Millet Software has just released version 6.5 of Visual Cut, one of my favorite tools for automating Crystal Reports.  There are about 50 fixes and new features but the one that stood out was the ability to export to XLSX format.  This format supports more than a million rows in a single tab and consumes much less disk space.

Another handy new feature, pointed out by Jared Faulkner of JF Electric , is the “After_Success_SQL” command that allows you to run a SQL statement after a completed report, or for each group in a burst. This gives you the ability to update the database with tracking information for each e-mailed or exported item. Doing this before required having the CUT Light UFL (also by Millet Software) but now this is built into Visual Cut.

If you want to learn more about Visual Cut or one of the other similar tools, then you should read my annual review of Desktop Schedulers.  The review is done each March so it will be updated next month.

There are many ways to deploy Crystal Reports to users. I normally lean toward the simpler and less expensive options, like locally installed viewers, or scheduled delivery of PDF output.  But there are environments where a server based option is necessary. The ‘official’ options from SAP are Crystal (Reports) Server and BO Enterprise. You can read about these on the SAP website.  But there are other, less expensive products out there that many users never see. These are third party products that allow you to centrally manage your report deployment from your server.

There is a page on my blog that lists and compares these products, and I update it every January.  This year the list includes: Continue Reading »
Server based deployment options compared (2012)

Jeff-Net has released a free Edition of Report Runner viewer.   It is completely free, can be installed as many times as you like and doesn’t have any ads.  It is only missing 2 features that are included in their paid edition:

1) You can’t launch reports from the command line (batch files).
2) You can’t customize the interface

But otherwise it can do everything a report viewer should do (preview, print, export, refresh, etc).  To get your license you have to provide a company based Email address (not Hotmail/Gmail/etc.).  That’s it.

If you want to compare the features of Report Runner with the other free (and paid) viewers you can read my review of Crystal Reports Viewers, which I update every September.

It is always a good sign when vendors respond quickly to user requests.  Earlier this month the developers of Find it EZ received a request from a potential customer.  He needed to search for table and field names within his SQL commands and SQL expressions.  The next day this user was using a new version of Find it EZ, including this new feature.  The user was surprised that he didn’t even need to fill in the report parameters before the SQL was searched – something required by his old software.

This support for embedded SQL searches is now included in the current release of Find it EZ.  It also added a search of Crystal Dashboards (Xcelsius) files and even the embedded Excel models.   See this article for more info on Find it EZ and special pricing through the end of this month.

If you were considering trying out Find it EZ this might be a good month to do it. For the month of November, Find it EZ is offering my readers a 30% discount on their scanning tool. It is designed to find all uses of a particular table or field in any layer of your project. So it goes beyond scanning your RPT files and also scans your application source code, your SQL queries, documentation, config files and just about anything else. It even includes plugins that integrate automatically into Visual Studio and Eclipse.

When you scan your project for a proposed change Find it EZ will generate an ” Impact Checklist” that Continue Reading »
Find it EZ offers a 30 % discount

The folks at ReCrystallize have recently released version 14 of ReCrystallize Pro.  For those of you who are not familiar with ReCrystallize, it is a low cost way to put your reports on the web.  Walk through a wizard and ReCrystallize will generate ASP or ASP.NET web pages that are designed to run your reports.  You can read more about it in my comparison of server based deployment options.  With version 14 there are two significant changes.

1) It now supports the newest version of Crystal Reports (2011). This means you can do dynamic and cascading parameters and you can change parameter values without changing web pages or in some cases without even refreshing the report.

2) It now supports ASP.Net which means it works better with the current browsers and current versions of Windows and IIS.  It also means that the user’s browser doesn’t need to download anything.

Note that they still support classic ASP and most older versions of CR.  See their web site for more details.

Last month I wrote about a new feature of CUT Light that allows your report to calculate the distance between two points based on zip codes or lat./log. coordinates. The one challenge I found was that the conversion of zip codes to long./lat. relied on a web query and therefore had a daily quota limit. But since then Millet Software has added a local conversion table which allows you to bypass the web query.  This makes it much faster and removes the limit.  The included data is as of the 2010 census and is limited to 5 digit zip codes, but for most applications it is probably still a better option than the web query.

You can read this page for a more complete list of what CUT Light can do.

You use Crystal Reports to create, change and run reports. But what if you have a user who doesn’t need to create reports or even change them. This user just wants to refresh the reports and view/print/export the results. Does he need another copy of Crystal Reports? Do you need to configure an expensive web server?

The most cost effective method for letting users run reports on demand is to install a third-party client-based viewer. And I am amazed at how many Crystal Reports users are completely unaware that these are available, despite the fact that they are offered by a dozen different vendors. Some users the “Viewer” that is put out by SAP and get discouraged because it won’t allow refresh.  But every third party viewer I know of allows you to refresh the data.

So every September I review the different viewers available and update a fixed page on my blog site.  This year there are 9 vendors in the review.  The fixed page provides a brief introduction to each product including what sets it apart.  I have also created a detailed feature matrix (PDF) that shows some of the specifics for comparison like prices and the install base.  There is even a glossary of features in case you aren’t familiar with the terminology. The tools being compared are:

Crystal Corral by Groff Automation
cView by Chelsea Technologies
ViewerFX by Origin Software
RV by Climate 27
Report Runner Viewer by Jeff-Net
Logicity Pro by SaberLogic
Easy View by Easy Street Software
RTag Report Viewer by RTag
DataLink Viewer by Millet SW

If you have already tried one of these products, or are currently using one, I would love to get your feedback.

I am working on my annual review of Crystal Reports viewer programs and will be adding a few new ones to the matrix this year.  One of the “new” ones I will be adding is Report Runner Viewer by Jeff-Net.   Even though this is the first time RRV has been in the review it is not really a ‘new’ viewer.  RRV has been around 9 years and has a considerable install base, so it is great to finally have their information included.

But what IS new is that they are offering the first copy of the viewer for free to any company that wants to try it.   Additional copies are $50 plus a $4 per user annual renewal fee.  The renewal fee covers 24x7x65 support.

The site also offers a free 90-day evaluation, which seems redundant when the first copy is free. But to get the free license you have to use a company EMail address (not gmail,  hotmail, etc).  The other thing that might confuse you is that this offer is on the front page of the Jeff-Net site, but is not mentioned on the RRV product page.   So it is some type of special promotion.   No guarantee how long it will last, so if you want to try a new viewer program you can get a free copy of Jeff-Net’s Report Runner Viewer.

And when you do, please let me know what you think of it.

Millet software has recently added some new features to the CUT Light UFL.  Cut Light is one of several DLLs that you can install to let your Crystal Reports formulas do all sorts of interesting things.  For example you can have formulas that carry a value from one report to another, launch an application, run a batch file or execute a SQL statement.   You can read this page for a more complete list of what they can do, and for more information about CUT Light.

A few months ago Millet Software released version 5.2 of CUT Light with a handful of new features.  The one that got my attention is the ability to calculate distances between 2 zip codes or between a pair of Latitude and Longitude coordinates.  It can even convert zip codes into coordinates(see note below).  The calculated distances are Continue Reading »
CUT Light UFL provides distance calculation