5 Good Things about Reporting Services

Often a professional has to convey business related information to his employer, team members, clients and investors. Along with gathering the latest information from multiple sources, you also need to present the same in a stylish and engaging manner. Regardless of the nature of information, a report must be effective in highlighting an organization’s performance, goals and objectives. As the information will be used for taking important decisions, the reports must be designed by keeping in mind the target audience.

 

The reporting services have made it easier for professionals to prepare interactive and secure reports by targeting different types of audience. These services also offer certain features to the professionals to create custom reports by targeting a specific group. Normally, the services generate XML documents from the custom reports created by a user. The XML document is then compiled, and the result is displayed to the users through a report viewers.

 

Based on your choice of programming language, you can always choose from several reporting tools like Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Service (SSRS), Jasper Reports and Crystal Reports. You can buy the enterprise or developer version a reporting tool to suit your specific needs and budget. Once you install the reporting service on your device, it will enable you to create a variety of powerful and engaging reports without putting any extra time and efforts.

 

Key Advantages of Reporting Services

  1. Ready-To-Use Tools and Services: Often professionals are required to create reports at the last minute. Also, the reports need to be modified and updated at the last minute to share the most relevant and latest information. SSRS, Crystal Reports, and Jasper Reports offer users a number of easy-to-use tools and services. You can use these tools and services to create, update, customize and deploy reports to suit your specific objectives and goals, without writing lengthy codes.

  1. Options to Gather Information from Several Data Sources: Most organizations, nowadays, store the data on multiple databases and servers. The distribution of data makes it easier for an organization to quickly retrieve and synchronize the data based on certain parameters. So the reporting tools must make it simpler for users to gather information from different data sources, and use these to make comprehensive reports. Each of these three reporting tools supports drag and drop feature. So you can simply drag and drop the fresh data to update the data sources.

  1. Features to Make the Reports Attractive: In addition to gathering information from several data sources, a user also has to present the data in a clear, concise and stylish way. The reporting services have made it easier for you to customize the reports by keeping in mind the end-user. SSRS, Crystal Reports, and Jasper Reports support sub-report generation by categorizing the data based on specific criterions. But SSRS even allows you to use the free-form design feature to generate reports based on the parameters entered by the user. The latest version of reporting services have made it easier for users to customize the reports by including tables, charts and graphs. These options enhance the visual appeal of the reports, and convey the data in a more impressive way.

  1. Faster Modification of Reports: Every professional wants to share the latest and relevant information with his employers, clients and investors. As the data will be analyzed for taking important business decisions, companies update their databases frequently. So the developers have to design dynamic reports by keeping in mind the target audience. As these reporting tools allow users to generate and view reports over an online connection, it has becomes more convenient to design reports on-demand, and schedule the report processing. At the same time, a user can further subscribe to the published report, and track the data updates through email notifications.

  1. Running Apps and Reports in the Same Environment: Often developers want to generate the repots and develop application in the same environment. Both SSRS and Crystal Reports are fully integrated with Visual Studio .NET. So a developing using Microsoft Dot Net framework can generate reports that can be rendered and viewed by the end-users directly. Similarly, Jasper Reports enables developers to integrate their applications and reports in the Java Environment. These features can save the time of a developer, while allowing the end-user to access the reports directly to know the updated status.

The reporting services further allow users to manage their personal reporting needs. Based on his choice, a user can subscribe to the reports, or access these temporarily. When a user subscribes to the reports, he can receive the reports automatically through emails. At the same time, the reporting services also allow you to define UIs to generate reports based on the parameters accepted from the end-users. Searching for an SSRS development company who can customize reporting dashboards and can help make sense out of organizational data hence becomes important.

 

We provide SQL Server Reporting Services. If you would like to know what makes us expert SSRS Developers, please contact us at Mindfire Solutions.