ironically, though, they do not support as many different data backends as XtraReports or ActiveReports...which I guess makes sense given the name of the engine .  There are some more downsides, first would be the UI.  The UI is nothing but the basics and is hard to make look nice when dropped into a DevExpress or Infragistics environment.  Second, the charting features are not even as extensive as XtraReports out of the box.  Ultimately you can make the reports look anyway you want (including charts) but requires a lot of work on the developers part.  SQL Server Reporting Services is more cumbersome to setup and requires someone with some IT abilities to install.  So if this is used internally this is generally not an issue.  However, if your end-user application will be installed in the field, this is an immediate show stopper.  Last is cost.  It is much more expensive if this product is going to be redistributed since a license is required at each location using the product.  This is one MAJOR benefit of using XtraReports or ActiveReports...royalty-free runtimes.  Very last , if your application needs to support end-user modifications of the reports, it is possible, but will kill your support department since it is designed for developers and is generally way over the heads of the end-users.

SQL Server Reporting Grade: C+

WOW, Trent.

Perfect. Thanks a lot!

You can have a rest now...

Thanks for your feedback Keith.

If you get some more information from your colleague, please, post it here.

Funny you mentioned the support from ActiveReports. I wrote emails to them both, xtra and Active, got many emails from the guys from DevExpress, and none from Active. I got a bit concerned with that, maybe I should try again.

But in general, people do seem to have a preference for ActiveReports. The good thing about DevExpress is that you get the whole package of components by the same price of ActiveReports.

On the other subject, isn't Team Suite part of an MSN subscription ?