Crystal
Reports Training by Ken Hamady, MS, Reporting and Training Nationwide
Crystal Enterprise
8.5 Configuration Options:
When you buy Crystal Reports 8.5
Professional Edition or Developer Edition you get a free copy of
Crystal Enterprise Standard(CE). This is Crystal Decisions'
primary tool for sharing Crystal Reports on the Internet. Here is
a brief description of the 3 different web configurations for CE, and a
fourth web configuration that uses ASP instead of CE. This
information is a summary and synthesis of several of CD's technical
documents. Links to the full documents are listed below for
further reading.
The first 3 ways to serve reports on the web all require that you
install Crystal Enterprise on your web server:
1) Using "Unmanaged" Reports with CE Standard
This option has a long history and has gone by several names in prior
versions. It is also known as the Web Component Server (WCS) or
simply the URL Method. It is simple to set up, since the reports
(.RPT files) can be stored in any virtual directory on your web
server. To launch a report you enter the URL for that report into
any browser. If this is the first time this browser is running
reports, the WCS will determine the browser type and download an
appropriate viewer to the client PC. Alternately, you can specify
in the URL which viewer to send.
If the report requires any parameters or login information, the server
will prompt the user. Alternatively, you can add these parameters
to the URL, and pass them to the report. The primary downside to
this method is that all parameters, including the database login
information, are visible in the URL and therefore less secure.
You can use HTTPS or NT Authentication to minimize security risks.
If you are using Crystal Enterprise v8 (which comes with Crystal
Reports v8.5), you have to install CE on a Microsoft based
server. If you
have one of several non-Microsoft web servers you may be able to get a
'web
connector' to allow you to use CEv8. The 'web connector' is a
program
that installs on a Unix based web server and which connect the Unix
server
to a Microsoft computer running CE. This allows you to use other
popular
web servers, and it also keeps your report processing from affecting
the
performance of your main web server. The brand new release of
Crystal
Enterprise v8.5 can be installed directly on several non-Microsoft
servers.
2) Using "Managed" Reports within CE Standard
The next option is to let Crystal Enterprise "Manage" your
reports. For Crystal to manage a report, the report must first be
imported or "published" into the Crystal Enterprise environment, called
the APS, which stands for the Automated Process Scheduler. The
APS also stores users, groups, database logins, and a history of
reports requested. Your users log into the APS to run
reports. Since the APS stores the database login, there is no
login information being passed in the URL.
A primary role of the APS is to manage "instances" of each
report. Each time a report is run it is saved (with data) into a
report repository. These 'instances' can be viewed later by
others, without having to query the database. Crystal Enterprise
will even generate instances automatically, based on a user-defined
schedule, to take advantage of system downtime. These instances
expire and are deleted from the APS after a user-defined period.
Note - it is easy to confuse the APS program with the ASP programming
language which is mentioned later.
When you install CE you get 4 initial menu systems which allow your
users to log in and run reports. These are called EPortfolio,
Thumbnail, Directory and In-Frame. These default screens can be used
immediately, and do not require any programming. The only
configuration required is
publishing your reports into the Enterprise folders.
However, if you have an experienced programmer, you can modify these
menus, or you can create your own screens and menus from scratch.
The screens are written in a proprietary language called Crystal Server
Pages or (CSP). It is very similar to Active Server Pages and the
differences are described in one of the documents listed below.
Unlike
ASP, CSP allows you to use either VBScript or JavaScript.
One limitation of CE Standard is that it only has two levels of users:
Guest - with no password required or
Administrator - with no access restrictions.
There is no ability to set up named user's or groups, or to control the
level of access on an individual basis. But since CE standard is
a free program, it is hard to complain. It will allow up to 5
simultaneous users into the APS. You can buy an additional 5
slots for about $12,000. High volume sites can buy unlimited
seats on a single processor for about $35,000.
3) Using "Managed" Reports within CE Professional
Upgrading to CE Professional gives your system two more features.
First is the ability to set up specific users (and user groups) with
different access privileges. The second is that you can
install and configure multiple Web Component
Servers on separate machines, adding scalability to the system.
The upgrade from Standard to Professional costs about $8,500.
This still allows only 5 simultaneous users. You can allow an
additional 5 simultaneous users for about $17,000. Or you can add
named users for only $595 per user. High volume sites can buy
unlimited Professional seats on a single processor for about $45,000.
4) Using Active Server Pages (ASP) without Crystal Enterprise
This option is for programmers, so it requires that you have the
Developer Edition of Crystal Reports installed on your web
server. It does
not require that Crystal Enterprise be installed.
ASP is a programming language that creates programs to run on Microsoft
web servers. Running programs on the server is usually more
efficient than having the user download an "applet" that runs on their
PC.
By writing commands in ASP, the programmer can send hundreds of
different instructions to a Crystal Report. So when the user
chooses report
options on a web page, the ASP can make adjustments to the
report.
It does this by passing the commands to a Crystal module called the
Report
Design Component(RDC) which adjusts the report accordingly. There
are
hundreds of ASP commands available to control different properties of
the
report. These commands are also available to Visual Basic
Programmers
when they want to adjust reports in an application. ASP and
Visual
Basic use the same RDC to control the report's properties.
For further reading:
The following documents were either used in preparing this summary, or
found to be useful for setting up and configuring CE. They can
all be downloaded from the Crystal Decisions web site by clicking the
names
below:
CE8_Introductory_Tips.pdf
CE8_General_Q_and_Q.pdf
CE8_Managed_Unmanaged_Rpts.pdf
CR8_to_CE8_Migration.pdf
CE8_Licensing.pdf
Top_10_CE.pdf
ASP
Code Examples
CE8_ASP_vs_CSP.pdf
CE8_URLcommands.pdf
CE8_Session_Handling.pdf
CE8_Virtual_Dir_Path_Mapping.pdf
CE8_Crystal_Qry_Dct_and_Civ.pdf
CE8_No_Printer.pdf