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elwoos
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker
2052 Posts |
 Posted - 2005-03-24 : 03:30:19
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| Our main reporting system at the moment uses a whole series of MS Access reports (yeah I know!!!). This is now such a nightmare that finally people are starting to see that something needs to be done about it so I'm looking at Reporting Services.What I'm curious to know is if there may be a way of converting reports from MS Access (97!!) to RS or will they have to all be re-written from scratch?cheerssteveAnd how is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. |
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eralper
Yak Posting Veteran
66 Posts |
Posted - 2005-03-26 : 07:53:24
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| Hi, I do not guess it will happen in a short while.You know there is a big need actually for converting crystal reports to rdl but there is not a tool for this purpose yet.So, for access this may be a bit longer.-------------Eralperhttp://www.kodyaz.com |
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Kristen
Test
22859 Posts |
Posted - 2005-03-26 : 10:20:44
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| Are the Access reports stored in a table in Access? If so that might allow some queries to get the Guts of them across into R.S.Kristen |
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robvolk
Most Valuable Yak
15732 Posts |
Posted - 2005-03-26 : 10:28:16
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| I would say the most productive avenue for converting Access reports to RDL (assuming no existing product does this) is to use VBA to explore the existing Access report structures. Access has an excellent and well-documented object model, especially the reports, and it would not be difficult to write some basic VB (hehehe, a pun) to enumerate the sections and controls of an Access report. Formatting it as RDL should not be too difficult either, you'd use the control's properties to constuct the RDL attributes and elements. The databinding would be trickier, and any custom VB code attached to the report may not be translatable. |
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elwoos
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker
2052 Posts |
Posted - 2005-04-07 : 09:46:08
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| That's a great idea, thanks guysA sarcasm detector, what a great idea. |
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jsmith8858
Dr. Cross Join
7423 Posts |
Posted - 2005-04-07 : 09:51:42
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| I think, but I am not sure, that there is a wizard in reporting services that will import MS Access reports. Don't quote me on that. Of course, how well such a tool would work is up for grabs. I would expect for basic reports it works well, but not for reports with embedded VB or subreports. However, in the world of report designing, I have found I spend about 10% of the time getting the data right, 10% of the time on the report structure (groups, sorting, formula, conditional formatting, scripts) and the other 80% of the time dragging and sizing moving widgets around .... so, anything that helps with the formatting part by at least pulling over basic fonts and labels and text boxes might be helpful.- Jeff |
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jhermiz
3564 Posts |
Posted - 2005-04-07 : 10:15:54
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The wizard only converts 2k to sql reports, however even if it is a 2k report there is a lot of times that the wizard fails.So you end up recreating it.
Keeping the web experience alive -- [url]http://www.web-impulse.com[/url]Imperfection living for perfection -- [url]http://jhermiz.blogspot.com/[/url] |
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Curiosity did WHAT!