This is my very first question here, so don’t be too tough with me.
I am developing a business application written in WPF and using Telerik for some grids and charting. This app is meant to live in the cloud using WCF services.
I need to know which tool is the best value price / power / easy of use to include into my application. I don’t want any open source thing, I will charge for this so it is ok to pay a license.
I was thinking such a tool that can save the report specs in XML files and translate that to the layout of the report, pretty much like Cognos Report Studio does (cannot afford Cognos although I would love that). The idea is that end users can create their own reports, save them to their database and export in common formats (PDF, Excel, HTML, etc).
Someone told me about using Reporting Services, since my app uses SQL Server, looks like it makes sense but I would rather prefer something not “so microsoft”. Besides my experience with MSRepServ is almost none and there is surely a learning curve. I wouldn’t expect my end users to learn how to develop in Reporting Services, seems like a more geek task.
Any comments anyone?
Thanks a lot in advance.
SAP Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2010 claims to offer Seamless report integration into WPF applications for better visualization and apparently it’s free so why not giving it a try?