Ad-hoc reporting

We have a web application using SQL Server 2000, and we'd like to add ad-hoc
reporting. Here are the options we thought of so far:
1. Use SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services - but we're not sure how "ad-hoc"
we can get using SSRS. Has anyone tried?
2. Use a 3rd party reporting software package. Does anyone know of any?
3. Build a custom .NET ad-hoc app that is fine tuned for this application.
This is likely the most costly.
The goal is to have the users build and save report templates, and the be
able to select any combination of fields in the relational schema to include
in the reports, and select on any fields as well.
Does anyone have any other suggestions?
Thank you!!My suggestion is to investigate Report Builder which comes with RS 2005. It
is an ad hoc reporting solution that came out with RS 2005. This is
non-trivial to create on your own and from a cost perspective you will be
better off paying for the upgrade. Plus RS 2005 is much faster for Excel and
PDF output, has multi-select parameters, end user sorting and date picker.
Note that as long as you pay the license you can upgrade just RS and leave
your database at 2000.
Bruce Loehle-Conger
MVP SQL Server Reporting Services
"Dean J Garrett" <info@.amuletc.com> wrote in message
news:uUTBa8qrHHA.5028@.TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> We have a web application using SQL Server 2000, and we'd like to add
> ad-hoc
> reporting. Here are the options we thought of so far:
> 1. Use SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services - but we're not sure how
> "ad-hoc"
> we can get using SSRS. Has anyone tried?
> 2. Use a 3rd party reporting software package. Does anyone know of any?
> 3. Build a custom .NET ad-hoc app that is fine tuned for this application.
> This is likely the most costly.
> The goal is to have the users build and save report templates, and the be
> able to select any combination of fields in the relational schema to
> include
> in the reports, and select on any fields as well.
> Does anyone have any other suggestions?
> Thank you!!
>