Using OfficeWriter as Report Designer
If you have developed a solution using Reporting Service, the Report Builder is obvious choice for end user designing ad-hoc reports. In some situations, business users want to design a report, execute it, export the results back to excel, and then using Excel to format it. If these happen a lot, you will find using another product OfficeWriter is better for your users’ needs.
OfficeWriter is a product from SoftArtisans (www.softartisans.com). It leverages Reporting Service web services and offices integration with Microsoft Excel and Word. Users can use Excel to design a SSRS report, together with the powerful formatting and calculation controls available in Excel. See a case study here:
http://members.microsoft.com/customerevidence/search/EvidenceDetails.aspx?EvidenceID=14783&LanguageID=1
If you want to know more about the product, check this out
MSDN Webcast: Design Reports from SQL Server Reporting Services Using Microsoft Office Programs (Level 200)
In one of my customer scenarios, OfficeWriter is used with Excel to design a report that allows information can be formatted exactly as what the end-user needed. Also, the information was distributed to multiple worksheet in the excel workbook. If a user subscribes to this report, it will be generated and emailed to the user’s mailbox very day in the morning.
I really like the fact that it simplifies many steps in between and offers the final formatted reports to end users. Thing about it – all these are done by end users themselves with Excel (OfficeWriter is a front end user tool, with subscription permission in your reporting solution) and no IT efforts involved!
For Enterprise Reporting, it means empowering the business end users! :-).
