Utilization of ComponentOne Reports for .NET Enables Four Rivers Software to Quickly Create Custom Reporting for the Healthcare Industry

Hospitals and Biomed departments needed an application that enabled them as part of their daily work to easily locate and keep track of their assets, work orders for technicians, maintenance orders, requests and more. ComponentOne Reports for .NET was a great fit for this Four Rivers Software project because it enabled them to rapidly create reports on the fly and allow the user to modify report properties. Previously reports were created in-house then given to the hospitals and Biomed departments.

The .NET application, TMS Plus, was built using a rich client application, Web application, Web service, multiple servers and the .NET Compact Framework all while interacting with each other. Operating systems consisted of Windows XP Professional, Windows .NET Server and Windows 2000 Professional. In addition, the following development tools were used:

• Visual Studio .NET Enterprise
• Visual Basic .NET
• ComponentOne Reports for .NET

The solution was implemented by gathering data from the main user then storing all features, types of reports and fields in the business layer object. The ComponentOne Report Object would then grab information and create reports. The security issues considered when building this application included admin, manager and departmental access to certain reports. The application was tested on different environments across the network and over the Internet.

“ComponentOne Reports for .NET is extremely easy to use, the learning curve is minimal and related support calls have decreased, overall enabling us to increase our productivity,” said Diego Loyola, Software Engineer at Four Rivers Software. “It also gives us more control with the ability to enhance the base controls, expand the application, and the per licensing fee allows for low cost deployment.”

Four Rivers Software no longer needed to rely on third party applications, as they were able to easily create, edit and view reports within the application. They were also able to utilize the Report Designer, permitting users to easily make changes to a report.

This innovative solution empowered customers by giving them the freedom and flexibility to easily create their own reports, in addition to quickly changing formats and providing the data in text, XML, Excel and PDF files. The solution works by using custom created SQL builder controls. It supports as many users as the SQL remotely administered server can support (100 megabytes to 5 gigabytes). The user then selects data and modifies the properties using ComponentOne Reports for .NET.

Overall, performance features increased by 4x as much than with products that Four Rivers Software previously used. Future implementation plans consist of adding graphics, charts and a library of functions to the reports.