We have run into a Section 508 compliance issue with SSRS reports.
Specifically, the issue is with tabular data tables. SSRS reports do not generate table headers with the tag which is a Section 508 requirement for accessible HTML tables.
After quite some research and debugging we found out a way to make SSRS generate HTML tables in a way that the header cells have Ids and data cells have headers matching the corresponding header Ids. This is very close but still not enough apparently. The must be used to render the headers (row and col headers).
By the way, there are two provisions regarding accessible HTML tables in Section 508: g and h. Details are found at Section 508 Laws and Regulations.
We are using SQL Server 2008 R2 SP2 and SSRS version 10.50.4319 and we are displaying, the reports through the ReportViewer (version 10), in ASP.NET web applications running on .NET 4.0.
Does anyone know if this is even possible? Any help is greatly appreciated!
I have not worked with SSRS, but 1194.22 g and h are either/or, meaning you don't apply both to the same table. Ideally you would use g for basic tables which are one dimensional[1]. You would use h for a multi-leveled table[1][2]. To my knowledge, no HTML/XHTML specification says you cannot use the id/headers method on one-dimensional tables. From a developer's point of view, we should use scopes whenever possible, so we don't have to touch every cell.
In your situation, it seems like you must use the second method.
This is very close but still not enough apparently. The must be used to render the headers (row and col headers).
Who told you this? If you are working with an agency, I'd request to see if they have a place to get help with 508, for a second opinion, or with the 508 Coordinator, who should roughly say this. Maybe you missed adding an id somewhere, which would make the table blow up.
1- This page probably isn't the best source to use, but was the first non-W3C page that had both types of tables.
2- This table is non-compliant.
Update to my question.
Contacted Microsoft's SSRS team. Their reply was: it was their design to generate table headers with and data cells like . No need for further questions.
But still not sure why they chose to render table header with instead of . Mind boggling.
Related
For our SaaS (LAMP) product reporting we are currently using JasperReports. We find it too cumbersome to develop reports with and the output in Word unworkable. Moreover, a couple of customers request to be able to develop simple reports themselves (to be used as mail merge). We would therefore like to develop templates right in Word. The idea is to have an application/webservice that would receive the Word template and JSON data from the LAMP application and return the filled-in report. The report has to support:
Loops inside content (repeating a document section several times while filling in array data)
Filling in tables (populating rows from array)
Filling in chart data in pre-created charts (from array)
This is the functionality we are using in JasperReports right now. Are there existing solutions to this? I've found quite a lot that can substitute simple variables, but no info about the the above three points. Will it be a lot of effort to write one from scratch? I would prefer a Windows OpenXML-based solution rather than a Linux PHPOffice-based one as I presume the former would handle the text split by spell-checker and language tags (though I'm not sure).
Windward and Docmosis are both commercial products that support the features you've listed and they are intended to be added to your application to provide reporting capabilities. Neither is are not OpenXML based. They can use Word documents as templates and perform the data merge into different output formats. Please note I work for Docmosis.
Aspose Words is another tool and it can populate a template but most of the power is through code rather than controls/directives in the template. Given your OpenXML thoughts, perhaps this is more what you are looking for.
More tools are recommended here in StackExchange.
I hope that helps.
ReportBox is a Web based reporting solution that can be used by any software application to generate documents and reports in Microsoft Word/ Excel/ PowerPoint/ HTML(DocX/Xlsx/PPTx/HTML) using OpenXML.
The process starts by building a Microsoft Word/ Excel/ PowerPoint/ HTML document as a template and uploading to ReportBox portal. Your application either sends data to ReportBox or ReportBox can pull data from your application database, which is then merged with the template to produce the finished report. Please note that I work for GreenThoughts.
I'm wondering what would be the typical scenario for using an end-user report designer.
What I'm thinking of is to have a base report with all the columns that I can have, also with a basic view of the report (formatting, order of columns, etc.) and then let the user to change that format and order, take out or add (from the available columns) data to it, etc.
Is that a common way to address what is called end-user designer for reports or I'm off track?
I know it depends on the user (if it's someone that can handle SQL or not for example), but is it common to have a scenario where the user can build everthing from the sql query to the formatting?
Thanks!
Sebastian
The first thing I would think about is to put them in a very tightly controlled sandbox, both for security and also to prevent monstrous, server-eating queries. Beyond that, I think giving them a "menu" of limited options is a good path. I would not give them direct access to SQL.
First question is do you want users creating SQL that could become a run away query (think Cartesian join gone wild).
Depending upon your tooling you might want to publish your report as Excel. Creating a pivot table or a simple spreadsheet may provide the flexibility you are looking for but in a safe environment. Most users can handle removing columns, formatting, etc, in Excel and there are lots of self-help references that you might not find in a report writer tool.
I have an web application which serves SQL reporting services reports via the reportviewer control. Because of the complexity of some of the reports I use rdlc reports attached to business objects.
Now I would like to expand the system and allow some form of user-defined reports. Ideally I would like the users to connect their reports to the same business objects I use to create the rdlc reports.
Is there a control that allows users
to create/edit their own rdlc files?
Can rdl files be attached to
business objects?
Any hints/tips for writing my own
control to edit rdlc files? (I would
think this is a lot of work
and would only attempt if there is
no suitable answer to 1 or 2).
All my development has been done in VS 2005 with SQL 2005 but I could upgrade if new features in 2008 help with the solution.
This isn't much of an answer, but at my company I have put together our own Report Builder.
We have about 30 or so Reporting Service reports that our users can access through the web or desktop application. What we wanted to do was give our users the ability to take any given section within those reports and create their own.
If there is a report we have built for them but they don't want to see the graph, they can create the same report with out it. If they want to combine parts from 4 different reports to make one summary report they can drag those sections around on our custom builder and save it.
The report builder I had to put together pulls down all the different sub-reports they have chosen and reads through the XML adding them to a Report Builder Template XML file I have created. I then have to aggregate all the parameters so as to not ask for them more than once (parameter names do have to be unique across all reports if you don't want them aggregated). This new report XML is deployed to the server and the users can access them when ever they want.
I've also given them the ability to create their own cover pages, headers, and footers by dragging text boxes, images, global variables (date ran, created, ran by, page number, etc... anywhere on a blank canvas. I then convert all the items they've drug around and resized on this canvas in to another report XML file and deploy it as a sub-report that they can add to their custom reports.
Yes, this has taken quite a bit of work, but our users love it. We're in the process now of allowing them to create a report with special groupings so the report can be ran at different levels.
So it is possible, but there is no easy answer. =) I'd be glad to give advice to anyone who asks, but a direct copy of the code is a violation of my contract, but I'll do what I can outside of that.
I think SQL Reporting Services isn't meant for this kind of customization. You can hide and show controls and subreports, but stuff like interactive grouping etc isn't there.
You might look into a third-party reporting framework like Telerik's.
I have been pushing to finish off this project since 1 week and have been stuck with one problem that god knows how I missed. We have a sql server database that has 2 tables (of concern here).
Table 1 (id,langCode,englishText,translatedTextInUnicode{nvarchar(MAX)})
Table 2 (id,langCode,englishText,translatedTextInUtf-8{nvarchar(MAX)})
Application is layered app like db -> linq-sql ->wcf -> ASP.net 3.5
I have tried many things like using <meta> tag, using <globalization> tag in web.config but to no avail. Really struggling to show utf-characters in general and both when used with an accordion control on aspx pages. All I get is garbage text.
Need some help!
Besides the usual link to Joel's seminal article about The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!), I can only strongly recommend to use the same encoding throughout the whole database.
What good components and packages are available for generating HTML reports based on report definitions? I have a truly horrific project where each report is a dedicated aspx page that builds one fantastically big HTML string, which it then assigns to a 'reportBody' Label control.
Standard grids are not a good solution as they provide no grouping capability, but I'm open to buying a grid that is friendly for grouping, printing, and exporting. FYI is one reporting engine option I'll be looking at. What else is there? SSRS may not be an option, as MSSQL may not even be an option.
BTW, this is an ASP.NET web site.
You can try ActiveReports.net
You can use i-net Clear Reports (used to be i-net Crystal-Clear). It has many different output formats like HTML, PDF, Postscript, etc. It can print and of course it supports grouping. It is platform-independent. You can it also use together with your ASP.NET. It support many different database like MS SQL, Oracle, MySQL, etc. But also other data sources are possible. The free and fully functional report designer is very easy to use.
Also, the pricing is far below other reporting tools such as Crystal Reports.
you can still use RDLC reports, and just build them in local mode (no SQL SERVER required). I routinely feed my RDLC reports data from the results of function calls rather than have them intimately tied to the database.
The DevExpress ASPxGridView has proven to be an excellent tool for this job.
Standard grids are not a good solution
as they provide no grouping capability
If you want to create your own, I can give you some advice. First, you could probably create the groups with ROLLUP or COMPUTE statements or similar in your SQL and use a grid.
I went the following route: reports are data-driven, so that I know which columns can be grouped and which ones need totals computed. I use a standard DataGrid, and in the ItemDataBound event, I keep a running total for any columns that require it, and then detect changes in the group column. When detected, I insert a group total, reset the running totals and insert out a new group header.
I did a quick prototype of this in a day. But by the time you work out all the little details to give the reports all the features they need, and make them look just right, you'll spend quite a bit of time and end up with a small mountain of code.