Crystal to Microsfot Reporting Services Migration

[dky1e]

Hi,

We have made a decision to drop the Crystal Enterprise and replace with Microsoft's Reporting Services.

I'd like to make this thread and information source for others aiming at the migration process.

Please post any information, tool or utilities that can help accomplish the task,

Thank you.

 

[MJRBIM]

Out of interest, what were the deciding factor for migrating? Cost, support, etc...?

 

[dky1e]

Mostly cost, but also bugs and overall pain to work with their objects (to implement row-level filtering, manage schedules, etc...).

 

[EcofAcer]

Are going to convert your reports to the MSRS format or are you going to redesign the report in MSRS.

 

[cjlarue]

Sounds like we may need a new forum for MSRS as I expect this will become a hot topic. I am searching for a conversion tool also to go from .rpt to the rdl we will need for MSRS. with over 500 rpt's to convert I am not looking forward to this but since we are already a SQL Sever shop the cost is the driving factor. Just spent 50K last year on CE and more users will require more processors before long.

 

[rhinok]

Could you please explain the cost benefits as they relate to licensing and training? How much less is the overall cost of development, training, hardware and deployment than it is with Crystal Enterprise?

Based on what I've read of the licensing FAQ's (

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/reporting/howtobuy/faq.asp),

Reporting Services is included with SQL Server 2000, but every user that that accesses reports (even recipients of emailed reports) require a license seat on the SQL Server. This is akin to Crystal Enterprise, in which the software is free, but users are required to have license seats to view reports through the software.

Additionally, all developers must have a license to use Visual Studio 2003, which requires more programming knowledge than many Crystal Report writers have and is generally much more expensive than Crystal Reports Professional (Developer and Advanced are typically not required in most CE deployments).

I'm interested in the analysis your company did regarding the cost benefits.

 

[dky1e]

We already have an unlimited license of sql server, no per-seat license will apply for us (which is still a lot cheaper than CR licensing and maintenance fees), so it is a nice free upgrade for us. Regarding training, the report designer is a little diffrent from crystal's, but it is intuitive and easy to grasp. I've presented it to a couple develpers here and they enjoyed working with it.

I believe you will need a authoring license of Visual Studio ($100). There is no programming involved (unless you really want to ), just the usual drag and drop.

Take a look at the webcast:

http://mssql.digisle.tv

FYI, conversion tools I found:

http://www.hitachiconsulting.com/supportingDocs/CaseStudies/SO-MS RDL Generator-electronic.pdf