I have begun using Report Builder, converting from Crystal Reports. Over the years, I have felt the support from Crystal Reports for Delphi developers as fallen by the wayside. I began looking for an alternative. Report Builder while is some ways being very different is in may ways similar, only far more flexible. With the product being written in Delphi makes it 100% better to integrate into a Delphi application, without a messy run-time.
In order to have separate report files I needed to create my own report designer program using the Report Builder report designer component, but it means I have one that suits the application and even takes care of some items that are the same from report to report automatically. I also needed to initially create some infrastructure for a universal data access method via Remobjects Dataabstract, but now it is place and works perfectly. I design a single SQL query for each report in most cases which tends to work a little faster than the using report master-details and sub-reports. However if I want to use sub-reports with master-details I can. With the professional edition giving the RAP language (Report Application Pascal), it gives me the ability to code complex calculations in the language I know. Performance in most case appears to be better than Crystal reports. I think I have a good solution.
Initially, since I purchased the server edition I created a Report Builder Server. I found though that it’s performance was not that great. I saw a report builder demo application in the remobjects sdk samples folder, I tried and was blown away by the difference. I have now implemented that instead and it makes a world of difference. The only issue is that by using a remobjects sdk service to execute the report and then send the results to the server, a delay is more likely to be experience by the user with a larger report with no feed back. However for reports that are only a few pages, the report comes back so quick. So if you intend use Report Builder and prefer the reports be built on the server for a client-server reporting solution, doing it in a remote service using remobjects is a better way to do it than using the Report Builder Server product by far. I now have a good Delphi report solution that with the help of remobjects dataabastract is also pretty close to being database gnostic.