Archive for the 'Products' Category
I recently helped a new user who wanted to purchase Crystal Reports, but wasn’t sure what product(s) to buy. He had read about a server component, a ‘developer’ component and a viewer, but wasn’t sure what the names were or which he needed. The SAP website didn’t clear things up for him.
“I saw an architecture diagram that broke it into tiers, but that did not help.”
This isn’t the first time I have had this type of question, and I thought my response might help other users.
There are three levels in the Crystal product line (four if you count the Business Objects Enterprise level) but most users only need one, SAP Crystal Reports. That is all I use. Here is the main product page. This is often called the Report Designer or the Developer, but the official name is SAP Crystal Reports. It is the only product that lets you create a Crystal Report.
You can currently buy 2 different editions:
2016 (32-bit)
2020 (64-bit)
If you get a free trial from the product page I think you will get 2020, but if you buy it you can choose either edition. I currently use 2016 because the 64-bit product is relatively new. I also use lots of third party tools that aren’t ready to jump to 64-bit and I don’t want to leave them behind.
The other products are Crystal Server and SAP Crystal Reports Viewer. Crystal server is a web portal that lets people run the reports from their browser. But, you still have to create them in Crystal Reports and then publish them to the portal. This product can get quite expensive.
The Crystal Reports Viewer is free but is pretty much useless in my opinion. It lets you open reports, but only those that are saved with data. You can’t refresh reports unless you are logged into CR Server. There are plenty of inexpensive third-party viewers out there so not many of my customers bother with the SAP Viewer. Here is a list of the ones I review each year.
If you have any questions about the Crystal Reports product line, let me know and I will try to help.
I create reports for several customers who use Raiser’s Edge donor management software. One of my customers shared this note from BlackBaud that went out today:
“On December 15, 2021, we will no longer support the ability to create or edit custom reports using Crystal Reports directly within any Blackbaud solution. Users will still be able to view historical reports and export file formats that work with Crystal Reports.”
Before the 15th it wasn’t clear if reports would still run in RE, but now it appears that they still do. The only noticeable change is that users don’t have a built-in copy of the Crystal Reports designer. To modify reports they will need to purchase their own license.
If you decide to buy a copy of Crystal Reports to work with your RE export (mdb) files, I recommend that you buy Crystal Reports 2016 instead of Crystal Reports 2020. That will give you something that works very much like what you have now. Crystal Reports 2020 can be made to work but it is 64-bit so it will use different drivers. You could modify reports but you won’t be able to run that same report both outside and within RE.
See this article for a link to the Crystal Reports product page and for clarity on what you do and don’t need to buy.
After releasing my course materials and my “Expert” series I realized that I had forgotten one item: My set of calendars. This three report set, with instructions, allows you to generate 3 different styles of calendar from your data (continuous, monthly and daily). The first two allow you to show multi-day events as boxes that stretch from the beginning to the end of the event.
The reports are designed so that you can swap in your fields instead of the sample data fields. You can read more about them in my original blog post, or download the set and try them out.
You use Crystal Reports to create, change and run reports. But what if you have users who just need to refresh/view/print/export? Do they need copies of Crystal Reports? Do you need to configure an expensive web server?
The most cost-effective method for letting a user run reports is to install a third-party client-based viewer. These are offered by ten different vendors. Don’t get sidetracked by the official SAP “viewer” because that tool won’t refresh reports. Every viewer in my list allows you to refresh reports.
Every September I update the features of these viewers. The comparison page provides a brief introduction to each product including what sets it apart. There is also a detailed feature matrix (xls) that shows some of the specifics for comparison, like prices. I have even included a glossary of features in case you aren’t familiar with the terminology. There are a couple of new features added to this year’s matrix which are marked in blue.
There are 10 active products in this year’s review and 4 “ghost” products that are mentioned as warnings. A ghost product has a web site but it hasn’t changed in years and no one responds to requests for information.
The active vendors are:
Crystal Corral by Groff Automation
rptView by Pursuit Technology
CR Dispatch by APB Reports
cView by Chelsea Technologies
ViewerFX by Origin Software
CrystalKiwi Viewer by CrystalKiwi
Logicity Pro by SaberLogic
Report Runner Viewer by Jeff-Net
RTag Report Viewer by RTag
DataLink Viewer by Millet SW
If you have feedback to provide on any of these products, I would love to know what you think.
I have written several articles about using Notepadd++ for writing long formulas or SQL statements. I just found out that one of the features I use in Notepad++ has been (partially) available in Crystal Reports forever. I never noticed. The feature is called “column mode” and allows you to select text in a column without selecting the entire row.
Lets say you start a formula with DateTime variables like this:
WhilePrintingRecords;
DateTimeVar DateA;
DateTimeVar DateB;
DateTimeVar DateC;
DateTimeVar DateD;
DateTimeVar DateE;
Then you realize that you want them to be Date instead of DateTime. You can highlight a “column” made up of the word “Time” on all 5 rows at once, and then hit delete. To select a column you hold down the ALT key and then click the mouse in the upper left corner of rectangle and drag to the lower right corner. In this case you would start just before the “T” in Time in the first row, and drag down and across until your cursor was just after the “e” in Time in the last row. By using the ALT key you will highlight a rectangle of 4 characters across and 5 rows down. Then you hit delete and just those 20 characters are deleted.
You can also copy and paste a rectangle. Say you have to write a formula that is something like this:
If month({Trans.Date}) = 01 then {Balance.Pd01} else
If month({Trans.Date}) = 02 then {Balance.Pd02} else
If month({Trans.Date}) = 03 then {Balance.Pd03} else
If month({Trans.Date}) = 04 then {Balance.Pd04} else
If month({Trans.Date}) = 05 then {Balance.Pd05} else
If month({Trans.Date}) = 06 then {Balance.Pd06} else
If month({Trans.Date}) = 07 then {Balance.Pd07} else
If month({Trans.Date}) = 08 then {Balance.Pd08} else
If month({Trans.Date}) = 09 then {Balance.Pd09} else
If month({Trans.Date}) = 10 then {Balance.Pd10} else
If month({Trans.Date}) = 11 then {Balance.Pd11} else
If month({Trans.Date}) = 12 then {Balance.Pd12}
Normally I would start by typing the first row and then copy it 11 more times. Then I would change each row to use a different number from 1 to 12. Once I have changed the column of values after the ‘=’ sign I could copy that 2-digit column and past it over the values in the other 2-digit column in one step.
To do this you select the 2 digit column as a rectangle using the ALT key. You can right clock in the column to copy (or use Ctrl-C). Then you select the other 2-digit column and right-click to paste (or use Ctrl-V).
Note, in Crystal you should select these rectangles starting in the upper left corner, especially if you plan to copy and paste. You can get inconsistent results if you start in one of the other corners.
NotePad++ has a much more sophisticated column mode, allowing you to:
- Paste a single word or character value into multiple rows at once.
- Select a column and start typing. The new text is added to ALL the rows at the same time.
- Use Shift-Alt to mark the column using arrow keys , instead of the mouse.
- Select the column of text starting in any corner.
Unfortunately, these don’t work in Crystal.
Last month I released my Intro and Advanced course books as free downloads. Tonight I released the entire Expert’s Series of guides as free downloads. All of these are all on the “Library” page of my site. You are free to use them and share them for free as long as they are not modified or sold.
I have just updated my comparison of RPT management utilities for 2021. These are tools that allow you to scan, document, compare and in some cases batch update RPT files. The list includes 9 tools:
Report Runner Documentor by Jeff-Net
R-Tag Documentation and Search by R-Tag
CR Data Source Updater by R-Tag
Visual CUT and DataLink Viewer by Millet Software
Report Miner by the Retsel Group
Code Search Professional by Find it EZ Software Corp.
Dev Surge 365 by Find it EZ Software Corp.
.rpt Inspector 3 Professional Suite by Software Forces, LLC
.rpt Inspector Online by Software Forces, LLC
Last week I invited developers to recompile the source code for this free 32-bit UFL into a 64-bit version of the same DLL. Today someone sent me a DLL they had compiled and I have posted it on my site. I consider it a Beta version since he only tested the function he needed (FileAppendLine). But there are 37 other functions included in the dll. The developer also admitted that “the code still assumes a 32-bit word length”, which might cause problems on some of the functions.
I can’t test it yet since I haven’t upgraded to CR 2020. But if you have CR2020 and want to try some of these functions, you can download and test the DLL. If you do any testing, let me know which functions you try and if you run into any problems. And if someone feels like doing a more complete conversion, you can download the source code for the original 32-bit dll.
Last week I mentioned the U2lwin.DLL. It is a Crystal Reports user function library (UFL) that is currently available in 32-bit but not yet in 64-bit. This means that users who have this dll and who upgrade to CR 2020 will lose some of their formula functions.
This week I checked in with the developer, Bjarke Viksoe. He has always posted the source code for this dll on his web site. He said it is fine if someone else takes the source code and creates a 64-bit version of the dll. He doesn’t even mind hosting the upgraded file if that helps.
Of course, most of my readers are not application programmers, and neither am I. But I know that a few of you write serious code. If anyone wants to take a crack at this you can download the source code and give it a shot. The current source code uses Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0.
In the meantime, if you upgrade to CR 202o, there is another DLL that you can purchase called Cut Light by Millet Software. It is one the UFLs in my annual comparison of UFLs. Cut light has at least twice as many functions as U2lwin with many that are the same. So it might have the functions you need, and it comes in both 32-bit and 64-bit. It isn’t free but it also isn’t very expensive.
Some of my customers are transitioning from 32-bit versions of Crystal Reports to Crystal Reports 2020, which is 64-bit. This creates some issues since ODBC/OLEDB drivers are either 32-bit or 64-bit. Switching to CR 2020 requires different drivers and (if using ODBC) different ODBC Data Source Name (DSN) entries.
The same applies to UFL function DLL files. For instance the free ufl named u2lwin32.dll only comes in a 32-bit version. Some commercial ones come in both 32-bit and 64-bit editions. Switching to CR 2020 requires that you use 64-bit UFL libraries.
The good news is that RPT files in CR 2020 are backward compatible with earlier versions, probably back to Crystal Reports v9. So you can modify and run a single RPT file in both CR2020 and earlier versions. But you do need different connectivity. What my customers are doing is naming the connections the same in both the 32 and 64 bit environment. That way users in both environments can run the same report without modification.
If you run into any strange behaviors in using CR 2020 or in the transition, please let me know and I will share with others.