Crystal Questions

[MikeTom]

I have been using crystal reports since version 6. Since ver 7 all our reports have mainly been web based, wich is now seems to be quite costly with ver 8.5 as we can only have 5 users and have to pay a ridiculous amount of money for more liscenses. Also a lot of users have complained about the quality of graphs in crystal. They prfer to have the data imported to excel and graphs produced their as they are better quality.

I have spoken to crystal sales and they tell me that in version 9 the graphing tool has been greatley improved as well as the edition of a report application server RAS for launching web reports without using the WCS and having to PAY for liscenses.

My question is can any one tell me what type of performance do you get from using RAS and how stable is it? The reason i ask is WCS seemed to crash quite regualry with Page server error and the task needed to be restarted.
The other is are the graphs produced in ver 9 better than the quality of any other known products, if not can you recommend products that have better charting with drilldown capabilities.

If anyone else has stopped using crystal reports because of the new liscense agreement and moved onto a cheaper reporting solution can you recommend that reporting tool to me.

Thanks in advance.

 

[SurfingGecko]

Ah yes, the popular licensing/cost issue.

True that in many cases the licensing model can be somewhat (or totally) prohibitive, but there are options.

RAS is a different product and I don't think should be synonymous with "Web based reproting" as you know it.

The Report Application Server (RAS) and RAS SDK provide tools to build a simple, web-based "Report Designer". This web report designer is then used as an add-on to the Crystal Enterprise system.

The "Report Designer" that you create end users the ability to modify existing reports in the Crystal Enterprise system. Basically providing features that let users modify the design of basic reports using only a web browser.

In version 9, there is a standalone verison of RAS, but this is limited in flexibility.

You could create and ASP application and use the RDC to render your reports. I have not spent much time in this arena, but I know there samples on the Crystal Site. You will also not avoid license implications here.

As for the license you get with Enterprise. By default this is a 5 CAL (concurrent user license). NOT to be confused with a named user license.

A 5 CAL should be able to support about 20 or so users so depending on your situation it may suffice.

To this, you may want to have a look at

http://www.kenhamdy.com/bookmarks.htm

for a listing of some thrid party tools that you may be able to use. He also some has some CE information listed.

Finally, I could certainly not comment on CR abondonment, but given its enormous popularity and lack of real caparable alternative, I suspect not many jump ship. They just find ways around some of the barriers.

Hope this helps a bit

Cheers,

SurfingGecko

http://www.surfinggeckosoftware.com

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