Syncfusion is very excited to announce that the Bold Reports v2.4.10 release is out now, delivering new support and features. This blog provides an overview of the latest updates. We hope to reveal a couple surprises along the way!

Cloud Reporting

Connect to PostgreSQL data sources in reports

PostgreSQL is a powerful, object-relational database system. It extends the SQL language with many features that safely store and scale the most complicated data workloads. With PostgreSQL, you can create a PostgreSQL data source and use it in a report.

To create a new data source with a PostgreSQL connection, select the data source icon on the right and enter the details as shown in the following image.

Concierge support

This allows you to submit a support ticket from within Cloud Reporting with an issue summary, description, and relevant accompanying documents. Refer to the following image to see how to use concierge support.

Cloud Reporting and Enterprise Reporting

Copy report REST API

We have exposed a REST API to copy a report from Cloud Report Sever and Enterprise (on-premises) Report Sever.

Custom site name in startup screen

We’ve provided an option to modify the default site name with a custom name in the startup screen as shown in the following image.

Offline License Validation

The Embedded Reporting, Enterprise Reporting, and Report Viewer SDK comes with offline license validation. This feature provides a simple, quick, and hassle-free way to validate licensing without connecting to a network. If you are in a situation where your software won’t talk to the internet or isn’t allowed to connect to external sites, you can perform the activation within your apps or software. Click here to learn more about enabling this option.

Embedded Reporting

Common features

Support for .NET 5

The Bold Reports Report Designer, Report Viewer, and Report Writer come with .NET 5 Framework support for web and desktop platforms.

jQuery 3.5.1 support

Report Designer and Report Viewer have been upgraded to support jQuery 3.5.1.

Bootstrap 4 theme

A new Bootstrap 4 theme is available for Report Viewer and Report Designer to fit your application’s look and feel.

Report Designer

Option to set permissions for shared data sources and data sets

Previously, the permission settings allowed you to set permissions like edit, create, and delete for the data source and data set. Now, we have enabled the option to set permissions for shared data sources and shared data sets as well.

Customize parameters in the parameter block

We’ve provided the beforeParameterAdd event in the Report Designer to help you customize the parameter element while previewing the report. It provides options to change element type, set custom attributes, and display settings. The following image shows the date parameter enabled with a date-time picker and time display format.

Show report parameters with distinct values

A parameter created with data set query values may contain duplicate values. The parameter creation interface comes with a new option that helps show only unique values in the parameter drop-down when previewing the report, without creating new a data set to populate the unique data. You can enable the option as shown in the following screenshot.

After configuration, preview the report to automatically filter values and display only distinct data as shown in the following figure.

Option to set page name for each report item and groups

The page name property can be enabled for all report items and groups. This allows the report to be exported with custom page names for all sheets when exported in Excel format. Also, you can provide data set field values or expressions as input to the property.

Show or hide the report items panel

We have provided an expand or collapse option for the report item panel in the Report Designer to show or hide the panel on demand.

Report Viewer

Render custom report items in ASP.NET Core

A custom report item allows you to add a new report item that is not natively supported in the RDL standard. The ASP.NET Core Report Viewer allows you to render already created reports that contain custom report items in your ASP.NET Core apps.  The following image shows the report with custom barcode report items.

Increase quality of chart in export

We’ve provided a property option to increase the chart item quality in exported documents. The quality value can range from 1 to 10. The following code sample shows the property setting options at the client and server sides.

Client Side

$("#reportviewer").boldReportViewer({
exportSettings:{ imageQuality: 5 }
});

 Server Side

public void OnInitReportOptions(ReportViewerOptions reportOption)
{
  reportOption.ReportModel.ExportSettings.ImageQuality = 5;
}

The quality comparison result is shown in the following image.

View charts with a pacific color palette

This allows users to view chart report items with a pacific color palette. Other color palettes have been improved to have the same appearance as the Microsoft RDL standard palettes.

View charts with week intervals

Week intervals can be enabled in chart report items, allowing users to view and export the chart axis with week intervals. The following image shows a chart axis with weekly intervals.

Display report items using RenderFormat expressions

You can now use the built-in global RenderFormat inside expressions to show or hide any report item or change the value of any property at runtime. The newly supported expressions are:

• =Globals!RenderFormat.Name
• =Globals!RenderFormat.IsInteractive

Customize the time display format of DateTime report parameter

Provides a property option to customize the date-time format, time display format, and time intervals of the date report parameter in the Report Viewer parameter block. The following figure shows a customized appearance of the time value and date format. Refer to the API reference documentation for more details.

Rotate image report item

The custom angle property option is provided to set a rotate angle for image report items with angle values such as 0, 90, 180, and 270.

Customize Report Viewer web API service endpoints

This allows you to have a custom web API service endpoint name to process the Report Viewer requests. You can have custom endpoints that invoke predefined methods of IReportController. Refer to the controller customization documentation for more details.

Export PDF with bitmap images in ASP.NET Core

You can add bitmap images (BMP) to a report and export them to PDF document format in your ASP.NET Core platform applications.

Upgraded the default extension of Word and Excel documents

The default extensions of Word and Excel exported documents have been upgraded to newer version Word (.docx) and Excel (.xlsx) extensions.

Conclusion

We are happy to share these updates for Bold Reports v2.4.10 with you, and we hope you find them useful. Check them out and let us know what you think on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram. If you have any questions, leave a comment below. To keep saving time with your reporting solutions, stay tuned to Syncfusion and Bold Reports.