Have reports finished, now want to give end-users access to report designer

rbuser

My program has maybe 40 reports in it. I want to now give end-users the
ability to customize/re-design some of the reports. I just purchased the Pro
version. Is there a good step-by-step for how best to give end-users this
capability?

Report templates are saved in a database. When a user saves template changes
I want to write a new version of the report so that old reports still print
with the old version of the template. I think I can figure out how to do all
that... Mostly, I'm wondering:

Should I have a separate place in my program where all reports can be
customized, or should I let users get to reports the way the always have,
and then add options from within the report to make changes to the format of
the template?

digitalmetaphors

Check out our end user database demos. You'll want look into using the
Report Explorer component to let your users easily manage the reports in the
database. Basically, they should treat reports just like a MS Word document,
if you overwrite the report, it is persistent. You could provide the
capability to restore from backup in your application by adding a menu item
to the designer which would load templates from file backup to the database.
See the MergeMenu property of hte designer component. From the repor
explorer the users can launch the report designer. You can also skip the
report exporer and just use the report designer which can load and save
template to the database.

Take a look at the Developer's Guide pdf in the installation, Learning
ReportBuilder form our website and also the Tech Tips newsgroup in the End
User thread for more information.

Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors