RSClientPrint Download

I have an asp.net application which is launched from our B2B site. The primary purpose of the application is to allow our external clients access to reports, along with the ability to export and print. The RS2005 report viewer component was used within the application to render the reports. The problem is when the our client users click on the print button on the report viewer's tool bar, many of them are receiving a window asking them if they want to install "SQL Server". In reality, the ActiveX viewer, RSClientPrint, is what is trying to install. Our technical support staff is being flooded with calls due to this pop up. The users are very confused and concerned about installing "SQL Server." In addition, some users do not have the ability to install the ActiveX viewer, so they are not going to be able to print. We've experienced this in the past with ActiveX for Crystal. Finally, some users receive no message or feedback when they click on the print button for several minutes. We've determined the ActiveX is being installed during this time. We've had users wait as long as 7 minutes for the Print Dialog to come up.

1. We would like to place a message along with the link on the page where the report is rendered. Is there a way for us to provide a link to a self extracting file containing RSClientPrint?

2. Also is there any way to get around the issue where the client user does not have the ability to install the ActiveX? I've seen references on the forum to using SMS, but this is not possible since the users are external?

3. Is there any setting we can turn on so the users don't think the application has gone "out to lunch" while the ActiveX viewer is installed?

Thanks

Anything that Report Manager or the ActiveX control does, you can code yourself using the Reporting Services Web Services. You don't and never did need the ActiveX to view reports. It was added to allow new developers an easy way to add reporting features to applications without needing to know about the Web Services.

What you will find is that at some point, you will need to access Reporting Services in a way that the ActiveX does not support/make easy and you will have to go via the Web Services... now it that time

Regards

Paul

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Paul,

Thank you for your quick response. Unfortunately, we avoided this approach on purpose for a number of reasons, one of which was to avoid passing sensitive client customer information on the query string and then having to encrypt it.

We have actually used the RS web service with a RS2000 report for our price lists. However, we liked the ease of use in VS2005 with the report viewer component and the ability to pass parameters internally from the ASP.Net application to the report viewer component which hid sensitive information from potential hackers.

I assume based on your response there is no way for us to provide a link to a self extracting RSClientPrint file or any way to speed up the download and installation time?

Thanks

Carol

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Not really. This is one of the 'joys' of working with ActiveX controls.

You only pass details across the query string when you are using URL access to reporting services. The web services use SOAP (XML). You could create a soap extension in .NET to encrypt the data or simply run the web services over SSL.

Cheers

Paul

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Paul,

You say "You don't and never did need the ActiveX to view reports".... Are you talking about RSClientPrint? If so...is there any way to print reports (other than browser, or exported) without this ActiveX?

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Hi to everyone, actually i have an application to external clients and they will need to be able to print some reports.

After reading some forums, blogs, MSDN KB articles, we discover a way to print automatically theese reports, but it only work if we have thath activex installed.

If you (Paul) say thah we can perform the activity to print reports on Iexplorer using the Reporting Services Web Service, could you give us some orientatio about the methods to use for this activity...

I used this Web Service form rendering reports and show it to the client, but now thath i need to print, the only way i discovered is using the activex.

Greetings !

|||From what I understand, in order to use that print button on the report toolbar, the RSClientPrint ActiveX is required. The only other options for printing are:
1. Using the browser's print functionality (file->print) - but then you get the rest of the web page, and only the part of the report that is currently visible (nothing you have to scroll to see or other pages for multipage reports)
2. Export the report and use another application to print - for instance, export to PDF and print from Adobe Reader.
Basically, the browser knows how to print web pages, Adobe knows how to print PDFs, and RSClientPrint knows how to print SQL 2005 Reports.
MSDN - SQL Server 2005 Books Online - Printing Reports from a Browser:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms159237.aspx
MSDN - SQL Server 2005 Books Online - How to: Configure a Browser for Client-Side Printing (Report Manager)
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms159190.aspx
This was enough proof for our marketing department...
-
Mike