Any opinions on migrating from Seagate Info 7 to Cystal Enterprise? 1

[bessebo]

We are looking to migrate from Seagate Info 7 to Crystal Enterprise and would like to hear from anyone who has already done this. Is it worthwhile doing? One of the features of Seagate Info was that we could email reports after they are scheduled. Crystal Enterprise supposedly does not offer this just yet. This could be an issue for us. Also, they supposedly have a tool for migrating your current Seagate Info reports to Crystal Enterprise. Has anyone on this forum done this and can a fairly technical person tackle this project on their own or do you recommend consultants on-site to perform this migration/implementation? We would prefer doing this ourselves and if we do this ourselves would you recommend a training class that would help prior to upgrading?

Regards,
Bessebo

 

[Infobiggot]

I would suggest you talk to your Crystal Sales Rep,
They may have a solution to make this decision easier.

By my handle on this forum you will see I am big fan of info but what I have seen coming Enterprise I may be changing my handle to Enterprise Fan

 

[rhinok]

There isn't any way to schedule reports to email using the out of the box, tool. I'm sure you could build it. You might also look into a third-party product by APOS. This might be moot, however, since my sales rep said Crystal Enterprise 8.5 (allegedly to be released at the end of March) now allows you to schedule to different formats such as email, excel, etc...

CE has a tool to import folders/users/groups or any combination of the above from the following platforms (Crystal Info 6, Seagate Info 7/7.5, CE8). The tool is incredibly easy to use.

As to performing the upgrade. The implementation of the software isn't that difficult. I'm actually doing this right now (for a client). The key to the upgrade, as with many applications, lies in the configuration and deployment plan. You should be asking questions as follows:

How are you going to manage users?
What about security?
Intranet only or Internet? Firewalls or proxies?
Use E-portfolio out of the box or design your own interfaces?
Is your staff familiar enough with web-based languages such as ASP, VBScript, JavaScript?
Will your reports be managed or unmanaged?
Server configuration? Small, Medium or Large environment? What are the hardware requirements?

E-portfolio installs with the product and is a very application. Its the easiest type of deployment, however, its not without its foibles. You will still need to make some configuration changes to the default scripts based on your own needs (for example, I modified a script to allow the menu bar to appear when viewing a report in Excel format - it was worthless without because you couldn't save it or print it). You may also need to push down an additional registry key to allow users to view reports from the Instance History form in RTF format (CD blames Microsoft, but they could have included the MIME key in their installation).

Hope these answers and random thoughts help

 

[Nuffsaid]

Rhinok.. right on . (as usual) Your post regarding the migration says it all.

Bessebo, as the “Finance Guy” who’s supposed to “Know Everything”, I made the same migration from Info to Enterprise. Enterprise is not a clone of Info, but my rep tells me that's what they're striving for...

Do not abandon Info to “Upgrade To Enterprise”. You paid for them both, didn’t you ???

We use them both, and exploit the strengths of each…..

Nuffsaid.

 

[kanau]

Hi, Bessebo

It is the best option if you can make a testing server installed with CE, then import all SI object with "Crystal Import Wizard". It will migrate all your SI 7.0 objects, folders, users and user group into your CE. Then use CR to open and save the reports to lastest edition.

In CE 8.5, it will feature with Schedule to Email, Printer, and with different format like PDF, Excel.

If you are using Seagate Analysis in Seagate Info, you should turn to MS OLAP Server (Analysis Manager) as your back end, use Crystal Analysis Professional for front end. Then use Crystal Enterprise for web deployment.

Hope this information can help!

Kan

 

[bessebo]

Thanks for all of your insightful help on this topic. We will definitely hold out for Crystal Enterprise 8.5. I do like the idea of using both Seagate Info and Crystal Enterprise at least until Crystal Enterprise provides all of the functionality of Seagate Info as far as scheduling to email, etc. I am also excited about building data warehouses and building the cubes using Microsoft's OLAP Manager. We can then use Crystal Analysis for the front-end.

Thanks everyone for your comments on moving to Crystal Enterprise.

Regards,
Bessebo