Crystal Enterprise Alternatives?

[pdankert]

Can anyone shed light on Crystal Enterprise alternatives? Currently we are providing many reports to our business users over a web server but we need a more efficient way to do this. I have been told that Crystal Enterprise is cost prohibitive for our situation and am trying to research alternatives. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[KingfisherINC]

This is a good place to start:

http://www.kenhamady.com/bookmarks.html

Kingfisher

 

[synapsevampire]

Perhaps you should explain your "situation".

Crystal Reports Server (CRS) comes with CR XI, and is very cost effective for emailing reports, or to send them to a file location, the costs escalate if you are having the users run them from the CRS because you need licenses.

There are many alternatives, some of which might suit your needs, if you want suggestions, state requirements rather than products you've heard you don't.

-k

 

[pdankert]

I can elaborate a little.

We are looking to provide a better way for multiple business users (100+) to run the same reports. These users don't need crystal installed on their pc. We would like to make a viewer and directory available through Citrix if possible. (We already use citrix for other apps) This would reduce the need for multiple installs and versioning problems.

Currently reports are on an intranet site, but each time a new report is needed it requries a web developers time to create the necessary web side pieces.

Kingfisher - Thanks for the link in the post above, that looks like a good place to start.

 

[eyeswideclosed]

BO/CR/CE solutions are very pricey, have very steep learning curves that seemingly never end, are massive resource hogs, are impossible to get out of once you get in too deep, require a career-long committment to maintain, are dismal at providing backwards-compatibility, requiring constant upgrades and rewrites and service packs and hotfixes and searches for solutions to myriad problems, and a never-ending stream of cash. But I have found nothing else with their capabilities...IF you manage to climb all the mountains and commit to staying on top of them...forever.
Jump on in the water's fine!

 

[KingfisherINC]

^ Sounds like my wife!

Kingfisher

 

[synapsevampire]

<chuckling>

Well as opposed to writing and supporting your own code, the CE alternative will likely prove cheaper.

I generally suggest Ido Millet's solutions (listed at Ken's site).

If you are cutting canned reports, CE might work for you, if you need 100+ seats to run on demand, it would get purdy spendy.

-k

 

[IdoMillet]

Thanks for the kind words, K.

pdankert, it sounds like you are focused on the pull side of the equation: letting users run reports on an ad-hoc basis. You may benefit from considering the push side of the equation as well: sending report content to users on a periodic or exception basis.

For a reasonably priced pull solution, purchasing 100 licenses of a 3rd-party viewer (see various options at the Ken Hamady web site mentioned above) could cost you less than $1,000.

You mention that you "have been told that Crystal Enterprise is cost prohibitive." How many concurrent users do you need to support? It wouldn't hurt to call Business Objects and get a quote. If you don't mind, please share with us the information...

- Ido

Visual CUT & DataLink Viewer:
view, e-mail, export, burst, distribute, and schedule Crystal Reports.

http://www.MilletSoftware.com

 

[pdankert]

hejamana - you should apply for a sales job at BO, i think it would be a great fit.

IdoMillet - we are just starting to look into these as alternatives so we have not solicited a quote from BO or determined how many licenses we will need. In our investigation, we will get a quote for the different options. As a guess, I would think we need at least 50 concurrent licenses, possibly as many as 75.

 

[eyeswideclosed]

you should apply for a sales job at BO, i think it would be a great fit."

I would but I can't afford the application fee!