I have done a lot of work with 2005 Reporting Services. I looked at the CFReport tag in CFMX 7 Enterprise and I don't think the CF offering is in the same league as Reporting Services. The cfreport tag seems to just produce PDF reports. The cfreport support for Excel output is so bad that it is worthless. Cfreport does not claim to be able to produce HTML reports.
SQL Server Reporting services is harder to set up, harder to learn, and slower, but it does a lot more. With Reporting Services, you can output HTML reports, Excel reports, PDF, TIFF, and pretty much every format you could want. You can schedule reports to run. By HTML reports, what you get are fancy DHTML tables where you can roll-up rows, sort by columns, have sums automatically calculated, etc. The HTML Reporting Services spits out is rather complex and doesn't work well in non-MSIE browsers, but that downside may not be important. >From what I have read Crystal Reports produces reports more efficiently than Reporting Services. I would distinguish between charts and reports, where charts are embedded inside of reports. Charts have many possible solutions, whereas with reports, the choices are mainly Crystal Reports, Reporting Services, cfreport, or whatever custom code you create. There may be other reporting solutions. I have not looked around. In summary, if you need reports that are more than just PDF documents, I don't think you can use cfreport. I wish cfreport did more. Specifically, I would like to have an HTML data grid that has rollup rows and automatic sums, like Reporting Services offers. Enjoy, Mike Chabot On 10/3/06, Brad Wood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'm looking for opinions advice here. My DBA is going nuts over the SQL > Server 2005 reporting services. He wants to replace our current custom > built (CF) reporting mechanism with it. I think ColdFusion report > builder would be a better option since we are, after all, a ColdFusion > shop, not .NET. And not to mention all of our production servers run > Linux. > > > > Nice features our company seems to want often in reports is the ability > to sort and filter data, add/remove/re-arrange columns from the report. > Keep stats on when the report was last run, by whom, and how long it > took. Change the server the report runs off of on the fly. > > > > The problem I have is that I know nothing about the SQL Server 2005 > reporting service, OR the ColdFusion report builder other than they are > all free. > > A couple of the guys on the database team are already playing around > with the SQL version and making a collection of cool reports to use in > their argument for why we should use it. Before all the pointy-haired > bosses get sold on that I want to make sure ColdFusion report builder > gets its fair say. > > > > Can anyone with experience with one or the other comment on the > following: > > > > Which one is faster? > > Which one is better? > > Which one has more features when it comes to manipulating the data after > running the report? > > Which one will get my morning coffee and bagel for me? > > Which one has the easiest learning curve? > > > > I anxiously await advice. > > > > Thanks! > > > > ~Brad > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Introducing the Fusion Authority Quarterly Update. 80 pages of hard-hitting, up-to-date ColdFusion information by your peers, delivered to your door four times a year. http://www.fusionauthority.com/quarterly Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/message.cfm/messageid:255475 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.4
