Modern ReportViewer - will there ever be one?

Carl Daniel 16 Reputation points
2020-10-26T16:19:20.247+00:00

My product depends heavily on SSRS and ReportViewer. I'm currently in the POC stage of building a new UI based on Blazor (client or server side not yet decided).

What's the going-forward story for ReportViewer?

I need deep integration:

  • Push parameters to the report at runtime
  • Hide parameters at runtime
  • Capture parameters that were used to render the report at runtime
  • Optional - Add new toolbar buttons to the reportviewer toolbar at runtime
  • Interact with report events, such as embedded hyperlinks in reports

All of this is possible with the WebForms control, but there's no clear path to doing much of this in Blazor.

The Radzen ssrsviewer component does a good job of wrapping the URL-based report viewer, but it only provides what the URL based viewer supplies - ability to specify the report, set parameters, and a few other things.

I see a couple of possibilities, but none stands out as a clear winner.

  • Use the radzen ssrsviewer to drive parameters in, and fish through the returned HTML to extract report parameters; give up on the other requirements.
  • Build an ASP.NET site that interacts with my Blazor app behind the scenes to provide ReportViewer integration, and host that inside something like the radzen ssrsviewer.
  • Reportedly Syncfusion BoldReports has this kind of deep integration, but that's an all JS solution that would require developing a suitable Blazor wrapper.

I haven't ruled any of these possible solutions out, but none of them is particularly appealing.

Is there a better option that I haven't found?

SQL Server Reporting Services
SQL Server Reporting Services
A SQL Server technology that supports the creation, management, and delivery of both traditional, paper-oriented reports and interactive, web-based reports.
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  1. Michael Romyn 11 Reputation points
    2021-09-16T18:39:08.847+00:00

    The absence of a reportviewer component from Microsoft is the only reason we have not migrated from web forms. Sometimes I think they do not understand their customers!

    2 people found this answer helpful.

  2. ZoeHui-MSFT 32,001 Reputation points
    2020-10-27T06:01:11.627+00:00

    Hi @Carl Daniel ,

    The topic is related with develop and I'm not familiar with it.

    I think that every tool for develop has its meaning, it just depends on what function you need most.

    You may also raise the question to the ASP.NET Forums for more professional ideas.

    Blazor community is also a good choice.

    https://forums.asp.net/191.aspx/1?SQL+Server+Reporting+Services

    https://github.com/AdrienTorris/awesome-blazor

    Regards,

    Zoe


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  3. Martin Dye 6 Reputation points
    2021-02-18T11:53:40.903+00:00

    Hello, I've been in contact with the BoldReports people, about using their control with SSRS + Remote mode.

    Here's my feedback to them, in case you find it useful - note that the answer to question 1 was "yes" more or less - they have full interface to cater for data sources:

    There are some problems with the current code, which I’ve listed below:

    1) We cannot expect a customer to enter credentials for the live SQL server. If this was added just so we could test the new version of your reports viewer, then that’s not so bad. In this case, I would expect to supply a table of: “data source name + username + password” within the software, so that the Bold Reports viewer could select which credentials it needs, when it requires them. Would that be a possibility?
    2) Even if the above is possible, some extra work is required to create a table of data source to credentials mappings inside a config file, for example.

    3) The viewer downloads the .rdl file for local processing, so the data sources need to be retrieved from the web server making the call, rather than the remote report server. This means that the web server needs direct access to the report servers’ data sources, which might not always be possible.

    4) Screenshot 2 shows the result of the “Weekly hours” report. This report contains embedded charts for each row, but the report had issues rendering these. Screenshot 3 shows how this should look.

    Regarding the above issues, the could potentially be resolved by using the 2005 Report Execution Service (ReportExecution2005.asmx) – and returning a report as HTML5 (available in the list of outputs for SSRS 2017). I’m not sure what a report looks like if it has drill downs or sub reports, but it might be an easier approach. This service only requires report parameters and doesn’t need to be given data source details – it returns the whole report complete with data. We can supply an example of how this is done in Powershell if needed. Potentially, the Bold Reports viewer could display the viewer, buttons and interactive parameters part and let the report execution service to retrieve the report in HTML5 format. The resulting HTML5 based report might need to be extracted from the <body> html tags and any styles may need to be extracted and placed in the <head> of the page containing the Bold Reports viewer. I think this option would add more value to your product, especially considering the recent release of .Net 5 and the pressure for companies to find another solution.

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  4. Tichaona Dhliwayo 1 Reputation point
    2022-04-20T12:27:31.163+00:00

    I am not seeing any talk of bringing this forward and other WebForm features.
    I think if the following were brought forward we will see faster adoption of Blazor and +.Net6

    • WebForm like designer for razor components
    • Reports (rldc) designer and viewer
    • Out of the box controls (components )

    Currently, you have to pay for third party libraries for all of the above or use open source solutions
    whose long term support is not guaranteed, WebForms did not have any of these limitations.

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