Adam Butt of APB Reports in Norway has developed some sophisticated web dashboards using Crystal Reports exported to txt format. You have to see them to appreciate them. They are interactive and the data behind them can be refreshed automatically as often as needed to keep them up to date.

Adam accomplishes this by creating special text objects in the report to hold the needed HTML code and javascript. The report is then scheduled to export in txt format, but is named as an HTML file.  The file includes all of the data and code to run the dashboard. The files can then be automatically uploaded to a website by the same scheduler software that created the export. Adams process is built around Visual Cut as the export engine, but you could probably accomplish something similar with other scheduling tools.

And if you don’t want to learn the techniques, you can hire Adam to create dashboards for you.