Solution Reviews :: BA | BI
Crystal Reports – SAP Business Objects
Crystal Reports
Website: http://www.businessobjects.com/
Category: General Financial Reporting and Analysis
Best Fit
Strengths
Brief Product Description and Pricing
Technical Specifications
Integration with Accounting and Ease of Setup
Representative Client List (if available)
Company History and Contact Information
Commentary (The following is provided by the Editor with notes and comments from others.)
Crystal Reports and Crystal Enterprise XI
Crystal Reports may be the largest selling report writer in the world with over 16 million licenses shipped. It was the flagship product of Crystal Decisions, which was acquired by Business Objects in December, 2003. Business Objects was recently purchased by SAP. Founded in 1990, Business Objects pioneered the modern business intelligence industry by creating the semantic layer that insulates users from the complexity of databases. Today, the company’s products are used around the world and are available in 13 languages. Business Objects is the largest company in the business intelligence industry, with 24,000 customers and 4,000 employees in 80 countries.
Overview of Reporting Capabilities
Crystal technology can provide any organization with the power needed to understand corporate information, from within a single integrated solution for reporting and delivery. Crystal delivers a powerful, open, and scalable reporting solution for the enterprise. Designed to access and integrate data from virtually any source, and build interactive reports from relational and OLAP databases, Crystal products will enable any organization to consolidate its reporting and information delivery requirements into a single, flexible standard.
Crystal Reports is an industry standard for high-performance report design. The product provides all of the tools necessary to design flexible, feature-rich reports. Its proven query technology gives you access to virtually any data source, including XML, OLAP, and enterprise data sources, such as Oracle, IBM DB2, Sybase, Microsoft SQL Server, and Informix. Extensive formatting options deliver complete control over how the data is presented to your end users.
The product provides more than 100 data presentation and interactivity options, including grouping, sorting, field highlighting, and running totals. End users can drill down into reports, sort or filter information, refresh reports, print reports, and export them into many formats including PDF, Excel, and Word. Any Crystal report can be instantly published to Crystal Enterprise for end users to view, schedule, and share over the web.
Crystal Reports is available in four different editions to meet the needs of developers, report designers, and business users. Features will vary based on editions and languages purchased. Highlights of the four editions are:
Key Features of Crystal Reports
Broad Data Access
Crystal Reports allows you to connect to the data you need with over 35 data source drivers for relational, OLAP, XML, or custom data sources. You can connect to a unique data source or combine multiple data sources in one report. You can grant users as little or as much control over database connectivity as you wish. By using Crystal Reports and Crystal Enterprise together, you can store key report objects in a central location for re-use across multiple projects or to build custom views for accessing required data.
Flexible Formatting
Crystal Reports makes designing reports fast and easy. You can quickly design interactive reports using an intuitive drag-and-drop interface and object-oriented explorers. Optional experts and wizards can be used to guide novice report developers through common tasks, such as connecting to the data source, linking data tables, selecting fields and records, grouping, sorting, summarizing, and formatting. The extensive formula language of Crystal Reports includes over 160 built-in functions and operators. You can also create user-defined functions for complete control over complex formatting logic or data selection. User-defined functions, once created, can be re-used in any report.
Crystal Reports includes a complete set of layout and design controls to give your reports a professional appearance. There are numerous report types, including standard reports and forms, graphical summary reports, cross tabulations, and Top N or Bottom N reports, and there are more than 20 chart and map types. You can even create custom templates to give all reports a consistent look without having to format each report individually.
End-User Interactivity
Crystal Reports gives you the ability to build end-user interactivity into your reports. This allows your users to refine their own reports to meet their changing business needs without requesting assistance. Crystal Reports includes more than 100 data presentation and interactivity options, including grouping, sorting, field highlighting, and running totals.
Navigation paths can be defined between report objects within the same or different reports for easier end-user navigation. Hyperlinks can be used to turn reports into interactive web documents that connect to related information, including other reports or web sites, and users can drill down on relational and OLAP data to the underlying details. Exporting reports is quick and easy. Users can export reports to more than ten formats, including PDF, Excel, and Word, and they can embed live report data in Microsoft Office documents.
Crystal Reports XI allows you to create special types of reports called “alerts.” These reports are generated and delivered only when certain data conditions are met. For example, you could program an alert to produce a report when a customer’s outstanding balance exceeded a specified amount, or when the cash balance in your operating account fell below a specified amount.
Crystal Enterprise
Crystal Enterprise is the foundation for publishing highly graphical, formatted reports from virtually any data source to the web. It has a multi-server architecture that enables you to distribute reports to a large number of users securely, using a zero-footprint DHTML Viewer via a corporate portal, intranet, extranet, or the Internet. Report delivery is accomplished without plug-ins, downloads, or firewall issues. This gives users self-service access to reports, so that they can look at up-to-date information when necessary.
Crystal Enterprise ensures the constant availability of business-critical information. Automatic load balancing, 8th-generation clustering technology, and a fault-tolerant architecture ensure your deployment will remain available under a wide range of load scenarios. Third-party tests have confirmed that Crystal Enterprise can deliver 99.999% uptime.
The product provides a central repository for organizing content and components. Through the central content repository, users have ready access to the latest information and historical snapshots. The component repository improves report maintenance because key report objects, such as text objects, SQL commands, bitmaps, and custom functions, are stored in the repository for re-use across reports. Repository objects can be secured and shared with Crystal Enterprise and made available through the Crystal Reports designer to create a managed system for report design and maintenance. Unlike other reporting systems, Crystal Enterprise also supports the central management of distributed reporting applications.
Crystal Enterprise is designed to scale up on a single machine or out over multiple machines. It delivers linear scalability, allowing you to take full advantage of available hardware and grow your system with confidence. Custom memory management features and intelligent report processing mean that you can maintain response time despite heavy data volumes or unexpected peaks in user activity. While you can schedule large reports at regular intervals, smaller, time-sensitive reports run on demand – with the information being streamed, piece by piece, to the user’s browser to reduce response time. A broad range of configuration options is also available for tuning individual servers and entire deployments.
Overview of Feature Set
Crystal Reports extends its reporting platform to enable a more efficient report design and maintenance process, and easier integration and deployment of enterprise web applications. This release builds upon the significant feature set introduced in Version 9 and includes several refinements and new features that continue to address productivity challenges in all elements of the reporting process. Tighter integration with Crystal Enterprise is also a key focus area for this release.
100% Java Reporting Component
Version 10 introduces a Java version of the powerful Crystal Reports reporting engine, the Java Reporting Component that takes full advantage of Java, including portability across operating systems and hardware platforms. Written in 100% Java, this new reporting component provides a fast, codeless way for developers to connect to data and to design dynamic, high-fidelity presentation layers for J2EE applications. It supports JDBC and XML data, as well as the ability to report off of a query result set from in-memory objects. The engine supports basic Crystal Reports functions such as grouping, sorting, filtering, expressions, basic formatting, and charting, as well as PDF and Word exporting. It also enables integration with leading Java Integrated Development Environments, including Borland JBuilder 10. Applications that use the new Java reporting component can be seamlessly upgraded to use Crystal Enterprise and the report application server. By modifying only one line of code, applications can take advantage of off-loaded report processing, programmatic report creation and modification, and many other features.
Custom Java Tag Library
Crystal Reports XI introduces a custom JSP tag library to dramatically reduce the amount of code required to integrate reporting into Java applications. Using custom JSP tags, developers can now easily add a Crystal report viewer to their web applications.
Simplified .NET Merge Models
Crystal Reports XI reduces the number of merge modules required for easier deployment of .NET applications. These core merge modules address the following deployment scenarios: 1) Windows Thick-Client Applications, 2) ASP .NET Web Applications, and 3) Web Service Applications.
.NET to Crystal Enterprise Upgrade
Crystal Reports XI introduces a seamless upgrade solution to enable applications that use the .NET reporting component bundled in Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, Borland C# Builder, or in Crystal Reports 9/10/XI to access Crystal Enterprise and the report application server. By adding only one line of code, .NET developers can take advantage of the benefits of a standalone report processing server. This solution also enables an easy future upgrade to other Crystal Enterprise editions.
Simplified Report Application Server APIs
In Version XI, the amount of code required to complete the most common developer tasks has been significantly reduced for an easier integration process. This enhancement applies specifically to the report application server bundled with Crystal Reports and focuses on tasks such as setting parameters, logon, and printing, etc.
Simplified Data Access – Business Views
Crystal Reports XI enables report designers to create reports based on Business Views for faster development and reduced maintenance. A new feature in Crystal Enterprise XI, Business Views provide a new data abstraction layer that simplifies the process of connecting to enterprise data sources. This new central data access model also exposes predefined, domain-specific data sources, eliminating the need for complex joins, filters, or formulas. It can seamlessly manage access to multiple, disparate data sources, combining these into a single data source for the report designer.
Using Business Views in the report development and maintenance process removes the need to redefine reports if the underlying data structure changes. This results in a more efficient report-development process because reports can be easily transitioned from development to production.
Repository
Introduced in Version 9, the repository is a central library for storing common report objects, such as images, text objects, SQL commands, and custom functions, for use across multiple reports and for single point updating. This marquee feature has been refined in Version 10 to support use across large enterprise deployments.
Managed Repository
To enable customers to create a managed system for report design and maintenance, the repository in Version XI has been included as a robust part of the Crystal Enterprise infrastructure. Repository objects can be secured and shared through Crystal Enterprise and are made available through the Crystal Reports designer. A migration tool is also included for easy transition from the Version 9 repository to the new managed repository.
Repository Explorer
To support extensive use of the repository by multiple report designers, the repository explorer in Version XI includes a toolbar for easier navigation through objects based on type and/or text value. Tool tips may also be added to repository objects for easier identification of the required element to be added to a report.
Format Painter
Similar to the Format Painter in Microsoft Office, this new feature in Crystal Reports XI enables the copying of full formatting options between objects with a single click. A report designer simply selects a formatted object and clicks on any other objects that require the same format, thereby greatly reducing the amount of time spent in object formatting.
Funnel Charts
A key requirement for many customer relationship management (CRM) applications, the funnel chart type is now available in Crystal Reports XI. Similar to pie charts, a funnel chart provides a revealing way to display data that adds up to a 100% total. This chart type is particularly useful in conducting pipeline analysis for sales forecasts.
Managed Navigation between Key Report Elements
Crystal Reports XI extends report parts and guided navigation to Crystal Enterprise. This enables groups of reports to be used across many end-user scenarios and workflows. Report parts – within the same report or in another report – can be easily linked together as groups to simplify navigation for report users. Users can click from one hyperlinked piece of information in a report to another part while data context is preserved. This feature can reduce the need for sub-reports and can improve report-processing performance. Using Crystal Enterprise, report parts can be easily scheduled and managed so that the underlying data between linked objects has the same refresh date. This is especially useful when updating information on a regular basis, for example, when updating end-of-quarter financial information.
Excel Export
Crystal Reports XI introduces more flexible options and greater control in exporting fully formatted reports to Microsoft Excel. For example, users can select to export all or some of page headers or footers and choose whether to display gridlines.
DHTML Printing
Crystal Reports XI includes an updated DHTML report viewer control that simplifies the printing process. With just one click, users can print a report. There’s no need to export to a PDF file to use the printing features in Adobe Acrobat. This new one-click printing feature is provided through a small ActiveX control that is downloaded to the client machine.
- General small to medium-size businesses with the need for extended reporting
Strengths
- Integration with a number of accounting solutions
- Large number of available preformatted reports available
- Fairly easy to create and distribute reports
- Wide base of experienced users available
Brief Product Description and Pricing
- Crystal Reports 2008 is a powerful, dynamic, actionable reporting solution that helps you design, explore, visualize, and deliver reports via the web or embedded in enterprise applications. It enables end users to consume reports with stunning visualizations, conduct on-report business modeling, and execute decisions instantly from the report itself—reducing dependency on IT and developers.
- Crystal Reports is available in a Starter Edition and Professional Edition. Pricing is roughly $29.95 per user, but varies with number of users licensed.
Technical Specifications
- Windows XP and Vista
- Native integration to ODBC and JDBC connectivity
- Available in multiple languages
- 256MB RAM, 300MB available disk space
Integration with Accounting and Ease of Setup
- Crystal Reports is an old and trusted name in financial reporting. Because of this, the product integrates well with a number of solutions. The product is sold through national resellers and may be installed directly by end users with little or no assistance from IT professionals. Both web-based training and traditional classroom training are available for those with complex reporting and analysis needs.
Representative Client List (if available)
- Rapid Advance - Provider of cash advance services
- Cypress Equities - Real Estate Development
- National University of Health Sciences
Company History and Contact Information
- Crystal Reports may be the largest selling report writer in the world with over 16 million licenses shipped. It was the flagship product of Crystal Decisions, which was acquired by Business Objects in December, 2003. Business Objects was recently purchased by SAP. Founded in 1990, Business Objects pioneered the modern business intelligence industry by creating the semantic layer that insulates users from the complexity of databases. Today, the company’s products are used around the world and are available in 13 languages.
- You may contact Business Objects for purchasing information at 1-800-877-2340. Crystal Reports is sold through volume reseller partners. A list of resellers is posted at http://www.businessobjects.com/partners/directory/volume_reseller.asp
Commentary (The following is provided by the Editor with notes and comments from others.)
Crystal Reports and Crystal Enterprise XI
Crystal Reports may be the largest selling report writer in the world with over 16 million licenses shipped. It was the flagship product of Crystal Decisions, which was acquired by Business Objects in December, 2003. Business Objects was recently purchased by SAP. Founded in 1990, Business Objects pioneered the modern business intelligence industry by creating the semantic layer that insulates users from the complexity of databases. Today, the company’s products are used around the world and are available in 13 languages. Business Objects is the largest company in the business intelligence industry, with 24,000 customers and 4,000 employees in 80 countries.
Overview of Reporting Capabilities
Crystal technology can provide any organization with the power needed to understand corporate information, from within a single integrated solution for reporting and delivery. Crystal delivers a powerful, open, and scalable reporting solution for the enterprise. Designed to access and integrate data from virtually any source, and build interactive reports from relational and OLAP databases, Crystal products will enable any organization to consolidate its reporting and information delivery requirements into a single, flexible standard.
Crystal Reports is an industry standard for high-performance report design. The product provides all of the tools necessary to design flexible, feature-rich reports. Its proven query technology gives you access to virtually any data source, including XML, OLAP, and enterprise data sources, such as Oracle, IBM DB2, Sybase, Microsoft SQL Server, and Informix. Extensive formatting options deliver complete control over how the data is presented to your end users.
The product provides more than 100 data presentation and interactivity options, including grouping, sorting, field highlighting, and running totals. End users can drill down into reports, sort or filter information, refresh reports, print reports, and export them into many formats including PDF, Excel, and Word. Any Crystal report can be instantly published to Crystal Enterprise for end users to view, schedule, and share over the web.
Crystal Reports is available in four different editions to meet the needs of developers, report designers, and business users. Features will vary based on editions and languages purchased. Highlights of the four editions are:
- Advanced Developer Edition – For integrating and deploying dynamic report creation and viewing capabilities into web applications; for web development and deployment.
- Developer Edition – For integrating report viewing, printing, and exporting capabilities into applications.
- Professional Edition – For report creation and maintenance based on a large variety of data sources plus out-of-the-box web report delivery for workgroups; includes Crystal Enterprise Express Edition.
- Standard Edition – For basic report design based on PC-based data sources.
Key Features of Crystal Reports
Broad Data Access
Crystal Reports allows you to connect to the data you need with over 35 data source drivers for relational, OLAP, XML, or custom data sources. You can connect to a unique data source or combine multiple data sources in one report. You can grant users as little or as much control over database connectivity as you wish. By using Crystal Reports and Crystal Enterprise together, you can store key report objects in a central location for re-use across multiple projects or to build custom views for accessing required data.
Flexible Formatting
Crystal Reports makes designing reports fast and easy. You can quickly design interactive reports using an intuitive drag-and-drop interface and object-oriented explorers. Optional experts and wizards can be used to guide novice report developers through common tasks, such as connecting to the data source, linking data tables, selecting fields and records, grouping, sorting, summarizing, and formatting. The extensive formula language of Crystal Reports includes over 160 built-in functions and operators. You can also create user-defined functions for complete control over complex formatting logic or data selection. User-defined functions, once created, can be re-used in any report.
Crystal Reports includes a complete set of layout and design controls to give your reports a professional appearance. There are numerous report types, including standard reports and forms, graphical summary reports, cross tabulations, and Top N or Bottom N reports, and there are more than 20 chart and map types. You can even create custom templates to give all reports a consistent look without having to format each report individually.
End-User Interactivity
Crystal Reports gives you the ability to build end-user interactivity into your reports. This allows your users to refine their own reports to meet their changing business needs without requesting assistance. Crystal Reports includes more than 100 data presentation and interactivity options, including grouping, sorting, field highlighting, and running totals.
Navigation paths can be defined between report objects within the same or different reports for easier end-user navigation. Hyperlinks can be used to turn reports into interactive web documents that connect to related information, including other reports or web sites, and users can drill down on relational and OLAP data to the underlying details. Exporting reports is quick and easy. Users can export reports to more than ten formats, including PDF, Excel, and Word, and they can embed live report data in Microsoft Office documents.
Crystal Reports XI allows you to create special types of reports called “alerts.” These reports are generated and delivered only when certain data conditions are met. For example, you could program an alert to produce a report when a customer’s outstanding balance exceeded a specified amount, or when the cash balance in your operating account fell below a specified amount.
Crystal Enterprise
Crystal Enterprise is the foundation for publishing highly graphical, formatted reports from virtually any data source to the web. It has a multi-server architecture that enables you to distribute reports to a large number of users securely, using a zero-footprint DHTML Viewer via a corporate portal, intranet, extranet, or the Internet. Report delivery is accomplished without plug-ins, downloads, or firewall issues. This gives users self-service access to reports, so that they can look at up-to-date information when necessary.
Crystal Enterprise ensures the constant availability of business-critical information. Automatic load balancing, 8th-generation clustering technology, and a fault-tolerant architecture ensure your deployment will remain available under a wide range of load scenarios. Third-party tests have confirmed that Crystal Enterprise can deliver 99.999% uptime.
The product provides a central repository for organizing content and components. Through the central content repository, users have ready access to the latest information and historical snapshots. The component repository improves report maintenance because key report objects, such as text objects, SQL commands, bitmaps, and custom functions, are stored in the repository for re-use across reports. Repository objects can be secured and shared with Crystal Enterprise and made available through the Crystal Reports designer to create a managed system for report design and maintenance. Unlike other reporting systems, Crystal Enterprise also supports the central management of distributed reporting applications.
Crystal Enterprise is designed to scale up on a single machine or out over multiple machines. It delivers linear scalability, allowing you to take full advantage of available hardware and grow your system with confidence. Custom memory management features and intelligent report processing mean that you can maintain response time despite heavy data volumes or unexpected peaks in user activity. While you can schedule large reports at regular intervals, smaller, time-sensitive reports run on demand – with the information being streamed, piece by piece, to the user’s browser to reduce response time. A broad range of configuration options is also available for tuning individual servers and entire deployments.
Overview of Feature Set
Crystal Reports extends its reporting platform to enable a more efficient report design and maintenance process, and easier integration and deployment of enterprise web applications. This release builds upon the significant feature set introduced in Version 9 and includes several refinements and new features that continue to address productivity challenges in all elements of the reporting process. Tighter integration with Crystal Enterprise is also a key focus area for this release.
100% Java Reporting Component
Version 10 introduces a Java version of the powerful Crystal Reports reporting engine, the Java Reporting Component that takes full advantage of Java, including portability across operating systems and hardware platforms. Written in 100% Java, this new reporting component provides a fast, codeless way for developers to connect to data and to design dynamic, high-fidelity presentation layers for J2EE applications. It supports JDBC and XML data, as well as the ability to report off of a query result set from in-memory objects. The engine supports basic Crystal Reports functions such as grouping, sorting, filtering, expressions, basic formatting, and charting, as well as PDF and Word exporting. It also enables integration with leading Java Integrated Development Environments, including Borland JBuilder 10. Applications that use the new Java reporting component can be seamlessly upgraded to use Crystal Enterprise and the report application server. By modifying only one line of code, applications can take advantage of off-loaded report processing, programmatic report creation and modification, and many other features.
Custom Java Tag Library
Crystal Reports XI introduces a custom JSP tag library to dramatically reduce the amount of code required to integrate reporting into Java applications. Using custom JSP tags, developers can now easily add a Crystal report viewer to their web applications.
Simplified .NET Merge Models
Crystal Reports XI reduces the number of merge modules required for easier deployment of .NET applications. These core merge modules address the following deployment scenarios: 1) Windows Thick-Client Applications, 2) ASP .NET Web Applications, and 3) Web Service Applications.
.NET to Crystal Enterprise Upgrade
Crystal Reports XI introduces a seamless upgrade solution to enable applications that use the .NET reporting component bundled in Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, Borland C# Builder, or in Crystal Reports 9/10/XI to access Crystal Enterprise and the report application server. By adding only one line of code, .NET developers can take advantage of the benefits of a standalone report processing server. This solution also enables an easy future upgrade to other Crystal Enterprise editions.
Simplified Report Application Server APIs
In Version XI, the amount of code required to complete the most common developer tasks has been significantly reduced for an easier integration process. This enhancement applies specifically to the report application server bundled with Crystal Reports and focuses on tasks such as setting parameters, logon, and printing, etc.
Simplified Data Access – Business Views
Crystal Reports XI enables report designers to create reports based on Business Views for faster development and reduced maintenance. A new feature in Crystal Enterprise XI, Business Views provide a new data abstraction layer that simplifies the process of connecting to enterprise data sources. This new central data access model also exposes predefined, domain-specific data sources, eliminating the need for complex joins, filters, or formulas. It can seamlessly manage access to multiple, disparate data sources, combining these into a single data source for the report designer.
Using Business Views in the report development and maintenance process removes the need to redefine reports if the underlying data structure changes. This results in a more efficient report-development process because reports can be easily transitioned from development to production.
Repository
Introduced in Version 9, the repository is a central library for storing common report objects, such as images, text objects, SQL commands, and custom functions, for use across multiple reports and for single point updating. This marquee feature has been refined in Version 10 to support use across large enterprise deployments.
Managed Repository
To enable customers to create a managed system for report design and maintenance, the repository in Version XI has been included as a robust part of the Crystal Enterprise infrastructure. Repository objects can be secured and shared through Crystal Enterprise and are made available through the Crystal Reports designer. A migration tool is also included for easy transition from the Version 9 repository to the new managed repository.
Repository Explorer
To support extensive use of the repository by multiple report designers, the repository explorer in Version XI includes a toolbar for easier navigation through objects based on type and/or text value. Tool tips may also be added to repository objects for easier identification of the required element to be added to a report.
Format Painter
Similar to the Format Painter in Microsoft Office, this new feature in Crystal Reports XI enables the copying of full formatting options between objects with a single click. A report designer simply selects a formatted object and clicks on any other objects that require the same format, thereby greatly reducing the amount of time spent in object formatting.
Funnel Charts
A key requirement for many customer relationship management (CRM) applications, the funnel chart type is now available in Crystal Reports XI. Similar to pie charts, a funnel chart provides a revealing way to display data that adds up to a 100% total. This chart type is particularly useful in conducting pipeline analysis for sales forecasts.
Managed Navigation between Key Report Elements
Crystal Reports XI extends report parts and guided navigation to Crystal Enterprise. This enables groups of reports to be used across many end-user scenarios and workflows. Report parts – within the same report or in another report – can be easily linked together as groups to simplify navigation for report users. Users can click from one hyperlinked piece of information in a report to another part while data context is preserved. This feature can reduce the need for sub-reports and can improve report-processing performance. Using Crystal Enterprise, report parts can be easily scheduled and managed so that the underlying data between linked objects has the same refresh date. This is especially useful when updating information on a regular basis, for example, when updating end-of-quarter financial information.
Excel Export
Crystal Reports XI introduces more flexible options and greater control in exporting fully formatted reports to Microsoft Excel. For example, users can select to export all or some of page headers or footers and choose whether to display gridlines.
DHTML Printing
Crystal Reports XI includes an updated DHTML report viewer control that simplifies the printing process. With just one click, users can print a report. There’s no need to export to a PDF file to use the printing features in Adobe Acrobat. This new one-click printing feature is provided through a small ActiveX control that is downloaded to the client machine.
The information provided herein is not warranted in anyway and is subject to change without notice.
We recommend that you confirm information contained herein with the appropriate manufacturer or reseller.
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