crystal report online

[Trudye]

I have a novice question. Can I display a crystal report online?

Thanks
Trudye

 

[FVTrainer]

Yes, Crystal can display reports via a web browser using either the RDC (runtime library) installed on the web server or via Crystal Enterprise (CE). (The RDC approach is usually only viable for low traffic situations.) If you are using Crystal 8 or lower (through 6, I believe), CE is not used; a component called the Web Component Server (WCS) is used instead. CE comes in a "lite" version with Crystal Developer Edition and in a more robust version with Crystal Advanced, or can be purcahsed separately (generally, CE is designed to support enterprise-wide reporting and, relative to Crystal Reports itself, is very expensive).

 

[Trudye]

Hi FVTrainer

I just heard about Enterprise a few minutes ago. What bothers me is this is version 1. And you know the old saying "Pioneers get arrows".

I try never to buy the 1st of any hardware or software product. You end up paying (usually a very hefty price) to play debugger.

Have you used it and what do you think of it?

Thanks
Trudye

 

[FVTrainer]

CE is not version 1. CE has been out for almost 3 years and is in it's 3rd major release. (And it's the follow on product to Seagage Info, which has been in the marketplace since, I think, 1996). As for what I think of CE, I like it but if you're really going to use CE as it is best used (as a scheduling and managed report distribution tool), it has steep learning curve and it's own flavor of ASP scripting to learn. And CE Administration also takes a bit of training to understand fully. So it is expensive. But the plus side is very good scalability (or performance) and control over who sees what, as well as the ability to minimize the hits to your database that the reports will make and the ability to maintain archives of reports.

Having said that, you can just use CE to generate ad hoc, or "on-demand" reports (i.e., not using the scheduling features of CE), and in that case the learning curve is not all that bad. Read a couple of white papers on passing logon info and parameter values via a URL call and you'll be generating reports on the web in no time.

Just my thoughts...

 

[synapsevampire]

I think that the basic CE viewing, scheduling and distribution is pretty straight forward. I have 2 unskilled and virtually untrained people doing the CE adminstration at my current contract without much difficulty.

Otherwise I agree with FV about everything else, it's a relatively mature product (especially CE 9), and in addition, there are quite a few resources available.

I might add that you should avoid custom CSP or processes of any kind whenever possible (not just CE). The like to have and need to have are very different creatures, and can blow the budget out real fast if not properly managed.

-k

 

[FVTrainer]

Well, I definitely agree, k, that if you use the "out-of-the-box" solution Crystal provides for viewing, scheduling, and distribution (ePortfolio) that it is pretty straight forward. In my experience, however, only about 50% of the companies that implement CE as a scheduling and distribution tool want to use ePortfolio. So, the 50% that don't have to learn CSP or pay for CSP consultants. And, as you say, CSP programming has a way of eating up budgets rapidly.

 

[Trudye]

You guys changed acronyms on me. What is CSP and ePortfolio?

Trudye

 

[FVTrainer]

CSP stands for Crystal Server Pages. It is a variant of Active Server Pages, but includes objects that allow you to interface with the CE object model. Further, CSP pages are processed by the WCS component of CE, rather than by your web server.

ePortfolio is a CSP application the ships with CE. It allows you to view, schedule and manage report instances (report instances are the result of a scheduled report. Essentiall, CE runs the report and saves it with data, allowing users to view the results of the scheduled report without having to re-run the report). If the Report Application Server (an optional CE component) is installed, ePortfolio also allows you to modidfy or create new Crystal reports (based on an existing one) right from within your browser (it's not as robust a process as using Crystal Reports, but for many quick reports or situations where you are not changing the layout as much as record selection, its very useful).

 

[Trudye]

aahhh! Now its clear as mud. (LOL)

So custom CSP's can be very expensive and usually require a consultant or a lot of patience? And if you add the other components (ePortfolio/Report Application Server) things cna really get hairy.

Thanks much
Trudye

 

[FVTrainer]

No no, ePortfolio is relatively easy to use. See Synapse's comments. His comments apply to ePortfolio. ePortofio is provided with the price of CE. It is your friend!

Home-spun CSP, on the other hand, is like writing ASP. If you're good at it, it's no big deal. If you're not experienced writing ASP, then you'll have a learning curve (which is where the expense comes in). If you're like me, it's something of a challenge, not because CSP is hard, but because Visual InterDev doesn't offer a good debugging methodology. And I've yet to migrate to ASP.NET.

 

[synapsevampire]

I have a few custom CSP pages, but they are external to eportfolio - we leverage it however we can.

For speedy delivery, we schedule our weekly/daily reports as PDF's in CE and use an external web portal to display.

For historical instancing and on demand reports we leverage eportfolio using URL pass through.

Simple and gives the illusion that the reporting enviroment isn't butt slow

Good luck with your project - try to keep the creeping elegance out of the equation in rev 1 and you should be able to implement very quickly.

-k

 

[Trudye]

Thanks guys I'll keep you posted.


Trudye