Management Reporter - Understanding how Report Viewer is Unique

While at Convergence 2011 in Atlanta, I had the opportunity to talk with customers and partners about how the Report Viewer works and what makes it unique. These were great conversations, so I wanted to pass the information along to you as well. 

 How does it work?

When reports are generated in Management Reporter, they are generated to the Management Reporter database in Microsoft SQL Server. A physical file containing report data is not created. Instead, when a user launches the Report Viewer, the user is authenticated and only sees the reports and folders they’ve been given access to. Essentially, each user gets a personalized view of the report, without any concerns for the wrong file getting shared with someone who shouldn’t see it.

What makes it unique?

Since no files are created, no separate storage is needed, no network shares and files all over the place. Also, with security being enforced when launching the viewer, there’s no need to create and email separate files for users. All the security, not only for the report data, but also access to these reports is managed by the Report Viewer.

When a user opens a report with a tree, the tree is displayed on the left with the report data on the right. Users can easily navigate through different levels on the tree. And, when drilling into details on report, a new window is not opened for each level. Users can browse and navigate easily between the different levels all within the report data area.

We had one customer on our panel who, when asked what his favorite feature was in Management Reporter, replied the Report Viewer. He loves everything about it, the security model, the Microsoft SQL Server database and how easy it is to use.

To see it in action, check out this demo of the Report Viewer. You can also find more information in this post and this post.