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How to create a report (invoice)?I need to create a couple of reports, invoices, credit reports, etc...
My question is: How/what is the best way to go about this using VB2005 / SQL Server 2000 Crystal Reports? MS Reporting? Home brew using print document? (Program to be distributed thoughout this office and possibly to a few other organizations that have expressed an interest). I've taken a couple of stabs at this and either this is more complicated that it should be, or I'm oblivious to it's simplicity. ie, trying to get either of these to print a phone number stored as 5555555555 to print as (555) 555-5555 eludes me. If there is a simple way to do this, I just can't figure it out. Crystal Reports has tons of bad rap in the newsgroups for being over bloated and riddled with bugs and nuances. Conjecture, or the best tool for the job? Quite frankly, if it is a new project, or I am adding reporting to a
project that doesn't have reporting in it already, I will always pick something other than Crystal Reports. It just sucks in a massive way, and has not (in my opinion) done what it needs to do in order to make itself a viable reporting option for .NET solutions. There are plenty of reporting options out there. ActiveReports is one that comes to mind. You should be able to google "reporting components" and come up with a few. Hope this helps. -- Show quoteHide quote- Nicholas Paldino [.NET/C# MVP] - mvp@spam.guard.caspershouse.com <itm***@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1156429950.885067.178480@75g2000cwc.googlegroups.com... >I need to create a couple of reports, invoices, credit reports, etc... > > My question is: How/what is the best way to go about this using > VB2005 / SQL Server 2000 > > Crystal Reports? MS Reporting? Home brew using print document? > (Program to be distributed thoughout this office and possibly to a few > other organizations that have expressed an interest). > > I've taken a couple of stabs at this and either this is more > complicated that it should be, or I'm oblivious to it's simplicity. > ie, trying to get either of these to print a phone number stored as > 5555555555 to print as (555) 555-5555 eludes me. If there is a simple > way to do this, I just can't figure it out. > > Crystal Reports has tons of bad rap in the newsgroups for being over > bloated and riddled with bugs and nuances. Conjecture, or the best > tool for the job? > So, what you're saying is, nothing that ships with VS 2005 is worth
using and I should look at 3rd party $$$ components for reports of any kind? Discouraging. I heard MS Small Business Accounting was written in .NET. I guess that explains why there is no reporting in that app without the accompaniment of MS Office 2003. Nicholas Paldino [.NET/C# MVP] wrote: Show quoteHide quote > Quite frankly, if it is a new project, or I am adding reporting to a > project that doesn't have reporting in it already, I will always pick > something other than Crystal Reports. It just sucks in a massive way, and > has not (in my opinion) done what it needs to do in order to make itself a > viable reporting option for .NET solutions. > > There are plenty of reporting options out there. ActiveReports is one > that comes to mind. You should be able to google "reporting components" and > come up with a few. > > Hope this helps. > > > -- > - Nicholas Paldino [.NET/C# MVP] > - mvp@spam.guard.caspershouse.com > > <itm***@gmail.com> wrote in message > news:1156429950.885067.178480@75g2000cwc.googlegroups.com... > >I need to create a couple of reports, invoices, credit reports, etc... > > > > My question is: How/what is the best way to go about this using > > VB2005 / SQL Server 2000 > > > > Crystal Reports? MS Reporting? Home brew using print document? > > (Program to be distributed thoughout this office and possibly to a few > > other organizations that have expressed an interest). > > > > I've taken a couple of stabs at this and either this is more > > complicated that it should be, or I'm oblivious to it's simplicity. > > ie, trying to get either of these to print a phone number stored as > > 5555555555 to print as (555) 555-5555 eludes me. If there is a simple > > way to do this, I just can't figure it out. > > > > Crystal Reports has tons of bad rap in the newsgroups for being over > > bloated and riddled with bugs and nuances. Conjecture, or the best > > tool for the job? > > If you are using MS SQL, look at MS SQL Reporting Services. It is a great
tool that integrates with VS. <itm***@gmail.com> wrote in message Show quoteHide quote news:1156435347.481195.54080@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com... > So, what you're saying is, nothing that ships with VS 2005 is worth > using and I should look at 3rd party $$$ components for reports of any > kind? Discouraging. > > I heard MS Small Business Accounting was written in .NET. I guess that > explains why there is no reporting in that app without the > accompaniment of MS Office 2003. > > Nicholas Paldino [.NET/C# MVP] wrote: >> Quite frankly, if it is a new project, or I am adding reporting to a >> project that doesn't have reporting in it already, I will always pick >> something other than Crystal Reports. It just sucks in a massive way, >> and >> has not (in my opinion) done what it needs to do in order to make itself >> a >> viable reporting option for .NET solutions. >> >> There are plenty of reporting options out there. ActiveReports is >> one >> that comes to mind. You should be able to google "reporting components" >> and >> come up with a few. >> >> Hope this helps. >> >> >> -- >> - Nicholas Paldino [.NET/C# MVP] >> - mvp@spam.guard.caspershouse.com >> >> <itm***@gmail.com> wrote in message >> news:1156429950.885067.178480@75g2000cwc.googlegroups.com... >> >I need to create a couple of reports, invoices, credit reports, etc... >> > >> > My question is: How/what is the best way to go about this using >> > VB2005 / SQL Server 2000 >> > >> > Crystal Reports? MS Reporting? Home brew using print document? >> > (Program to be distributed thoughout this office and possibly to a few >> > other organizations that have expressed an interest). >> > >> > I've taken a couple of stabs at this and either this is more >> > complicated that it should be, or I'm oblivious to it's simplicity. >> > ie, trying to get either of these to print a phone number stored as >> > 5555555555 to print as (555) 555-5555 eludes me. If there is a simple >> > way to do this, I just can't figure it out. >> > >> > Crystal Reports has tons of bad rap in the newsgroups for being over >> > bloated and riddled with bugs and nuances. Conjecture, or the best >> > tool for the job? >> > > No, I said Crystal Reports sucks. That doesn't imply that nothing that
ships with VS 2005 is worth using. It just implies that Crystal Reports sucks (IMO). You might want to try SQL Reporting Services. -- Show quoteHide quote- Nicholas Paldino [.NET/C# MVP] - mvp@spam.guard.caspershouse.com <itm***@gmail.com> wrote in message news:1156435347.481195.54080@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com... > So, what you're saying is, nothing that ships with VS 2005 is worth > using and I should look at 3rd party $$$ components for reports of any > kind? Discouraging. > > I heard MS Small Business Accounting was written in .NET. I guess that > explains why there is no reporting in that app without the > accompaniment of MS Office 2003. > > Nicholas Paldino [.NET/C# MVP] wrote: >> Quite frankly, if it is a new project, or I am adding reporting to a >> project that doesn't have reporting in it already, I will always pick >> something other than Crystal Reports. It just sucks in a massive way, >> and >> has not (in my opinion) done what it needs to do in order to make itself >> a >> viable reporting option for .NET solutions. >> >> There are plenty of reporting options out there. ActiveReports is >> one >> that comes to mind. You should be able to google "reporting components" >> and >> come up with a few. >> >> Hope this helps. >> >> >> -- >> - Nicholas Paldino [.NET/C# MVP] >> - mvp@spam.guard.caspershouse.com >> >> <itm***@gmail.com> wrote in message >> news:1156429950.885067.178480@75g2000cwc.googlegroups.com... >> >I need to create a couple of reports, invoices, credit reports, etc... >> > >> > My question is: How/what is the best way to go about this using >> > VB2005 / SQL Server 2000 >> > >> > Crystal Reports? MS Reporting? Home brew using print document? >> > (Program to be distributed thoughout this office and possibly to a few >> > other organizations that have expressed an interest). >> > >> > I've taken a couple of stabs at this and either this is more >> > complicated that it should be, or I'm oblivious to it's simplicity. >> > ie, trying to get either of these to print a phone number stored as >> > 5555555555 to print as (555) 555-5555 eludes me. If there is a simple >> > way to do this, I just can't figure it out. >> > >> > Crystal Reports has tons of bad rap in the newsgroups for being over >> > bloated and riddled with bugs and nuances. Conjecture, or the best >> > tool for the job? >> > > itm***@gmail.com wrote:
Show quoteHide quote > I need to create a couple of reports, invoices, credit reports, etc... The first question you have to ask yourself is: what is the .NET code> > My question is: How/what is the best way to go about this using > VB2005 / SQL Server 2000 > > Crystal Reports? MS Reporting? Home brew using print document? > (Program to be distributed thoughout this office and possibly to a few > other organizations that have expressed an interest). > > I've taken a couple of stabs at this and either this is more > complicated that it should be, or I'm oblivious to it's simplicity. > ie, trying to get either of these to print a phone number stored as > 5555555555 to print as (555) 555-5555 eludes me. If there is a simple > way to do this, I just can't figure it out. > > Crystal Reports has tons of bad rap in the newsgroups for being over > bloated and riddled with bugs and nuances. Conjecture, or the best > tool for the job? going to do in all of this? Let me outline two scenarios. Scenario 1: Your .NET code get some data from "somewhere", maybe asks the user some questions, does some sophisticated computing, and produces data _on the fly_ that then must be formatted into a report. Admittedly, an unlikely scenario for something as bland as an invoice. Call this a "push" scenario. Probably not your case. Scneario 2: The data is in SQL Server. The .NET code is just to make the report happen. The report itself is free to pull the data from SQL Server and do whatever formatting is necessary in order to produce the report. Call this a "pull" scenario. If your situation is a "pull" (scenario 2) then I would definitely investigate SQL Reporting Services first and foremost. I've done some brief fiddling with it from .NET and once you have the basics figured out it should be smooth sailing. However, SQL Reporting Services practically requires a "pull" model: you define the report, put it on SQL Server, and then the report is responsible for doing the SQL queries necessary to gather the data. The only data your app gets to "send" to the report is report arguments... so, a few simple values. In my company, we're stuck with doing a "push": the application produces the data on the fly. The report can't pull the data from a database because the data is never in a database. In a case like this, SQL Reporting Services "isn't there yet," although if they get this working I'll be jumping on board. Instead, we use Crystal. Yes, it has a bad rap, and if you want to do anything with dynamic images (product catalogs, etc) or with fancy printer wrangling (selecting input trays, output trays, etc) then Crystal sucks the big one. However, if all you want is to lay up some text on a page, and your company is flexible about format (so you can adapt your format to avoid things that Crystal does particularly badly, like vertical lines separating columns of text), then it works just fine. We use it constantly and the only person going nuts is me: I sort the bugs out beforehand and the users have no problems. I've heard that Active Reports is also a good package. So... if you can get away with a "pull", look into SQL Reporting Services. If you're stuck with a "push", look into Active Reports, and don't discount Crystal for doing simple stuff; it's not all _that_ buggy. This was the answer I was looking for. Thank you for the detailed
response. Although I hit a road block when trying to get the phone numbers to format using MS Reporting, I will persue this avenue more thoroughly. How would this be done, if I can ask here? Format the phone number as mentioned in the previous text. Also, when you say put the report on the server, it will work with SQL 2000, right? Don't know if we are ready (translation: can afford) to upgrade to SQL 2005 workgroup just yet. Bruce Wood wrote: Show quoteHide quote > itm***@gmail.com wrote: > > I need to create a couple of reports, invoices, credit reports, etc... > > > > My question is: How/what is the best way to go about this using > > VB2005 / SQL Server 2000 > > > > Crystal Reports? MS Reporting? Home brew using print document? > > (Program to be distributed thoughout this office and possibly to a few > > other organizations that have expressed an interest). > > > > I've taken a couple of stabs at this and either this is more > > complicated that it should be, or I'm oblivious to it's simplicity. > > ie, trying to get either of these to print a phone number stored as > > 5555555555 to print as (555) 555-5555 eludes me. If there is a simple > > way to do this, I just can't figure it out. > > > > Crystal Reports has tons of bad rap in the newsgroups for being over > > bloated and riddled with bugs and nuances. Conjecture, or the best > > tool for the job? > > The first question you have to ask yourself is: what is the .NET code > going to do in all of this? Let me outline two scenarios. > > Scenario 1: Your .NET code get some data from "somewhere", maybe asks > the user some questions, does some sophisticated computing, and > produces data _on the fly_ that then must be formatted into a report. > Admittedly, an unlikely scenario for something as bland as an invoice. > Call this a "push" scenario. Probably not your case. > > Scneario 2: The data is in SQL Server. The .NET code is just to make > the report happen. The report itself is free to pull the data from SQL > Server and do whatever formatting is necessary in order to produce the > report. Call this a "pull" scenario. > > If your situation is a "pull" (scenario 2) then I would definitely > investigate SQL Reporting Services first and foremost. I've done some > brief fiddling with it from .NET and once you have the basics figured > out it should be smooth sailing. However, SQL Reporting Services > practically requires a "pull" model: you define the report, put it on > SQL Server, and then the report is responsible for doing the SQL > queries necessary to gather the data. The only data your app gets to > "send" to the report is report arguments... so, a few simple values. > > In my company, we're stuck with doing a "push": the application > produces the data on the fly. The report can't pull the data from a > database because the data is never in a database. In a case like this, > SQL Reporting Services "isn't there yet," although if they get this > working I'll be jumping on board. > > Instead, we use Crystal. Yes, it has a bad rap, and if you want to do > anything with dynamic images (product catalogs, etc) or with fancy > printer wrangling (selecting input trays, output trays, etc) then > Crystal sucks the big one. However, if all you want is to lay up some > text on a page, and your company is flexible about format (so you can > adapt your format to avoid things that Crystal does particularly badly, > like vertical lines separating columns of text), then it works just > fine. We use it constantly and the only person going nuts is me: I sort > the bugs out beforehand and the users have no problems. > > I've heard that Active Reports is also a good package. > > So... if you can get away with a "pull", look into SQL Reporting > Services. > > If you're stuck with a "push", look into Active Reports, and don't > discount Crystal for doing simple stuff; it's not all _that_ buggy. First, I must admit that I have very, very limited experience with SQL
Reporting Services. My understanding is that you design a report and that it lives on the SQL Server. When you want to render that report, you send a request from your .NET app to the server giving an indication of which report you want to run and any simple arguments you want to pass it. The result that comes back is in Windows meta file (WMF) format, which you can then format into report pages in your app. At least, the only time I played with this, that is how it worked. That's why Reporting Services can't do push: you just say, "Report, run thyself" and it fetches its own data from the database. There no way to say, "Report, run thyself and here is your data." Please understand that this is all based on a couple of days' messing about with the thing. Someone else may post that it doesn't have to work this way and there are other ways of using it. I don't know. itm***@gmail.com wrote: Show quoteHide quote > This was the answer I was looking for. Thank you for the detailed > response. Although I hit a road block when trying to get the phone > numbers to format using MS Reporting, I will persue this avenue more > thoroughly. > > How would this be done, if I can ask here? Format the phone number as > mentioned in the previous text. > > Also, when you say put the report on the server, it will work with SQL > 2000, right? Don't know if we are ready (translation: can afford) to > upgrade to SQL 2005 workgroup just yet. > > Bruce Wood wrote: > > itm***@gmail.com wrote: > > > I need to create a couple of reports, invoices, credit reports, etc... > > > > > > My question is: How/what is the best way to go about this using > > > VB2005 / SQL Server 2000 > > > > > > Crystal Reports? MS Reporting? Home brew using print document? > > > (Program to be distributed thoughout this office and possibly to a few > > > other organizations that have expressed an interest). > > > > > > I've taken a couple of stabs at this and either this is more > > > complicated that it should be, or I'm oblivious to it's simplicity. > > > ie, trying to get either of these to print a phone number stored as > > > 5555555555 to print as (555) 555-5555 eludes me. If there is a simple > > > way to do this, I just can't figure it out. > > > > > > Crystal Reports has tons of bad rap in the newsgroups for being over > > > bloated and riddled with bugs and nuances. Conjecture, or the best > > > tool for the job? > > > > The first question you have to ask yourself is: what is the .NET code > > going to do in all of this? Let me outline two scenarios. > > > > Scenario 1: Your .NET code get some data from "somewhere", maybe asks > > the user some questions, does some sophisticated computing, and > > produces data _on the fly_ that then must be formatted into a report. > > Admittedly, an unlikely scenario for something as bland as an invoice. > > Call this a "push" scenario. Probably not your case. > > > > Scneario 2: The data is in SQL Server. The .NET code is just to make > > the report happen. The report itself is free to pull the data from SQL > > Server and do whatever formatting is necessary in order to produce the > > report. Call this a "pull" scenario. > > > > If your situation is a "pull" (scenario 2) then I would definitely > > investigate SQL Reporting Services first and foremost. I've done some > > brief fiddling with it from .NET and once you have the basics figured > > out it should be smooth sailing. However, SQL Reporting Services > > practically requires a "pull" model: you define the report, put it on > > SQL Server, and then the report is responsible for doing the SQL > > queries necessary to gather the data. The only data your app gets to > > "send" to the report is report arguments... so, a few simple values. > > > > In my company, we're stuck with doing a "push": the application > > produces the data on the fly. The report can't pull the data from a > > database because the data is never in a database. In a case like this, > > SQL Reporting Services "isn't there yet," although if they get this > > working I'll be jumping on board. > > > > Instead, we use Crystal. Yes, it has a bad rap, and if you want to do > > anything with dynamic images (product catalogs, etc) or with fancy > > printer wrangling (selecting input trays, output trays, etc) then > > Crystal sucks the big one. However, if all you want is to lay up some > > text on a page, and your company is flexible about format (so you can > > adapt your format to avoid things that Crystal does particularly badly, > > like vertical lines separating columns of text), then it works just > > fine. We use it constantly and the only person going nuts is me: I sort > > the bugs out beforehand and the users have no problems. > > > > I've heard that Active Reports is also a good package. > > > > So... if you can get away with a "pull", look into SQL Reporting > > Services. > > > > If you're stuck with a "push", look into Active Reports, and don't > > discount Crystal for doing simple stuff; it's not all _that_ buggy. You (beause youre using 2.0 .. VS2005) should definately check out the
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=8a166cac-758d-45c8-b637-dd7726e61367&displaylang=en report viewer control. http://www.codeproject.com/dotnet/1tomanyreports_vsnet2005.asp <itm***@gmail.com> wrote in message Show quoteHide quote news:1156429950.885067.178480@75g2000cwc.googlegroups.com... > I need to create a couple of reports, invoices, credit reports, etc... > > My question is: How/what is the best way to go about this using > VB2005 / SQL Server 2000 > > Crystal Reports? MS Reporting? Home brew using print document? > (Program to be distributed thoughout this office and possibly to a few > other organizations that have expressed an interest). > > I've taken a couple of stabs at this and either this is more > complicated that it should be, or I'm oblivious to it's simplicity. > ie, trying to get either of these to print a phone number stored as > 5555555555 to print as (555) 555-5555 eludes me. If there is a simple > way to do this, I just can't figure it out. > > Crystal Reports has tons of bad rap in the newsgroups for being over > bloated and riddled with bugs and nuances. Conjecture, or the best > tool for the job? > Perfect. Thanks.
sloan wrote: Show quoteHide quote > You (beause youre using 2.0 .. VS2005) should definately check out the > http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=8a166cac-758d-45c8-b637-dd7726e61367&displaylang=en > report viewer control. > > http://www.codeproject.com/dotnet/1tomanyreports_vsnet2005.asp > > <itm***@gmail.com> wrote in message > news:1156429950.885067.178480@75g2000cwc.googlegroups.com... > > I need to create a couple of reports, invoices, credit reports, etc... > > > > My question is: How/what is the best way to go about this using > > VB2005 / SQL Server 2000 > > > > Crystal Reports? MS Reporting? Home brew using print document? > > (Program to be distributed thoughout this office and possibly to a few > > other organizations that have expressed an interest). > > > > I've taken a couple of stabs at this and either this is more > > complicated that it should be, or I'm oblivious to it's simplicity. > > ie, trying to get either of these to print a phone number stored as > > 5555555555 to print as (555) 555-5555 eludes me. If there is a simple > > way to do this, I just can't figure it out. > > > > Crystal Reports has tons of bad rap in the newsgroups for being over > > bloated and riddled with bugs and nuances. Conjecture, or the best > > tool for the job? > > 
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