Should I use an existing complex view or recreate the query in my application?

See more:

C#

SQL

XAML

WPF

MVVM

EF6.0

Hi,

I realize my question is a little bit conceptual, but I need this sorted before I move on with my project.

I've created dozens of views in SQL, some of which are pretty complex involving more than 12 tables. I use these views in a business report excel file to do some business intelligence.

I'm now trying to migrate that excel report into a full-grown application in c# using wpf, mvvm pattern and the entity framework.

I believe I've read enough to get me started but I've come across this hurdle: should I reuse my existing views, connecting EF directly to them or should I connect only to the real tables instead and recreate those views in my application?

On the one hand, I have a lot of views which I want to reuse to jumpstart my application development. On the other hand, I've heard of serious performance issues when connecting directly to views instead of tables, particularly views which contain other views and performance will be paramount in my new application, because the excel file is getting terribly slow.

Can you advise me on the best course of action, keeping in mind that I need the best performance possible?

What I have tried:

I can't decide whether to go with views or not in my application