CE 10 v/s Business Objects XI - moving from CE8

[jraheja]

We have CE 8 and Crystal Reports 8.5. We are in the process of moving to CE10/Crystal reports 10. I was asked if it made sense to directly move to Business Objects XI.

My take is that it will come with it's own set of bugs and it is better we first move to v10 and then 3 months later move to Business Objects XI.Will Business Objects XI have all bugs of CE 10 corrected? We have on-demand reports, scheduling and now I am adding objects to repository for better maintenance of formulas. Want to do some fancy management reports.

What are your views on moving to Business Objects XI?

 

[synapsevampire]

I think that you'll find significantly more resources are being tossed at XI then CR 10 as it represents the future for BO.

The biggest plus for me is the dynamic, hierarchical type of parameter available.

The interface is a bit cleaner, and the overall feel is more professional.

Were I to have a choice right now, I'd go directly to XI (we're moving to XI in a few months, on CE10 now).

-k

 

[jraheja]

I also like this dynamic parameter concept since that itself will avoid storing values even in the repository.

 

[gwong2]

We have CE 10/ CR 10. If we move to XI we will need to rebuild our test and production environments, test the reports, etc. If would wait a few months to iron out the bugs and move directly to XI. This will save you the hassle in the future.

 

[spedi]

Is there any way of applying parameter on the global basis, instead of adding the logic at each report level? We have few parameters that are always need to be on the reports.

Currently we use the APOS tool's (Dynamic parameters) that helps in managing the parameters on a global basis. From XI version, they would stop supporting the product, hence I need any alterative before migrating to XI. I don't want to open each report and add the dynamic parameterlogic. It is too much work and more prone to errors..

Any insight is appreciated.





Srinath

http://www.nhsonline.org

srinath_p (at) yahoo.com

 

[wiplash]

Sorry, but not exactly sure what's meant by "dynamic, hierarchical type of parameter available" in version XI.

Currently we're on CE 10 (and CR 10) and wondering if it makes sense to upgrade to XI.

Just looking, I didn't see where the pros would outweigh the cons, but again, I imagine I missed some things and would like others opinions.

Is there a benifit as to future licensing / costs / etc. there as well?

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[RWahlert]

I've deployed CR XI at two clients and it works well. The on demand reporting is nice as well as scheduled reports. I would by pass CE10 and move to XI.

 

[cmmrfrds]

Rwahlert, what do you mean by "on demand" reporting? Is this something new in XI or is it the same as CE10?

 

[RWahlert]

What I mean is you can run a report without the need to schedule them. When the user is in the "Info View" they ccan click on the report name, enter paratmeters, if any, and the report will display. One of my clients does a lot ad hoc reporting and this works well for them.

I believe in CE10 you needed to schedule a report as "Run Now" in order to get a similar result.

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
Nope..Any published report in CE10 ( or 8.5 or 9) can be set to allow Run-on-demand - It is a permission granted to the user ( or to Everyone or Guest)..

 

[wiplash]

Crystal 10 allows for on-demand reporting too. Does anyone know of a reason to upgrade from 10 to 11 (Crystal Reports and/or Crystal Enterprise) or are the "enhancements" just not there?

 

[BobSuruncle]

As mentioned above, Dynamic (cascading) Parameters is the biggest reason.
Also, the ability to create Report Packages in CR.
There is also the HTML preview that can be helpful. It allows you to see what the report will look like if you're using the DHTML viewer in CE instead of Active-X.
TopN reports can now be easily parameterized.
The Special Fields now have "Current CE User ID" and "Current CE User Name" as well as "Current CE User Time Zone".
As far as CE goes, the InfoView interface is quite nice. It give you the ability to create a "Dashboard" by adding any number of report objects (either On-Demand or instances) and/or Report Parts. This "Dashboard" is called My InfoView, and is configured by user.
You also get Webi (Web Intelligence) documents. They come from the BusinessObjects tool. These Webi docs are NOT available if you purchase the lite version of CE (Called Crystal Reports Server). Crystal Reports server is the cheaper alternative, but you're limited to a max of 20 concurrent users.

If none of these features really appeals to you, I'd wait until after the summer to decide.


Bob Suruncle