Thoughts on SQL Server Reporting Services in Made2Manage 7.5

Recently had my first chance to review how Aptean has implemented SQL Server Reporting Services reports in Made2Manage 7.5.  Made2Manage has followed a very similar architecture in the new SSRS reporting engine to what they used in the old VFP one.  They still store similar information in UTRPMAS and UTRPDTL, and still use the same parameters, like the Sort Range, Date Range, Filter, Advance Filter and Sort Order.  Now instead of a FoxPro program to generate the data needed for the report, you have a SQL Stored Procedure that generates the same data.

I’ll try to review some of the things that I like and some of the things that I don’t like:

First, things I like:

• With their approach, a single report can be used for as many companies as you might have, so that you don’t have to maintain multiple copies (The connection string is passed as a parameter to the report)
• Fonts on the report are based on theme settings, so you can globally change fonts without customizing individual reports.

Some things I don’t like:

• M2M SSRS reports can’t really be run outside of M2M, so you still need to tie up a license (unnecessarily in my view) in order to run reports.
• Because the reports only work inside M2M, there doesn’t seem to be any way to drill-down from one M2M report to another (this is one of my favorite SSRS features!)
• Because the Query is external to the Report, it really turns out to be a lot more complicated than it would otherwise be, so that I don’t think the average person will easily be able to trace through what is happening in the procedure, making it more difficult to modify.
• You still need to go through all of the setting up of Reports, Selections and Sorts in order to have a report that will run within M2M.
• The ability to prompt for a wide variety of parameters is also limited.

Unfortunately, in my view the disadvantages of running custom SSRS reports within M2M will outweigh the benefits in most cases, so in general I will be recommending to my clients that they usually keep their custom reports outside of M2M.  The good news is that it is easy to do just that!