Common Charts for .NET Reporting

In the second article in this series, we provide a brief overview of the Common .NET Chart Types and their 3D versions support by ActiveReports and Data Dynamics Reports for Reporting and BI on .NET.

For a comparison between ActiveReports and Data Dynamics Reports, see the blog posting and the Comparison section on the web site.

Advanced data visualization features in Data Dynamics Reports are summarized in the blog posting. More detailed information on these .NET charts and programming samples can be found in the online product documenation.

Area Charts (3D version shown)
Use an Area Chart to compare trends in two or more data series either over a period of time or in specific categories, allowing the data to be viewed side by side.

Bar Charts (3D version shown)
Use Bar Charts to compare values of items across categories, allowing the data to be viewed conveniently in a 3D format.



Bezier Charts
Use a Bezier or spline chart to compare trends over a period of time or in certain categories. It is a line chart that plots curves through the data points in a series.

Doughnut Charts (3D version shown)
A 3D doughnut chart shows how the percentage of each data item contributes to a total percentage, allowing the data to be viewed in a 3D format.



Gantt Charts
The Gantt chart is a project management tool used to chart the progress of individual project tasks. The chart compares project task completion to the task schedule.

Line Charts (3D version shown)
Use a 3D line chart to compare trends over a period of time or in certain categories in a 3D format.



Stacked Area Chart
A stacked area chart is an area chart with two or more data series stacked one on top of the other. Use this chart to show how each value contributes to a total.

Stacked Bar Chart
Use a 3D bar graph to compare values of items across categories, allowing the data to be viewed conveniently in a 3D format. A stacked bar graph is a bar graph with two or more data series stacked on top of each other. Use this graph to show how each value contributes to a total.



In the next article, we will look at XY Charts and Financial Charts supported by ActiveReports and Data Dynamics Reports products. We will also cover a little bit of theory on where and how to use those charts.

Adhoc Reporting requests can mean unfulfilled Analysis needs

The vast majority of business owners and their end users are still going thru a mental transition when thinking abut reporting needs. Because reporting as we know it historically was implemented as either "canned" (out-of-the-box) reports or as "parametrized" reporting screens for "advanced" users where the users are expected to flip thru a number of parameters and conditional statements to try and get to the data they want.

Project stakeholders and development teams can sometimes go thru a lot of thrashing to try and come to a common understanding on which report combinations will be "good enough" to begin with.

Secondly, if there are budget constraints, the team will invariably choose to have minimal pre-canned reports for the operational staff and ironically, will leave out strategic reporting needs of the information analysts and executives. Then it is up to a designated power user to dive into raw data using basic tools or even good old SQL queries that they have to scrape together - the goal being to create the next reports requirements for "Phase II" or the next project iteration.

During such situations, you have to wonder whether the REAL underlying need is to approach it from an end user analysis perspective and give the END USER the tools and power to do their own analysis and figure out what's most important to them.

Today, we have world class, proven tools available for the full business intelligence (BI) life cycle that one can use to drive business efficiencies across the board much more rapidly and in much more cost effective way than before.

Over a period of time, if a number of users are ending up using similar analyses use cases, these use cases can then be taken up as requirements for the system reporting repository and appropriate permissions applied.

Data Dynamics Analysis is a .NET data visualization and analysis tool, complete with standalone test applications that you can quickly integrate within development projects with minimal effort, impress customers and accelerate end user adoption of today's .NET systems.

So next time, when a team sits down to discuss business reporting requirements and cannot come to a consensus and "ad hoc reporting" seems to be the only way forward. think about whether it's really about enabling end user data analysis in a standard programmable way that is the real need here.

Introduction to Charts for .NET Reporting in ActiveReports

This article uses ActiveReports as reference but the same .NET chart types and concepts are also supported by Data Dynamics Reports as well.

To compare both products to understand what's different in both, take a look at the online comparison and read the post about Data Dynamics Reports advanced data visualization features.

A .NET chart is a visual representation of quantitative relational data that can be used in ActiveReports for.NET to enhance information analysis and interpretation. .NET Charts in ActiveReports are composed of elements, such as Axes, Series, Points, and Legends that bring meaning to the depicted information.

The following image illustrates the elements that make up the ActiveReports .NET Chart control.



A chart series is the key to showing a chart. All data is plotted in a chart as a series and all charts contain at least one series. The bars in the image below depict two series in a simple bar chart.



The .NET chart control features an easy-to-use wizard. The chart wizard automatically runs when you first add a .NET chart control to a report. If you prefer not to have the wizard run automatically, deselect the Auto Run Wizard checkbox at the bottom of the wizard.



In the next posting (that will be the first of 3 such postings), we will take a look at common chart types supported in ActiveReports and Data Data Dynamics Reports.

Introduction to Multidimensional OLAP

What is OLAP?
Multidimensional OLAP is a major component of any business intelligence (BI) tools suite. A widely accepted definition of OLAP is that it refers to online analytical processing technology that creates new business information through a robust set of business transformations and calculations executed upon existing data.

What do OLAP tools do?
OLAP tools are a very important component of application development in a BI decision-support environment. While conventional query and reporting tools are used to describe what is in a database, OLAP is used to uncover why certain business events happen.

Advantages of OLAP tools
From the business analyst's perspective, a positive side-effect of OLAP tools is that it reduces their dependency on having to go to the developers every time for changing report definitions. OLAP tools give analysts intuitive and easy access to their data for analysis. They can combine their data in any order they want, design their own queries, summarize data in any form based on any parameter, see trends over time, etc. They can drill up, drill down or drill across dimensions.

OLAP Tool Features

1. Multidimensional view
2. Summarizations and aggregations
3. Interactive query and analysis
4. Designing own queries
5. Drill-down, drill-up and drill across dimensions
6. Analytical modelling
7. Charts and Graphs

There is a wide range of OLAP tools available today to choose from. One should understand the data access and data analysis requirements specific to their BI situation in order to select the appropriate tool for their business.

Data Dynamics Analysis is a .NET OLAP component that is part of the ActiveReports Reporting and BI Suite of tools from GrapeCity and supports all these features.

ActiveReports in the Book - Real World Enterprise Reports Using VB6 And VB .NET

For those who have wondered if there is a book on ActiveReports, the product is in fact covered in the APRESS publication's book "Real World Enterprise Reports Using VB6 And VB .NET" by
Carl Ganz, Jr.



The Chapter 6 - "ActiveReports for VB6 and .NET" starts with a "Helllo World" like sample using ActiveReports, then moves onto exploring the RPX reporting format, followed by discussing ActiveReport's support for XML data source.

After examining the XML files and related code samples, Carl jumps into the printing and paging capabilities of ActiveReports. After covering the printing basics of ActiveReports, the chapter covers the now well known code-behind event based programming model of ActiveReports in some detail. he discusses the key events, and creates sample projects to trace the flow of events as they are triggered.

Once the reader is familiar with the basic reporting elements, the chapter builds an actual report using sample code to illustrate how they all come together.

Following this, Carl explains the different types of reports that can be built using ActiveReports. He covers:
- Mailing Labels
- Plain Text Documents
- Unbound reports
- Graphics and shading

Then he covers the export capabilities of ActiveReports and discusses spreadsheet export features.

The chapter closes by discussing the .NET version of ActiveReports and comparing the programming interface with the ActiveX version and also reviews the web viewer control.

Overall, although ActiveReports has come a long way since then, the book provides a great coverage of the product in a real concise manner, while still covering enough details to provide a really nice introduction.

Using LINQ with ActiveReports .NET reporting

Language Integrated Query (LINQ, pronounced "link") is a Microsoft .NET Framework component that adds native data querying capabilities to .NET languages. It defines a set of proprietary query operators that can be used to query, project and filter data in arrays, enumerable classes, XML (XLINQ), relational database, and third party data sources. While it allows any data source to be queried, it requires that the data be encapsulated as objects. So, if the data source does not natively store data as objects, the data must be mapped as objects. The results of a query are returned as a collection of in-memory objects that can be enumerated using a standard iterator function such as C#'s foreach.

So how do you do .NET reporting using ActiveReports and LINQ? There are couple of blog postings and a knowledgebase article that provides good examples.

This knowledgebase article lists detailed steps in configuring LINQ to SQL in your project using the Northwind database as an example database, and provides example syntax.

A more detailed .NET reporting and LINQ programming sample is described by David Longnecker as a result of his trying out LINQ and ORM with ActiveReports for .NET.

Jon Smith, our support lead, did notice that David was using the ActiveReports Fields collection outside of the FetchData/DataInitialize event. Breaking one of our three rules for report design with ActiveReports. The correct way of doing this is to use bind the textbox to the field, then access the textbox’s Value property during the Format event.

Using ASP.NET MVC with ActiveReports

ASP.NET released an implementation of the MVC (Model-View-Controller) design pattern recently. A good introduction to the MVC pattern in general and to the ASP.NET's implementation of it can be found on Scott Gutherie's blog.

Our very own Jon Smith ("pilgrim"), who a lot of our customers probably think of as a god-send because he leads our customer experience initiatives has blogged on using ActiveReports Web Viewer with the ASP.NET MVC 1.0.

As he explains..."The ActiveReports WebViewer was designed for ASP.NET WebForms, not for ViewPages in MVC. Therefore we still need a little bit of code-behind for the WebViewer to work. This can be accomplished by adding a WebForm to the Views folder and changing the code-behind class to inherit off of System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage instead System.Web.UI.Page."

Read more and view his screencast on his blog.

Billy McCafferty (twitter.com/devlicious) has written a great post on integrating ASP.NET MVC with ActiveReports for .NET on his blog.

GrapeCity-Data Dynamics Announces New ActiveReports/BI Suite for .NET; New Pricing for Business Intelligence Products

Suite Offers Three Reporting and BI Products at a Discounted Price

Kirkland, WA—April 30, 2009— Data Dynamics, now part of GrapeCity, the world’s largest component developer, today announced the launch of its new ActiveReports Reporting/BI Suite for .NET. This suite allows customers to get all three reporting and business intelligence products—ActiveReports Professional for .NET, Data Dynamics Reports, and Data Dynamics Analysis—in one convenient bundle, at one great price. The company also announced new pricing for its Data Dynamics Reports and Data Dynamics Analysis products, as well as new pricing for its ActiveBI Suite for .NET.

Commenting on the new announcements, Naoyuki Baba, GrapeCity President, said, “This is an important step forward as we focus on meeting the needs of our customers and providing them with even greater value. Today, traditional boundaries between reporting and business intelligence are rapidly disappearing. By offering a complete, integrated set of reporting and BI developer tools on Microsoft’s .NET platform, we are helping our customers handle both reporting and business intelligence functions more efficiently.”
About the Products

ActiveReports is the award-winning .NET reporting tool used by Microsoft Visual Studio.NET developers for over a decade. It has over 50,000 registered users worldwide, and its user base is steadily growing.

Data Dynamics Reports is a new business reporting tool for .NET that allows developers to embed dashboards, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Microsoft Excel transformations, and new user tools for business reporting in their .NET applications. The product supports and enhances the Microsoft SQL Server Reporting format, helping customers to get more from their investments in Microsoft technologies.

Data Dynamics Analysis was the first free-form data visualization component for Microsoft Visual Studio.NET. It enables .NET developers to embed free-form visual analysis of both structured and unstructured data into their .NET applications.

About GrapeCity
GrapeCity is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, an international award-winning software firm, and the world’s largest component vendor, employing more than 850 worldwide. The company’s corporate headquarters are in Japan, with US headquarters in Kirkland, WA. For over 25 years, the company has provided enterprises around the world with state-of-the-art software tools, solutions, and services to help them turn ideas into marketable products. For more information, visit http://www.grapecity.com/ and http://www.datadynamics.com/