Troubleshooting Common Issues with PerpetuumSoft Viewers for SSRS

PerpetuumSoft Viewers for SSRS: Complete Feature OverviewPerpetuumSoft Viewers for SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) is a set of tools designed to render, view, and interact with SSRS reports within desktop and web applications. Built to integrate with Microsoft reporting infrastructure, the suite provides flexible rendering, rich interactivity, and deployment-friendly capabilities that help developers and report consumers get more value from SSRS reports without being tied exclusively to the native SSRS web portal.

What are PerpetuumSoft Viewers for SSRS?

PerpetuumSoft Viewers for SSRS are components and controls that let you display SSRS reports in custom applications. They support several UI technologies (Windows Forms, WPF, ASP.NET) and provide alternatives to the built-in ReportViewer controls Microsoft supplies. The product suite focuses on improved rendering fidelity, extended export options, advanced navigation, and enhanced performance for both local and remote report processing modes.

Supported Platforms and Architectures

PerpetuumSoft offers viewers designed for:

Windows Forms (WinForms) applications — for traditional desktop apps.
WPF applications — for modern desktop experiences with richer UI.
ASP.NET (WebForms and MVC) — for embedding reports in web applications.
Integration with SSRS in both native and SharePoint integrated modes (depending on the SSRS version and deployment).

This cross-platform support helps teams reuse report UI components across projects, ensuring consistency and reducing redevelopment effort.

Rendering Features and Fidelity

One of the primary selling points of PerpetuumSoft Viewers is rendering fidelity. They aim to reproduce SSRS report visuals closely while offering additional controls over rendering behavior:

Accurate layout rendering, preserving page breaks, margins, and precise element positioning.
Support for SSRS report body, headers, footers, tablixes, matrices, charts, images, and subreports.
Handling of complex report items such as nested data regions and advanced grouping.
Improved pagination and previewing of multi-page reports.

Accurate rendering is essential when reports are used for legal, financial, or operational decisions where exact formatting matters.

Export and Print Capabilities

PerpetuumSoft Viewers extend the ways users can export and print SSRS reports:

Multiple export formats: PDF, TIFF, PNG, JPEG, DOC/DOCX (depending on viewer edition), HTML, and other image formats.
Customizable export settings: resolution, compression, and page sizing options for image formats.
High-quality PDF generation with options for embedding fonts, setting document properties, and controlling pagination.
Advanced printing support including print preview, print-to-printer with duplex/scale options, and selection of page ranges.

These options allow organizations to tailor outputs for archival, presentation, and downstream processing.

PerpetuumSoft Viewers provide richer user interactions compared with some basic viewers:

Paging controls with thumbnails and jump-to-page features.
Zooming, pan, and continuous scrolling modes.
Search within report text and highlights of found instances.
Drill-through and drill-down support mirroring SSRS behavior, enabling navigation between report levels.
Hyperlink handling and bookmark navigation.
Parameters UI for interactive parameter selection and dynamic report refreshing.

These features make the viewer experience closer to a full-featured report portal while embedded inside custom applications.

Data and Processing Modes

The viewers support both report processing modes:

Remote Processing: Connects to a running SSRS server, requests rendered content or report streams, and displays them. This mode leverages SSRS for processing, security, and data retrieval.
Local Processing: Renders RDL/RDLC locally within the application using embedded engines or libraries. Local processing can reduce round trips to the server and be useful for offline scenarios or fully client-side reporting.

Choosing between modes depends on architecture, security, and performance needs. PerpetuumSoft’s viewers strive to make switching straightforward where feasible.

Extensibility and Customization

Developers can extensively customize PerpetuumSoft Viewers to match application look-and-feel and integrate with business logic:

Theming and styling for controls (colors, fonts, toolbar layouts).
Programmatic control over navigation, exporting, and printing APIs.
Events and callbacks for handling user actions (clicks, parameter changes, export completion).
Ability to inject custom toolbars, context menus, and parameter panels.
Embedding into complex layouts and supporting multiple viewer instances concurrently.

This flexibility is valuable when embedding reports inside enterprise portals, custom dashboards, or line-of-business applications.

Performance Considerations

PerpetuumSoft optimizes rendering and interaction for large reports and constrained environments:

Efficient rendering pipeline to handle large paginated reports.
Caching strategies to reduce reprocessing when navigating between pages.
Lazy loading of images and heavy report elements to improve initial responsiveness.
Memory usage tuning options for desktop applications to avoid excessive allocations.

Performance will still depend on report complexity, server capacity (in remote mode), and client resources; however, the viewers provide knobs to tune behavior for typical enterprise workloads.

Security and Authentication

When used in remote processing mode, PerpetuumSoft Viewers integrate with SSRS security models:

Support for Windows authentication and other SSRS-supported authentication mechanisms.
Ability to pass credentials or use integrated authentication to obtain report streams from the server.
When rendering locally, security concerns shift to protecting report definitions and data sources embedded or accessed by the client app.

Proper configuration of authentication and transport security (HTTPS) remains essential when exposing reports in web or distributed environments.

Licensing and Editions

PerpetuumSoft typically offers different licensing models and editions (developer licenses, server licenses, runtime royalties may vary). Editions might differ by supported features, export formats, and target platforms. Organizations should evaluate licensing terms against deployment scenarios (number of developers, servers, end users) and required features (e.g., DOCX export or advanced printing).

Common Use Cases

Embedding SSRS reports into a custom desktop application to provide a unified UI for business users.
Replacing or supplementing native ReportViewer controls with improved rendering and export options.
Building custom web portals with SSRS-powered reports while offering richer client-side interactions.
Offline or local report rendering scenarios where server access is limited or undesired.
Customized printing/export workflows for compliance, archiving, or distribution.

Integration Tips

Match viewer version with SSRS server version to ensure best compatibility.
Test complex reports (subreports, embedded images, custom code) to verify rendering matches the SSRS portal.
Use remote processing when you need centralized security and data freshness; use local processing for offline and fast previews.
Tune export settings (DPI, compression) for balance between quality and file size.
Leverage caching where possible to improve responsiveness for repeated report views.

Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Better rendering fidelity and export options compared to some built-in viewers	Additional third-party dependency and licensing cost
Cross-platform UI support (WinForms, WPF, ASP.NET)	Potential compatibility nuances with newer SSRS features
Rich interactivity (search, thumbnails, parameter UI)	Learning curve for advanced customization
Extensible APIs and theming	May require tuning for very large reports