ISTech Support Forum

ISTech Support Forum
http://www.istechforum.com/YaBB.pl
Crystal Reports, ODBC & Access >> Crystal Reports General Issues >> Looking for Crystal Recomendations
http://www.istechforum.com/YaBB.pl?num=1303921376

Message started by dbldharris on 04/27/11 at 09:22:56

Title: Looking for Crystal Recomendations
Post by dbldharris on 04/27/11 at 09:22:56

Hi folks!

We are currently looking to upgrade our entire system from DBA to EVO. In doing this we are looking to add crystal reports and we are going to upgrade our pervasive to the most recent version (I believe 10). We run Windows SBS 2003 for our server and our desktops are (or will be) Win 7. There is the posibility of an upgrade to the server at some point, so I would like to keep that in mind. Additionally, we will have at a minimum 3 remote users....for whatever that is worth.

I am looking for version and or product recommendations....pros/cons.

Thanks!
Lauren

Title: Re: Looking for Crystal Recomendations
Post by GasGiant on 04/27/11 at 10:15:19

Additional considerations for CR include how many people will be developing reports and how many people will need to run reports.

CR has gotten to be an expensive way to distribute reports. We used to develop and distribute self-contained reports that anyone could run. To do the same sort of thing today would require the server version of CR, which is very pricey to implement.

Using a series of query-driven Excel spreadsheets and a small web app we have developed a richer, more flexible set of tools.

Okay, sorry for the rant. ::) But do look at the capabilities of the versions.

Title: Re: Looking for Crystal Recomendations
Post by dbldharris on 04/27/11 at 10:44:52

Colin,

Thanks...I haven't even gotten to users yet...looking to avoid bugs/run issues and then deal with the users. Are you using the Evo2web portal for reporting instead?

Thanks
L

Title: Re: Looking for Crystal Recomendations
Post by GasGiant on 04/27/11 at 13:03:35

Yes, a highly customized version of the Evo2Web idea. That's the real value add with a browser reporting tool, being able to customize it extensively, add programming features and extensive hyper-linking. Excel reports are great when you need to do a lot of number crunching or pivot tables, but there is a steep learning curve. Everyone can use a web browser and finding people with the skills to write or change a report is pretty easy.

Title: Re: Looking for Crystal Recomendations
Post by dbldharris on 04/28/11 at 06:14:15

Thanks Colin. I am thinking that perhaps that is the way to go. Do you have the ability to pull in from other Excel based databases into this reporting?

Title: Re: Looking for Crystal Recomendations
Post by Kelloggs on 04/29/11 at 12:57:39

MS Access, Excel and PHP (webserver) is the winning combination.
We have been using it for years.

:)

Kelloggs

Title: Re: Looking for Crystal Recomendations
Post by dameng on 05/19/11 at 07:20:34

if you still are looking at a Crystal Report option. whomever is Designing the Reports only needs the Full Program. the users in your company can use one of Many Crystal Report Viewers which are inexpensive and allow users to refresh, print, export.
SAP now owns and sell the Crystal Report for $495 ( they also did away with the pro, & developer versions. it's all one)
http://store.businessobjects.com/store/bobjamer/en_US/pd/Currency.USD/productID.228867500?_s_icmp=CG4DB4B258
do not use SAP Viewers tho.

then purchase and install either the two following Crystal Report Viewers on users computers. this way you do not need that expensive Server version of Crystal Enterprise.

DataLink Viewer from Millet Software 5 user $100
http://www.milletsoftware.com/datalinkBuy.htm

Cview from ChelseaTechnologies Inc. 5 user $196
http://www.crystalkeen.com/tools/viewers.html