Question

I have a new Winforms application that is replacing an existing Access order processing system, and I need to replicate some existing functionality.

Currently the user enters the order data and hits OK. At this point an order print is generated (using Access Reports) and Outlook opened with the report attached to a new email. The email itself is populated with some boilerplate text, but the mail to, cc etc fields populated from Access. The user then can just immediately hit send, or edit the contents of the email body.

On the new system I have the report replicated in SSRS, but what is the simplest way of creating this report in my application (passing a parameter to retrieve the correct order) then opening Outlook with the created report attached and basic fields pre-populated?

Answer 1

You can dynamically generate a one time subscription in SSRS for the report.

Your code would look something like this:

static void generateSubscription()
{
    if (SubscriptionRequests.Count < 1) return;

    NetworkCredential credentials = new NetworkCredential("user", "pass");
    reports.ReportingService2005 rs = new reports.ReportingService2005();
    rs.Credentials = credentials;
    DateTime topDatetime = DateTime.Now;
    topDatetime = topDatetime.AddMinutes(2);

    foreach (SubscriptionRequest x in SubscriptionRequests)
    {
        reports.ExtensionSettings extensionSettings = new reports.ExtensionSettings();
        List<reports.ParameterValue> extParameters = new List<reports.ParameterValue>();
        List<reports.ParameterValue> parameters = new List<reports.ParameterValue>();
        string description = "Email: ";
        string eventType = "TimedSubscription";
        extensionSettings.Extension = "Report Server Email";

        string scheduleXml = "<ScheduleDefinition><StartDateTime>";
        scheduleXml += topDatetime.ToShortDateString() + " " + topDatetime.ToShortTimeString();
        scheduleXml += "</StartDateTime></ScheduleDefinition>";

        parameters.Add(new reports.ParameterValue() { Name = "abc", Value = x.id });


        extParameters.Add(new reports.ParameterValue() { Name = "RenderFormat", Value = x.renderFormat });
        extParameters.Add(new reports.ParameterValue() { Name = "TO", Value = x.email });
        extParameters.Add(new reports.ParameterValue() { Name = "ReplyTo", Value = x.replyTo });
        extParameters.Add(new reports.ParameterValue() { Name = "IncludeReport", Value = "True" });
        extParameters.Add(new reports.ParameterValue() { Name = "Subject", Value = "subject - " + " (" + x.id.ToString() + ")" });

        extParameters.Add(new reports.ParameterValue() { Name = "Comment", Value = x.body });
        extensionSettings.ParameterValues = extParameters.ToArray();

        description += topDatetime.ToShortDateString() + " " + topDatetime.ToShortTimeString();
        description += " (" + x.a + " - " + x.b + " - " + x.c + ")";
        string _reportName = "/report";
        rs.CreateSubscription(_reportName, extensionSettings, description, eventType, scheduleXml, parameters.ToArray());
        topDatetime = topDatetime.AddSeconds(30);
    }           
}