SSRS Report. Update read-only data :)

I have not heard of anybody wanting to update a database from a report.
A report  excel or not was design to get you a hard copy of your data only.
Most of the time you have to have a app or direct contact with the database to be able to update fields in the database.
 

Hi Megan,

This is excellent trick I will definetelly use it. I wonder if that will work with more completed stuff? I want to use SSRS to perform rather 'complex' updates but there IDs would still be somewhere available to refer to it is just like in VBA Excel where I have cell change event which I can use to update database using adodb in any way I want. I think with Javascript (make fields editable) that should be doable. It is Excel like solution. It doesn't make sense apart from that it is as easy to do as Excel and I would agre with this point with the client :)

Regards
Emil

Good luck with the JavaScript. :-)
OK, I admit I am a database developer, not a web developer, and the sight of JavaScript makes me feel queasy, though I do write in it sometimes, when forced to. The new VS 2010 ReportViewer control uses AJAX and might perhaps work better for this kind of thing.

I personally haven't build a single workable asp.net page in my life! Databases is what I like :)  but as long as it works for the client and makes his life easier and is fairly stable I don't have personnally anything against it. I've seens you mentioned AJAX recently in my other posts and I must admit this triggered the question :)

I'm quite interested in SSRS 2010 with AJAX, I might install it on one of my PCs to test it. Let me actually google new featues :)

Regards
Emil

There are two new launches, Visual Studio 2010 which launched last week and includes the new ReportViewer control, and SQL Server 2008 R2 which is launching "soon" and has a significantly improved Reporting Services. The AJAX ReportViewer is in VS 2010, not SQL Server 2008 R2, and is available now. Can I confuse you futher? :-)

I'm already slightly confused and don't mind being confused a bit more :)
p.s. Hmmm google doesn't seems to have anything about ssrs 2010

There is no SSRS 2010. There is VS 2010 and SSRS 2008 R2 (see above).

I should have read it more carefully... I thought if we are in 2010 everything is released :)

Anyway I tried w3School AJAX tutorial and constructed page to update 'scores' in database on text box change and works perfectly!! (took me 3h to learn it :p) I just need to speak with my Javascript person and learn how to transform read-only reports into read-write reports.... I know its against standards and asp.net approach but for me I see many benefits of that especially that creating very robust reports takes very little time.

Regards
Emil

Another interesting approach I heard about here on EE was to return XML from the ReportViewer, which can then be transformed into XHTML. It seems like that might allow the same stored procedure approach, but allow the displayed report to have entry fields and such as well as hyperlinks.
I haven't really given this much thought yet. I was viewing the XML format as an export option, but the ServerReport.Render method can return any format to the web app as a byte stream, so it could render in XML and then the web app could transform that to a data entry page and return it to the browser.
Normally I wouldn't want to go to that much trouble because I am for the most part satisfied with the HTML that SSRS produces, but for data entry it might be very useful. The AJAX-based report viewer also has a client-side (JavaScript) API that is described at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd756405.aspx
The new ReportViewer control does not support SSRS 2005 in remote processing mode. Maybe it is finally time to upgrade?

Hi

That is an interesting option. I will discuss it with my colleagues at work and see if that gives them some extra benefits.

Thanks
Emil