ReportViewer Controls (Visual Studio)

  • Article

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 includes report design functionality and ReportViewer controls so that you can add full-featured reports to custom applications. Reports may contain tabular, aggregated, and multidimensional data. ReportViewer controls are provided so that you can process and display the report in your application. There are two versions of the control. The ReportViewer Web server control is an ASP.NET AJAX control used to host reports in ASP.NET AJAX projects. The ReportViewer Windows Forms control is used to host reports in Windows application projects.

Both controls can be configured to run in local processing mode or remote processing mode. How you configure the processing mode affects everything about the report from design to deployment.

  • Local processing mode refers to report processing that is performed by the ReportViewer control in the client application. All report processing is performed in the local process using data that your application provides. To create the reports used in local processing mode, you use the Report project template in Visual Studio. For more information, see Configuring ReportViewer for Local Processing.

  • Remote processing mode refers to report processing that is performed by a SQL Server 2008 or above Reporting Services report server. In remote processing mode, the ReportViewer control is used as a viewer to render a report that is processed on a Reporting Services report server. All processing from data retrieval to report processing is performed on the report server. To use remote processing mode, you must have a licensed copy of SQL Server 2008 or above. For more information, see Configuring ReportViewer for Remote Processing.

To use a ReportViewer control in your application, you must know how to add the control to your project form or Web page, configure the control to use a local report definition or server report, update data source references, and test and deploy the reports and control in your application. Walkthroughs are provided to help you learn these core skills. For more information, see Samples and Walkthroughs.

In This Section

Term

Definition

ReportViewer Web Server and Windows Forms Controls

Describes the features of the ReportViewer controls and the differences between the Web server control and Windows Forms control.

Adding and Configuring the ReportViewer Controls

Explains how to add the controls and the reports to an application, configure a control to perform local or remote processing, and set control properties. This section also includes information about ReportViewer runtime functionality such as report navigation, search, export, and printing.

Creating Client Report Definition (.rdlc) Files

Explains how to create a report that runs in local processing mode.

Deploying Reports and ReportViewer Controls

Describes the steps and requirements of a ReportViewer deployment.

Samples and Walkthroughs

Provides step-by-step instruction on how to create reports and configure controls for a variety of scenarios.

ReportViewer Controls Programming Reference

Includes the managed API reference for the ReportViewer Windows Forms and Web server controls, as well as the client-side API reference for the Web server control.

The ReportViewer Web server control provides a set of client-side API based on the Microsoft AJAX Library. This client-side API gives you added control over the behavior of the ReportViewer user interface.

See Also

Concepts

Configuring ReportViewer for Local Processing
Configuring ReportViewer for Remote Processing