Report designer (banded reporting) is a mature product with a lot of flexibility and features available to the designing user who has some coding knowledge but may not be a full-fledged developer or have access to the development environment. The ability to add C# or VP scripts to reports in the end-user designer is very beneficial. Even without scripts, the designer is robust and filled with features that, when paired with a bit of creative experimentation, can deliver some reporting solutions that I did not think possible. In addition to the usual banded report features, the designer offers detailed report bands (subreports within the same report file), subreport objects (different report files linked via a single object), verticle report bands, and excellent manipulation of properties and behavior via "expressions" - no script needed. A PDF object which inserts PDF files into the report, a robust, albeit antiquated and user un-friendly, chart designer, and the scripting functionality for near-developer-level customizations are also very handy. The DevExpress support team is very knowledgeable and helpful once they understand your issue. In the US, responses are typically 24 hours apart. Don't expect "P1 Emergency" or phone support, but they will stick with you and solve your problem, including writing scripts and sample projects. Developers frequently help out on the support tickets. Finally, the cost and licensing model of DevExpress are very attractive, making it easy to integrate their products while keeping your own product costs and licensing fees reasonable. The dashboard designer has excellent conditional formatting functionality. It is flexible and robust, albeit a little cumbersome when having to format many columns in a grid with multiple-conditions on each column. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
Out of the box, the dashboard object is outdated. Most of the chart objects need a visual update, and some features are lagging behind competitors. You can register custom JS charts and such then wire them into the dashboard object, but this requires developer intervention for each object. A user/designer who only uses the "end-user dashboard designer" is stuck with the stock offering. The other area where dashboarding falls behind is the inability to manually relate multiple datasources (queries) to each other. Cross-datasource (ds) filtering is possible, but the columns used to join different ds's must have the same path. That's PATH, not just name. I.e. they must come from the same source, all the way back to the tables. Then, the objects being cross-ds filtered must contain the joining column, which can be a real pain if you're using GUIDs. E.g. a slicer/filter must contain the joining column in the slicer itself - not hidden, so you often have to use a Tree-format slicer, with the second level being the joining column and having to be ignored by the end user of the dashboard. The inability to include columns from different ds's or queries in the same chart, grid, etc. can also be quite frustrating. Finally, the end-user Dashboard and Report designers are both Winform apps, and if your products are web-based, there are some differences in behavior between the winforms objects and the web objects. DevEx says they should behave virtually the same, but that is not always the case. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
