How to Add the Report Designer to a React Application

Published in

Bold Reports

6 min readOct 5, 2022

In this blog, we are going to see how to use Bold Report’s Report Designer component in a React application. It comes with a wide range of report items to transform data into meaningful information quickly and build business reports.

With our Bold Reports embeddable product, you can easily embed reporting components in your project to create, bind data to, view, and export pixel-perfect, paginated reports.

Prerequisites

Node JS (version 8.x or higher)
NPM (v3.x.x or higher)

Install Create React Application

Create React App is a simple and effective way to create a single-page React application. It provides a build setup with no configuration. To install the Create React App globally on your machine, run the below command in the Command Prompt.

npm install create-react-app -g

Note: Refer here to learn more about the Create React App package.

Create a new React application

Run the below command in the Command Prompt to create a new React application.

create-react-app reportdesigner

The create-react-app command adds the react, react-dom, react-scripts, and other dependencies required for your React application.

Install and create a new react application | React Report Designer — Install and create a new react application

Install Create React class package

Change the directory to your application’s root folder to configure the Report Designer component.

cd reportdesigner

To install the type definitions for create-react-class, run the below command in the Command Prompt.

npm install create-react-class –save--dev

Install Bold Reports React package

Now, let’s install the Bold Reports React package. Run the below command in the Command Prompt.

npm install @boldreports/react-reporting-components –save--dev

Add scripts reference

Bold Reports needs a window.jQuery object to render the React components. As shown in the below code snippet, create a globals.js file in the src folder and import jQuery into it.

import jquery from 'jquery';
import React from 'react';
import createReactClass from 'create-react-class';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';

window.React = React;
window.createReactClass = createReactClass;
window.ReactDOM = ReactDOM;
window.$ = window.jQuery = jquery;

Reference the globals.js file in the index.js file, like in the below code snippet.

import './globals'
import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import './index.css';
import App from './App';
//serviceWorker will show warning "unused".
//import * as serviceWorker from './serviceWorker';
ReactDOM.render(<App />, document.getElementById('root'));

Add Report Designer component
The Report Designer script files need to be imported to run the Bold web designer. So, import the files listed below into the App.js file.

/* eslint-disable */
import React from 'react';
import './App.css';
//Report designer source
import '@boldreports/javascript-reporting-controls/Scripts/bold.report-designer.min';
import '@boldreports/javascript-reporting-controls/Scripts/bold.report-viewer.min';
import '@boldreports/javascript-reporting-controls/Content/material/bold.reports.all.min.css';
import '@boldreports/javascript-reporting-controls/Content/material/bold.reportdesigner.min.css';
//Data-Visualization
import '@boldreports/javascript-reporting-controls/Scripts/data-visualization/ej.bulletgraph.min';
import '@boldreports/javascript-reporting-controls/Scripts/data-visualization/ej.chart.min';
//Reports react base
import '@boldreports/react-reporting-components/Scripts/bold.reports.react.min';
var designerStyle = {  
'height': '900px',  
'width': '100%'
};
function App() {  
return (    
<div style={designerStyle}>
<BoldReportDesignerComponent 
id="reportdesigner_container">            
</BoldReportDesignerComponent>    
</div>  
);
} 
export default App;

The highlighted designerStyle is an object used to store the width and height of the Report Designer control.

The highlighted App function in the previous image will return the Report Designer component.
Open the index.html file from the public folder and reference the following scripts in the <head> tag.

<title>Bold Reports – Report Designer</title>
<!-- Data-Visualization -->
<script src="https://cdn.boldreports.com/4.2.52/scripts/common/ej2-base.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.boldreports.com/4.2.52/scripts/common/ej2-data.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.boldreports.com/4.2.52/scripts/common/ej2-pdf-export.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.boldreports.com/4.2.52/scripts/common/ej2-svg-base.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.boldreports.com/4.2.52/scripts/data-visualization/ej2-lineargauge.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.boldreports.com/4.2.52/scripts/data-visualization/ej2-circulargauge.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.boldreports.com/4.2.52/scripts/data-visualization/ej2-maps.min.js"></script>

Set Web API service URL

Let’s set the Web API service URL. This is where the Report Designer is processed and rendered in the browser using the Web API service.
The service URL property specifies the report Web API service URL.
To render the Report Designer, set the service URL properties of the Report Designer Web API as shown in the below snippet.

/* eslint-disable */
import React from 'react';
import './App.css';
//Report designer source
import '@boldreports/javascript-reporting-controls/Scripts/bold.report-designer.min';
import '@boldreports/javascript-reporting-controls/Scripts/bold.report-viewer.min';
import '@boldreports/javascript-reporting-controls/Content/material/bold.reports.all.min.css';
import '@boldreports/javascript-reporting-controls/Content/material/bold.reportdesigner.min.css';
//Data-Visualization
import '@boldreports/javascript-reporting-controls/Scripts/data-visualization/ej.bulletgraph.min';
import '@boldreports/javascript-reporting-controls/Scripts/data-visualization/ej.chart.min';
//Reports react base
import '@boldreports/react-reporting-components/Scripts/bold.reports.react.min';
var designerStyle = {
  'height': '900px',
  'width': '100%'
};

function App() {
  return (
    <div style={designerStyle} className="App">
            <BoldReportDesignerComponent
            id="reportdesigner_container"
            serviceUrl={'https://demos.boldreports.com/services/api/ReportDesignerWebApi'}>
            </BoldReportDesignerComponent>
    </div>
  );
}
export default App;

In this blog, I used our Bold Reports demo Web API service link to render the Report Designer. You can use your own Web API service.

In this blog, I used our Bold Reports demo Web API service link to render the Report Designer. You can use your own Web API service.

Run the React application

Now, let’s run the application. Open the Command Prompt and run the below command.

npm run start

It will launch the application in the default browser at the following URL: http://localhost:3000/. The npm run start command automatically opens your browser.

The Report Designer is loaded in the browser, as shown as follows. You can start to create stunning professional reports in the Report Designer.

The report definition file will be automatically downloaded by clicking the save icon and the Save option.

Conclusion

In this blog, we learned how to integrate the Report Designer component into a React application in Bold Reports. To explore further, go through our sample reports and Bold Reports documentation.

If you have any questions, please post them in the comments section. You can also contact us through our contact page, or if you already have an account, you can log in to submit your support question.

Bold Reports now comes with a 15-day free trial with no credit card information required. We welcome you to start a free trial and experience Bold Reports. Give it a try and let us know what you think!

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Originally published at https://www.boldreports.com on October 5, 2022.