Crystal Reports or SQL Reporting services for printing pick notes...

[JohnnyD]

Hi,

I'm currently writing an application for my company which takes all the orders on our system and batches them up into a day's work for a specified number of people. It will store basic timings on how long people take to pack certain items and work out how much work to give them accordingly.

It will all be done using visual basic .NET 2003 (.NET 1.1) and SQL server 2005 workgroup edition.

I have a slight stumbling block in that I need to produce pick notes and a summary of all the orders for each batch. Is it best to use Crystal Reports for this or SQL reporting services? My thinking is that if I use SQL Reporting services, I can set it to run automatically but my main concern at the moment is to get it done as quickly as possible. Is there anyone who can suggest what route I go down?

Thanks a lot,

John.

[Craig Gemmill]

I would definitely pick SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) as the choice for your reporting needs. Crystal is, well, you might want to try it just so you know firsthand why not to use it.

In your case, however, I would consider just dumping the results to a .CSV file and having the users open up the document in a spreadsheet app (Excel). This is, of course, only until you have the time to learn a reporting tool.

[DataMiser]

I stopped using Crystal years ago, a happy day indeed. I have been using Active Reports for the most part and am very pleased with it though I have not looked at the newer versions as of yet.

[JohnnyD]

Interesting.. thanks for the replies. I tried installing SQL reporting services a few days ago so I could play around with it but came across so many problems that I couldn't find answers to on the net that I just gave up.

I don't suppose anyone knows of a decent set of instructions for installing SSRS? All the ones I've found so far just assume that everything goes exactly to plan and don't tell you what to do when it doesn't. I think the main problem I have is in understanding why you need so many different logins/user accounts and what they are all for.

Thanks,

John.

[JohnnyD]

Out of interest, can SSRS be set up to pull data from two separate databases into one report?

[Craig Gemmill]

Yes, but with all things, there are some limitations.

http://www.google.com/#q=ssrs+multiple+data+sources