Unifying BI Reporting Systems with ComponentOne Reports

An enterprise with a rich legacy of BI reporting can celebrate its technological heritage as well as be challenged by it. It's not uncommon to have BI reports created using a number of different technologies, including Crystal Reports, Microsoft Access and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). The lack of compatibility between these systems means that information is often siloed to specific users, and there is an excess burden of maintenance of these disparate systems.

With the 2010 v3 release (due in mid-November), ComponentOne's reporting tools are a unifying technology across all of these information silos. The C1 Report Designer can import both Access and Crystal Reports and convert them to the C1Report format. The new Silverlight C1ReportViewer can display reports from virtually any report generator capable of outputting HTML or PDF, including SSRS, Active Reports, C1Reports, etc. The C1RdlReport component completely exposes the RDL object model, making every element in the report programmable at runtime, and enabling binding to any data source. Finally, with ComponentOne's reporting controls, a single application can support the varied legacy reports found in an enterprise. The full SSRS Report Server capabilities can be leveraged without exposing database servers outside the firewall, and (very importantly to many enterprises), Access client-based reports can be manifested through a server based application with a clearer maintenance path.

Showing all of these features is far more extensive than a single blog post should be, so we'll break this down into a series. This will serve as an index post, and will be updated as we add more samples.

1. Calling simple reports from SSRS via Silverlight C1ReportViewer
2. Calling parameterized reports from SSRS via Silverlight C1ReportViewer
3. Importing, Modifying and Displaying Access Reports
4. Importing, Modifying and Displaying Crystal Reports

To be alerted when new posts are added, connect with us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/GrapeCityUS, or follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/componentone.