We have waited 3 years for a new version of Crystal Reports, so you might be a bit disappointed at the list of new features.   They are the ability to:

1) Export to XLSX format which gets you past the 65K limit on rows.
2) Export to RPTR format, a format that can’t be opened in the Crystal Designer, but can only be run in one of the report viewers. This lets your users run your reports without giving them access to any proprietary information contained in the RPT file.

For an explanation of which viewers can run RPTR files you can read this article.
For an explanation of why there are so few features you can read this SAP blog post.

Also note that this is officially version 14, not version 13. They skipped version 13 – apparently thinking the unlucky number might scare customers away.

I have already written about the handful of minor changes in CR 2011.  So when I tried it last week there were no surprises in the actual product.  I was surprised a bit by the license, but probably should not have been surprised.  Crystal product managers and I have a tradition that we follow with every new product release:

1) Whoever happens to own Crystal that week puts in excessive restrictions.
2) I point out that the restrictions are excessive.
3) They have a serious internal discussion.
4) Things (usually) change for the better.

This time the issue was the restrictions in section (7).  If you strip it down a long legal paragraph you get Continue Reading »
Crystal Reports 2011 license changes

I have just updated my comparison of server-based scheduling tools for 2011.  These tools are similar to the desktop-based scheduling tools I wrote about in March, but these are designed to be run on server.  This allows multiple people to schedule reports for automated delivery by Email, FTP or network folder.

There are 2 new products on the list this year, bringing the count up to 8.  Their is a brief overview of each product and a feature matrix that compares roughly 70 features.  There is also a feature glossary that defines all the terms.  So if you need a short course in automating Crystal Report delivery, you have come to the right place.

For those of you who always want to be on the bleeding edge, Crystal Reports 2011 is finally out there. I am not in any hurry to upgrade because there are only a few new features but will be reviewing it in my newsletter later this month.

If any of you try it and want to share your thoughts you can comment here, or on this Tek-Tips thread, or just send me an Email.  The Tek-Tips thread also has a link that explains why SAP has 2 versions of CR 2011, and what happens with them going forward.

And thanks to Gordon Portanier of Crystalize in Canada for the heads up on the release.

This month an unusual number of customers have brought me errors to troubleshoot.  Most of them involve errors outside of Crystal with things like missing DLL files or installs that seem the same but that behave differently.  So I was pleasantly surprised to find a recent blog post on the SAP web site that provides a list of free tools for helping to troubleshoot things like this.  There are 5 tools listed but I think two would apply most to the problems I faced this month:

1) Modules is a free utility from the SAP web site.  It allows you to run a report on two different systems (ie one that works and one that doesn’t) and find all the files that are different in those two environments.  It makes a list of the files used in each environment and then compares to see which are different. It is an old tool but worked fine in my Win7 64 environment.

2) Depends.exe (Dependency walker) is another free tool that takes an EXE or DLL file and lists all of the other files that it relies on.  This is perfect for when you have a DLL that won’t work or register correctly.  Often a missing dependent file is part of the problem.

And if you need to troubleshoot hangs and crashes, monitor HTTP / HTTPS traffic or monitor local file system and registry activity, the other tools should help.

Blair Wheadon of SAP has published an updated overview of Crystal Reports licensing terms.  He does a good job and covers multiple versions and editions.  So this is a good place to start if you have question on product licenses.  If this doesn’t answer your questions I might be able to help (I actually read them).

My only other comment on this article is that SAP still has not given up trying to add a hefty fee to every Crystal Reports course book produced  by anyone.  They try to do this by Continue Reading »
New Crystal Reports licensing overview

(See the update at the bottom of this post)

I don’t get to say this very often but SAP/BO did something very smart.  I am not sure when it happened but I wish I had known sooner.  They have set up a site for users to experiment with CR Server without having to do all the set up.  To use the buzzword, they now have an evaluation option “in the cloud”.  And despite the terminology it really is a great idea.

Many of you know that I spend a great deal of time promoting alternatives to CR Server, especially to folks who mainly want to schedule reports for Email delivery.  Simple scheduling can be done for free and even complex scheduling and bursting can be done for a few hundred dollars.  But CR Server is a viable option for providing on-demand reports to browser-based users.

The challenge to the CR Server salesman is that no one wants to commit $10 – $20K on a product without trying it.  And trying CR server can also mean trying your patience.  Before a potential user can experiment with all the wonderful things that CR Server can do they Continue Reading »
Evaluate CR Server “in the cloud” (or maybe not)

You still can’t see CR 2011, but if you want to know what some of the problems are you can read the release notes.

Nothing earth-shattering, but a few of interest:

ADAPT01353630 – you can’t save a report with a Continue Reading »
Crystal Reports 2011 Release Notes

I just learned that SAP has been testing a site for submitting, discussing and rating proposed product enhancements. It is called the Idea Place and it is a great idea.   Apparently this has been up since October but no one thought to tell me about it so that I could share it with you all.  As Curly would say “Da noive!”  So I have spent the past few hours making up for lost time and imparting my wisdom.

Feel free to join in the fun.  Anyone can read the posts but you have to register to share your opinions. It is still in Beta so it is a bit clunky to navigate and slow, but I expect that to improve in time.  The link above is for Crystal Reports but there are forums for all SAP products.

During 2010 I wrote six different articles that compared the features of different Crystal Reports utilities.  I started last January with server-based tools and continued every other month with a different product family.  Now that we are back to January I have decided to provide an annual update to each feature comparison to account for new products and upgrades to existing products.

So this month I have revisited the features of the server-based deployment options from January 2010.  I have listed any new features from last year’s products and have also included two new products.  If you are aware of any other products that should be included in this comparison, please drop me a line.