Reporting scenarios

Classic Servoy
1

Hello ,

I have a few qustions regarding reporting.

I realize there are many ways to run reports using Servoy (trying to avoid Filemakers reporting issues).

  1. Summarizing records (ulitizing the form parts) (find , search, aggregates)

  2. Queries displayed as html

  3. 3rd party tools accessing the data source (crystal reports and a few others I have been evaluating)

I am starting to play with the reporting features using the form parts (similar to filemaker). One of the problems I have always had with filemaker (especially when summarizing daisy chained calculations), is that depending on the levels of data, these reports may be painfully slow.

I have tried using these same report concepts (not optimizing servoys tool set, being lazy), and see how this style of report may be sluggish calculating as well.

I realize that there are many ways calculating and summarizing data
using more standard concepts as most development enviorments use. With this in mind and not having a advanced understanding of how performance is effected running more complex reports, I was hoping to gain some insight as to how to best ultize Servoys tools while avoiding as much coding as possible.

So my question is , is there a way to determine when I should use basic form level reports (summarizing calculated data so many levels deep through relationships), opposed to using queries and html output style reports)?

I realize that sometimes its more efficeint to summarize data using a unstored calculation.
I am also a bit confused how Servoy stores a calc (maybe a calc based on several tables, a few levels deep). If I was to summize a stored calc field in a form part, it should be no differnt then summarizing that value as if it was enterd manually. Am I way off understanding this concept?

Thanks for any simple clarification.

Erich