We will be discussing the following features and will see some examples on how these features can be implemented in .Net.

• Modifying the structure of the report
• Carrying out analysis or calculations on the data available
• Formatting the data.

Advantages of Excel reporting

Microsoft Excel is very friendly with almost all segments of the corporate, even the top management/decision makers are very comfortable with excel, they can play around excel.  Apart from these we have the following advantages,

• Ease of use
• Ease of modification
• Ease of formatting
• Ease of Analysis
• Easy to manage

Excel reporting .NET

The solution, which I am providing now, is not a pure .NET solution, it is a combination of SQL stored procedure, Excel Macros and Java Script. .Net is just used to tie all of these together, generate the report and present it to the End user.

Before getting into the solution, first we should understand how we can write into an excel document.

Writing into an Excel document using SQL

3.2.1.1 Regions in Excel

A data region is an area on a report containing data from a data source. Types of data regions are charts, lists, tables, and matrices.  (Refer http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms155976.aspx)

We can name a set of columns in Excel, which will be acting as a table inside the Excel sheet.  We can Inserts and updates to these Named Regions.

3.2.1.2Creating a Named region

·        Open a excel sheet

·        Enter the table header

·        Select the Column header as shown above.

·        Select Insert è Name èDefine

·    A window opens as shown above

·        Name it as “employee” and click “Add”

·        Click OK

·        Save the document and close it. (Name the document as Emp.xls and store it in c:\

From SQL we can export the data to any database or data stores using DTS packages and Export wizard. Apart from this we can also export data from SQL to any database or datasource using a Query “Insert into OpenRowSet”.

We should all realize that Excel can also store data like access or any other database and Data can be retrieved or written into the excel document.

We are going to use this statement and export the data to excel docoument.

Create the following SP in Northwind database,

Create procedure dbo.ExportEmployeeData(@filePath as varchar(500))

as

begin

            DECLARE @Expr1 VARCHAR(200),@Expr2 VARCHAR(200),@Expr3 VARCHAR(200) 

            Declare @Sql1 AS VARCHAR(800), @Sql as varchar(800)

            SET @Expr1 = '''Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0'''

            SET @Expr2 =  '''Excel 8.0;Database=' + @filePath + ';HDR=YES''' 

            SET @Expr3 = '''SELECT * FROM [Employee]'''

            set @Sql1 = @Expr1 + ','+ @Expr2 + ',' + @Expr3

            set @SQL='insert into OPENROWSET('+ @Expr1 + ','+ @Expr2 + ',' + @Expr3 + ') SELECT EmployeeID, FirstName, LastName, Title from employees

            Exec(@Sql)

end

In this SQL we are taking the excel name with path as the parameter and we are using Microsoft jet OLEDB drives to write the data into the SQL. Where [Employee] in the statement

SET @Expr3 = '''SELECT * FROM [Employee]'''

Is the region we created in the Excel Sheet.

The statement “set @SQL='insert into OPENROWSET('+ @Expr1 + ','+ @Expr2 + ',' + @Expr3 + ') SELECT EmployeeID, FirstName, LastName, Title from employees” actually fetched the records from employees table and inserts it into the Excel sheet.

Now, try executing this stored procedure using the following statement,

ExportEmployeeData 'c:\employee.xls'

1. There should not any data contained in the cells where we will be trying to write the data.

For example, In our case the region is from B4 to E4. and if we are going to insert 10 rows then there should not any data in the cells from B5 to E14.

If any data exists it will throw an error.

2. The excel file should be in the SQL Server system or else the folder should be shared with write permission and file share path should be given.
3. Also note that, SP is not the only way to write into an excel file, the same logic can be implemented in our java or .net code.

Is it not simple to write the data into an excel sheet. Of course it is.

Now, that we know how the data can be written into an excel sheet, the next step is formatting the data (Presentation). This can be achieved using Excel formulas and Macros.

Report is a type of document written/created by someone or a group of people. It can also be called as an organized collection of data, prepared for viewing or printing.

What ever application we do either it is a small billing software or a complex Payroll system for a bigger corporate, and the end of the day/quarter the top decisions maker or not going to look at our software/application we developed, they are going to look at the reports which our application generated with some click of buttons. These reports should be,

They are going to use these reports for their organization needs or for an analysis. W should realize the importance of reporting in software development.

In this article, I am going to talk about the key features which can provided in Excel reporting and how .Net applications can generate the report in Excel format.

Excel Reporting

Developer would have come across several reporting methodologies like formatting the data with tabs and spaces and printing them, or using reporting packages like Data report for VB6.0 or Crystal packages.

But the reports generated by these methods, provides very minimal features to the end users.

Lets see some scenarios,

Scenario 1:

The end user generates the report with some clicks of button, he see the report on the screen. Now we wants to show a Graph which conveys some meaning full data or he feels that if a graph is added to this report it will add more meaning to report. So what he needs to do,

• Need to check the agreement with the software vendor
• Need to raise a Change request.
• Series of call with the business analyst to explain how the graph should be generated.
• Report designer starts working on the report completes the report
• Series of testing has to be done
• Then deploy the report

Scenario 2:

The end user is going to send some report to their client or present the report in their board meeting and feels that he should not show all the data available but only a part of it. So what should we do for this case?

• We create two report or en number of reports with the same set of data hiding some columns or making some structural changes to the report

 The report is not flexible to hide some columns or generate report to their immediate requirement.

The Solution

The best solution would be developing a feature, which helps the user to create report on fly.

Report on fly

• Users can given the option, what fields needs to be display
• The type of analysis or calculations they want to do on the data available
• Add some graphical format of the data
• And many more things 

Lets see how we can achieve some of these using excel.

Most of developers will use the Shortcuts Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V very often to re-use some code snippet. But pasting will work only for the last item that is stored in the click board memory or the last item I copied.

Now what if we want to reuse some set of codes snippets very often. Thats waht we are going to do using the Clip board ring. Most of us would have noticed a tab in the ToolBox called “Clip Board Ring”. 

In this tab we can organise the groups of code snippets which we want to use very often. Now Activate/Select the “Clip Board Ring” tab. Initally you will not have any items listed.

Steps to Add item to the “Clip Borad Ring“.

Step 1:  Open any coding window, I mean a HTML Editor or Class Editor, select the code snippet which you want to add to the Clip Board Ring.

Step 2: Press Ctrl + C (Same old copy shortcut) I hope everyone understands whats happening behind the scenes.

Step 3: You could see a new item called “Markup Fragment” in the Clipboard ring. Thats the default label for the code snippet you have added recently. Rename it to easily identify.

Steps to User the added item.

Its very simple. Just drag and drop what ever item you want into your editor. You could see the item getting added.

Or press Ctrl + Shift + V to iterates through the text snippets contained in the Clipboard Ring. Keep Ctrl and Shift down and press V multiple times to select the snippet you want, and then release all the buttons to have the snippet pasted in the current position.

For more information on this feature.... Please do R&D yourself.... And don't forget to let me know if you have found anything new.

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    Structure DateData
        Public strday As String
        Public intmon As Integer
        Public inthour As Integer
        Public intmin As Integer
        Public intsec As Integer
    End Structure

    Public Function ReturnDateInfo() As DateData
        Dim dd As New DateData()
        dd.strday = Format(DateTime.Today, "dddd")
        dd.intmon = Month(DateTime.Today)
        dd.inthour = Hour(DateTime.Now)
        dd.intmin = Minute(DateTime.Now)
        dd.intsec = Second(DateTime.Now)
        Return dd
    End Function