How to Build Interactive Dashboards with Stimulsoft Reports.Fx for Flex

Stimulsoft Reports.Fx for Flex — Quick Start Guide for DevelopersStimulsoft Reports.Fx for Flex is a reporting solution tailored for Adobe Flex (Flash/Flex) applications. It provides a flexible report engine, a report designer, and viewer components that integrate with Flex projects to create, render, and export complex reports. This guide walks a developer through the essential steps to get up and running: installation, project setup, designing reports, data binding, embedding the viewer, exporting, and common tips for optimization and troubleshooting.

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Who this guide is for

This guide is intended for frontend developers familiar with Adobe Flex (MXML/ActionScript), developers maintaining legacy Flex applications, and anyone needing to integrate rich reporting capabilities into a Flex-based UI. It assumes basic knowledge of Flex project structure, data services, and how to include SWC or SWF libraries.

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What you’ll accomplish

• Install and add Stimulsoft Reports.Fx to a Flex project
• Create and design a basic report using the Stimulsoft report designer
• Bind Flex data (ActionScript objects, XML, or remote services) to a report
• Embed the report viewer in a Flex application and render reports at runtime
• Export reports to PDF, Excel, and other formats
• Learn performance tips and troubleshooting steps

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1. Installation and setup

1. Obtain Stimulsoft Reports.Fx for Flex:

   • Download the distribution from Stimulsoft’s website or use the package provided by your organization. Typical packages include SWC/SWF runtime libraries, designer files, and sample projects.

2. Add libraries to your Flex project:

   • In Flash Builder (or your build system), add the provided SWC files to the library path.
   • If the runtime is a SWF, ensure it’s accessible to the application (either embedded or loaded at runtime).

3. Include required assets:

   • Some distributions include additional assets (fonts, images, locales). Ensure they are copied to your project’s assets folder and referenced correctly.

4. Configure Flex compiler options (if needed):

   • If using locales or external resources, set appropriate compiler arguments (e.g., for embedding fonts or linking resource bundles).

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2. Designer basics

Stimulsoft provides a report designer that can be used as a standalone application or integrated into web apps. The typical workflow is to design a report template (a .mrt file) and then load it in your Flex app to supply data and render.

Key designer concepts:

• Bands: Report sections like Header, Data, Footer, Page Header/Footer, Group Header/Footer.
• Components: Text, Data Bands, Charts, Tables, Images, Barcodes, Cross-tabs.
• Data Dictionary: Defines data sources and fields available to the report.
• Expressions & Functions: Use expressions to compute values, format fields, or conditionally show content.
• Parameters: Define report parameters to filter or customize output at runtime.

Best practices:

• Design with data structure in mind — add fields to the Data Dictionary matching your data objects.
• Keep layout responsive where possible: use anchoring/stretching properties so elements adapt to content length.
• For complex logic, compute values in ActionScript and pass results as fields or parameters to simplify report expressions.

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3. Data binding: bringing your Flex data into reports

Reports need data. Stimulsoft supports binding to various sources: ActionScript objects, Arrays, XML, DataSets, or remote data returned from services.

Common approaches:

1. ActionScript objects / Arrays

   • Convert your data into an Array of plain objects (or AS3 beans), then register it with the report.
   • Example flow: fetch data via HTTPService/RemoteObject, on result wrap/transform rows, then pass to report.

2. XML

   • Create an XML object and register it as a data source. Define the XPath or element names in the report’s data dictionary.

3. DataSet / DataTable (if using server-side integration)

   • If you generate datasets server-side, convert them to a form the Flex app can consume, or load the report server-side.

Registering data in code (conceptual):

• Load the .mrt template into a Stimulsoft report object.
• Use report.registerData(“DataSourceName”, yourArrayOrXML) or similar API call.
• If needed, enable the report to recognize fields by calling report.dictionary.rebuild() or a comparable method to refresh field mappings.

Practical tip: Normalize field names (no spaces, consistent casing) to avoid binding surprises.

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4. Embedding the viewer and rendering a report

Typical runtime steps in an ActionScript/MXML application:

1. Import Stimulsoft viewer components and report classes.
2. Create a report instance and load the template:
   • report.load(“templates/myReport.mrt”) or load bytes if embedding.
3. Register data sources (see section 3).
4. Optionally set report parameters: report.parameters[“ParamName”].value = someValue
5. Render the report: report.render()
6. Attach the report to the viewer component: viewer.report = report

Example (pseudo-ActionScript/MXML):

<fx:Script>   <![CDATA[     import stimuls.report.*;     private function loadAndShowReport():void {       var report:StiReport = new StiReport();       report.load("reports/SalesReport.mrt");       report.regData("Sales", mySalesArray, "Sales");       report.dictionary.rebuild();       report.render();       reportViewer.report = report;     }   ]]> </fx:Script> <stimulsoft:StiViewer id="reportViewer" width="100%" height="100%"/> 

Viewer features:

• Paging controls, zoom, search, print, export buttons (configurable).
• Interaction: drill-down, hyperlinks, interactive sorting (if enabled in the template).

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5. Exporting reports

Stimulsoft supports exporting to PDF, DOCX, XLS/XLSX, CSV, HTML, and image formats. Exporting can occur in-memory and then offered to the user for download or sent to a server.

Typical export steps:

• After rendering, call report.exportDocument(StiExportFormat.Pdf) or use an export service method.
• If running in Flex and needing to offer a file download, you may need to convert the exported bytes to a FileReference and invoke save(), or post them to a server endpoint which returns a downloadable response.

Example conceptual code:

var bytes:ByteArray = report.exportToPdf(); // API names may vary by version var fileRef:FileReference = new FileReference(); fileRef.save(bytes, "SalesReport.pdf"); 

Note: Browsers/Flash Player may restrict saving files depending on security settings; server-side export may be more robust for production.

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6. Interactivity and parameters

• Parameters: Use them to filter data or change report behavior without editing the template. Set parameter values in code before rendering.
• Drill-down: Enable groups/detail drill features in the designer to allow users to expand/collapse sections in the viewer.
• Sorting & Filtering: You can allow user-driven sorting or apply filters programmatically by adjusting the data source before registering it.

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7. Performance tips

• Limit data volume: fetch only necessary columns and records for the report.
• Use server-side aggregation for large datasets (SUM, GROUP BY) to reduce client-side processing.
• Cache static report templates and assets.
• Use pagination in data retrieval to avoid loading massive arrays into the client memory.
• Minimize complex expressions inside the report; pre-calculate heavy computations in ActionScript or server-side.
• When exporting large reports, consider server-side rendering to avoid Flash Player memory limits.

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8. Troubleshooting common issues

• Missing fields in the designer/viewer: ensure report.dictionary.rebuild() or re-register data after loading a template.
• Font/encoding problems in exports: include and embed necessary fonts, ensure proper character encoding settings.
• Permissions/security: Flash Player may block local file access; host templates/assets on the same domain or configure crossdomain.xml.
• Export failures on large reports: check memory constraints and consider server-side export.

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9. Example: building a simple sales report (step-by-step)

1. Prepare data in Flex:

   • Fetch sales records via HTTPService.
   • Transform the result into an Array of Objects with fields: Date, Product, Quantity, Price, Total.

2. Create a template in the designer:

   • Add a Data Band bound to Sales.
   • Place text components for Date, Product, Quantity, Price, and a calculated Total.
   • Add a Group Footer with sum(Total) for total sales.

3. Load template and bind data in code:

   • report.load(“SalesReport.mrt”)
   • report.regData(“Sales”, salesArray, “Sales”)
   • report.dictionary.rebuild()
   • report.render()
   • viewer.report = report

4. Export:

   • var pdfBytes = report.exportToPdf()
   • prompt user to save.

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10. Resources and next steps

• Explore sample projects included in the Stimulsoft package to see full integration examples.
• Review the Stimulsoft API docs for exact class/method names and signatures (they can vary by version).
• If maintaining a long-term project, consider moving heavy report generation server-side (Stimulsoft server products or server-rendered reports) for scalability.

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This guide covers the essentials to get started with Stimulsoft Reports.Fx for Flex: installation, designing, binding data, rendering, exporting, and practical tips. If you want, I can provide a ready-to-run minimal Flex project example (MXML + ActionScript) tailored to a specific data shape.