Hi,

11.2 will not support sub-reports.

We are discussing sub-reports for the next version, and we have mixed feelings. With most tools, people use sub-reports to overcome limitations in the tool itself, perhaps because it does not handle well hierarchical data, or similar things. They are also used for reusing parts in multiple reports.

We think we should not need them to 'overcome limitations'. We should handle those scenarios in the tool itself, making it easy/possible to build. For example, some tools require that you use sub-reports for master-detail reports, which is not the case with NetAdvantage Reporting.

We'll need something similar to sub-reports for reusing (e.g. having the same header in all the reports), so our current plan is to design something that solves that problem well.

We are in early stages of the design so all feedback is welcome.

Thanks,

Andres

Hi Andres,

Did you get anywhere with overcoming these limitations? Something that could handle Hierarchical data, sub-reports or reusing part of a report would all be very welcome additions to Infragistics reports. As it is a year since your last post, did these plans go anywhere? Are any of these likely additions any time soon?

I ask because I have persevered with Infragisitcs reporting for a while now and am about to start a new project that will require sophisticated reporting and I do not want to have to try to work around all of the limitations of Infragistics Reporting. I have looked on the website for what the recent updates have been and the only major changes seem to have been around different rendering engines. Has the core of the reporting tool been updated to give it some of the fundamental capabilities that products like Crystal Reports supported back in the 1990s? On the other hand, is it still really only intended for the most basic of single table data lists?

Thanks,

Timothy

Hi Timothy,

We are still following the path of not implementing subreports. We did implement hierarchical data for 12.2, which is a core feature in our vision and will make IG Reporting the tool that will handle that scenario better in the market.

We are also investing in other rendering engine features that will be shipped in 12.2

Regards,

Andres

The suggestion that joining data into one larger data set, then using hierarchies to essentially unjoin data seems extremely short sighted.  Sub reports are useful when you have a report header at one level and multiple detail records that are all direct foreign keys to one header.  Joining this into a hierarchy and attempting to present it in a user consumable fashion seems backwards.  A simple example may be taken as a relationship between a Team-Player-Office Staff-Fans-Alumni, with Team as the head, you could have details sub reports in 4 quadrants of the 1 level sibling records.  Joining this data is easy, but it is a 2 level hierarchy with 5 entities, essentially the application of sub reports for the past 25 years?

I'm confused how this is thought of as a work around?

Hi Andrew,

With the Hierarchical Data feature in Reporting 12.2 you can achieve what you want. You need to load the data into a data structure with the hierarchy you want to display in the report. That hierarchy can have any number of nested levels (e.g. a parent with 3 children, which 3 children each one). Once you add a data source bound to that class, you can drop it in the design surface and you'll get the report you'd expect.

I hope it helps,

Andres.