Can you use Crystal Reports on a webpage without having to use session?

Question

In all of the examples I have seen it shows using the session to store the reportdocument object between postbacks.  That means that clicking the page buttons fires a postback.  Other reporting tools such as PDF, ActiveReports, and others do not have to do this.  Is this a limitation of Crystal and a COM backend or is it just a common sample and not the only option? 
How do you get paging to work without having to use session and do postbacks?  AJAX, Javascript, converting to a PDF, etc. would all be possible ways to not require a postback.
My problem is that I am using SQL Server to store the session and the reportdocument object is not serializeable.  I have been told I can buy Crystal Report Server for $5000 and this will work.  But in reality I can buy other reporting tool for $500 or convert them to SQL Reporting and it will work as well.  So I am trying to be reasonable and figure out what I need to do.  That seems like a bit much to need a whole server application to serve the reports just to turn on paging for a couple of simple reports.  I'm hoping there is a way to not use session to get paging to work. 
I have consider pushing the report into viewstate and not session.  But I would rather not push it into either.  Is this a valid option? 
What is the typical way to handle this sort of thing?  Do you really have to push it into session to get the CrystalReportViewer control to page on an ASPX page.  What other options are there?   
Any suggestions, thoughts, or ideas would be very much appreciated.  This is causing enough of a problem where the company is asking me to look at alternatives if we cannot solve this. 
Best regards,
Jon

Answer 1

Acrobat doesnu2019t cause postbacks when paging because the acrobat reader installed locally, so its viewing is in a client-side control.  I imagine the same thing is the case for ActiveReports (some sort of client-side activex control installed). 
If the winform viewer was used on in your web page, then you wouldnu2019t get postbacks either, but then you'd need Crystal Reports runtime on the client to view in that control. And placing a winviewer in a web page give me shivers...
So, to avoid  using session, recreate the reportdocument and re-load the report on postbacks.
As Surabh mentioned, you can serialize the report but you will have to use teh InProc RAS. There is an issue thought; you start to get load errors and otehr errors after viewing 3 reports. I belive this has been reported to R&D for a fix  comment, but I do not have and ETA at this time. The code for the InProc RAS SDK would be as follows:
           If Not IsPostBack Then
            Dim rpt As New CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Engine.ReportDocument
            Dim boReportClientDocument As CrystalDecisions.ReportAppServer.ClientDoc.ISCDReportClientDocument
            '           rpt.ReportAppServer = "Inproc:multithreaded"
            rpt.Load("c:inetpubwwwroot     estSerializeInprocRASEmployee Profile.rpt",
           OpenReportMethod.OpenReportByTempCopy)
            boReportClientDocument = rpt.ReportClientDocument
            Dim x As String = boReportClientDocument.DataDefController.Database.Tables(0).Name
            '     boReportClientDocument.DatabaseController.logon("sa", "admin")
            Dim convertUtil As New CrystalDecisions.ReportAppServer.Utilities.Conversion()
            Dim serializedDoc As String
            serializedDoc = convertUtil.ToString(rpt.ReportClientDocument)
            Session.Add("SerializedDoc", serializedDoc)
            'ViewState.Add("SerializedDoc", serializedDoc)
            Response.Write("The document has been serialized.")
            CrystalReportViewer1.ReportSource = boReportClientDocument.ReportSource
        Else
            Label1.Visible = False
            Button1.Visible = False
            Dim x As String
            x = ViewState("SerializedDoc").ToString()
            Dim deSerializedDoc As ISCDReportClientDocument
            Dim convertUtil As New Conversion
            deSerializedDoc = convertUtil.ToReportClientDocument(Session("SerializedDoc").ToString())
            'deSerializedDoc = convertUtil.ToReportClientDocument(ViewState("SerializedDoc").ToString())
            CrystalReportViewer1.ReportSource = deSerializedDoc
            Response.Write("You are viewing a de-Serialized report" & "<BR>")
            Response.Write(ViewState("SerializedDoc").ToString())
        End If
[1542991 - How to serialize the ReportClientDocument using the RAS .NET SDK?|http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/servlet/prt/portal/prtroot/com.sap.km.cm.docs/oss_notes_boj/sdn_oss_boj_bi/sap(bD1lbiZjPTAwMQ==)/bc/bsp/spn/scn_bosap/notes%7B6163636573733d36393736354636443646363436353344333933393338323636393736354637333631373036453646373436353733354636453735364436323635373233443330333033303331333533343332333933393331%7D.do]
- Ludek
Edited by: Ludek Uher on Dec 9, 2011 11:16 AM