FAQ: What is the difference between the zenon Report Generator and the zenon Report Viewer?

FAQ: What is the difference between the zenon Report Generator and the zenon Report Viewer?

The zenon Report Generator and Report Viewer combine to make up the module "zenon Reporting". The Report Generator, Report Viewer, or both styles can be used in your zenon HMI/SCADA projects. Each style has its own advantages and compliments different situations. 

zenon Report Generator – Overview
The zenon Report Generator is a native, internal, zenon based reporting module. The Report Generator works on a cell-orientated basis. Each cell can be assigned certain functions and formats, which can support read/write capabilities to access and display data from the zenon runtime or other sources. In runtime, the reports are typically displayed in a table format. Engineering and generating Report Generator style reports are completely self-contained within zenon. 

zenon Report Viewer – Overview
The zenon Report Viewer is a modern and standardized style of reporting based upon Microsoft reporting technologies. Report Viewer style reports are tightly integrated with the zenon Runtime. The Report Viewer can be used to display read-only RDL reports (report definition language) in Service Engine, and are configurable with Microsoft tools such as: Microsoft Report Builder 3.0 and/or Microsoft SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT). 

Report Viewer reports in zenon can be interactive to allow sorting and grouping, display charts and diagrams, as well as offering standardized PDF and Excel export options.

zenon Reporting Feature Matrix
Functionality
Report Generator
Report Viewer
Read/Write
Read/Write
Read Only
Access to Alarms & Events
X
X
Access to Historian/Archive data
X
X
Access Recipes
X
X
Access to Online Values
X
X
Access to Batch Control
X
X
Custom SQL queries
X
-
Export to Text
X
X
Export to PDF
-
X
Export to Excel
-
X
Graphs & Charts
-
X
Service Engine Grouping, Sorting
-
X
Custom formulas, Logic, Arithmetic
X
X
Scheduled Reports
X
X
Key: [X] Supported; [-] Not supported