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raveens
16-Feb-2010, 02:22 PM
Hi,

I'm new to the Visual Report Writer (VRW) but am interested in it.

How does VRW work for end-users - esp licensing?

How does the licensing work for end-user?
Does it need a VDF-runtime/client installed?
Does it come with a viewer meaning not integrated within a VDF app?
Does it come with a scheduler to scheduel reports and have them emailed out?

We recently moved to IBM DB2 and our clients want to start developing their own reports and we have always pointed them towards crystal reports but if VRW is a viable option then I would rather them use the VRW

How does licensing work for end-users solely using VRW? Do they have to purchase a VDF-runtime and then have VRW run on it? OR is it a standalone app?

Thanks

Nick
16-Feb-2010, 06:51 PM
Hi Raveen,

Pleased to hear that you are interested, here a bit of a long answer...

The full product definition for VRW is the following:

1. Visual Report Writer Developer Edition
2. Visual Report Writer Standard Edition
3. Visual Report Writer Enterprise Edition
4. Visual Report Writer Query

Short term (March 2010):
The first to release is going to be the Developer Edition. Although we aim it to be a stand-alone product in the future, for version 1 of the Developer Edition we require the user to have VDF 15.1 Studio, or a 15.1 Client License to be installed. The Client License of Studio is used to run VRW (the designer part).

The Developer Edition license allows you to (1) integrate reports into your VDF application, using the API and wizard. It also allows you to (2) distribute reports royalty-free with your applications that are based on a VDF Client License. The nice thing will be that you only require one OCX and two DLL's to make that work.

After March:
We will work on the Standard Edition. It basically offers the same report design capabilities as Developer, but not the right to integrate and/or distribute reports. Also Standard does not have the capability to "lock" reports prohibiting end-users from changing reports. When you install Standard Edition, a single user Client License (for use with VRW only) will be made available with it, in case no appropriate Client License is already installed at the computer.

If not launched from a VDF application, reports can be launched from the Visual Report Writer itself. For the future we are working on “stand alone” report launching capabilities. Maybe nice to know that Standard will be quite affordable, cheaper than Developer, prices will be made available soon.

Further down the line (much further, so don’t hold your breath) we have scheduled the Enterprise Edition. It will be modest at first, but ultimately think of a strong Enterprise Reporting Portal system in which user rights, support for scheduling reports etc. As said, this one is far down the line, just mention it so you have an idea of the general roadmap, as it was also presented at Synergy New Orleans last year. The Enterprise should also support web delivery of pixel-perfect reports.

In fact, if you have a chance to come to EDUC in Seefeld, we may have more news to share!

Hope this helps,
Nick


PS. If you want all this delivered sooner, it helps if you order your license soon. And we tried to make it extra attractive for you if you order before end of the month! :-)

Marco
16-Feb-2010, 09:27 PM
Hi Raveen,

As for the scheduler, I think that what we can build ourselves (and we actually have), is always more powerful as what a generic scheduler could do.

Using the API, and a VDF program that runs 24/7 you can:
- Schedule reports
- Have other systems load jobs for once-of reports from events (a job could be a report of unpaid invoices), the trigger to place the job in the queue could be, that the client ordered a new product on the website.
- Monitor the time that a report took run
- Keep log of who got what report when
- Feed the delivered PDF into an enterprise document server
- etc etc

Cheers,
Marco

Peter Crook
17-Feb-2010, 09:40 AM
Wot, no Personal Edition?