There are times in a developer’s life when you get to use
great new tools. Recently, at a client site, I was asked to create a few web
based reports that would fit into the application that I was working on. I was
given my options; create them using a repeater control, Crystal Reports or
Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS).
Each of these comes with their own benefits and detractions
straight from the top.
The repeater control is easy to get the data formatted, but
getting the pages to break in the correct spot is notoriously painful.
Crystal Reports is standard, a little painful, but easy to
develop. However, in production there would have been some licensing difficulties.
I was “encouraged” to not use Crystal.
SSRS are great when they are installed on a SQL Server.
However, this client did not have them installed and had no intention of
installing them on the SQL Server 2000 database that the application would run
upon. Plans to add a SQL Server 2005 instance were in the plans, but not until
after this application needed released.
SSRS was the preferred option, not only by the client, but
by me as well. Then the dilemma struck me, I had never used SSRS locally. Thus began
my local SSRS adventure.
