How would I go about creating a report designer?

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Hi everyone,

I am currently creating a case management system in C#. I need to allow the user to create reports from within the application at runtime. The user will add fields to the report, which need to be draggable and need to be in rows so that they stay on the same line. Almost like a grid system. The issue is, it will be hard to integrate an already existing solution due to the complexity of the system. As the database fields are user defined and have custom classes to get their data. Does anyone have any idea where i can start? Any help would be much appreciated!

What I have tried:

I have looked at solutions like EasiReports which has a designer, but that generally uses a specified datasource.

Posted 27-Jul-20 4:06am

patrick berry

Updated 27-Jul-20 4:47am

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[no name] 27-Jul-20 10:15am

Creating a new "report designer" will take months, if not years, longer than integrating an existing one.

patrick berry 27-Jul-20 10:22am

When i say a report designer, i generally want to create the interface for it, as i can build the backend myself. It's the User interface that i need to build any ideas for going about that?

[no name] 28-Jul-20 13:26pm

Your next option, is open-source. Not recommending, just saying. Google the key words.

https://github.com/FastReports/FastReport

etc.

johannesnestler 27-Jul-20 10:28am

I agree with Gerry - I like to develop things myself, but a end-customer Report-Designer is way to "expensive" to build with all features opposed to the price of a commercial solution. Most of them you can try for free and evaluate against your requirements. (I use DevExpress Report Designer (WPF) which has very good customization (for datasources) and so on, so even if you have to develop parts of your designer yourself, it's still better to "customize" an existing product with custom Code/design)

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OriginalGriff · Answer 1 · 2020-07-27T04:47:00

A general purpose end user report designer is a horrific job, that takes a large team many years to write: just trying to work out what the user might ask you for is a nightmare, let alone trying to design a UI that will make it accessible to "non-computer people".

I wouldn't be quick to jump into that job myself, and I'm a pretty experienced developer.

As Gerry and Johannes have said: I'd buy one in and use that - it'll work out considerably cheaper (and probably more effective) in the long run (unless your time has no value at all, which is very, very unlikely). It'll also be considerably quicker, even after adding in your lead time to select and learn the package.

There are quote a few available: Google will find you a starting point to work from once you have specified what kind of reporting your user are likely to use (which you can only get an outline of by talking to them: do not guess or assume, they know their job a lot better than you do!)