Moving from Crystal 8.0 to 9.0

[prevost999]

Ok, let me be long-winded. We are a mid-size organization where I am the sole report designer.

CURRENT ARCHITECTURE:
Crystal Version: 8.0
Deployment: Reports are accessed on-demand via a local intranet using the 8.0 Web Component Server in conjunction with locally installed ActiveX Viewers on the users clients.

GOAL:
Our current desire is to move to version 9 at minimal cost, while retaining the functionality the ActiveX Viewer provides. I installed Crystal Enterprise 9 RAS and gave E-Portfolio Lite a test drive, but the report rendering, drilldown, and linking out to sub-reports was not up to par with what the ActiveX Viewer provides. I prefer how the ActiveX Viewer retains the original presentation quality and user-feel that you get when using the report designer.



FUTURE ARCHITECTURE?
Version: 9
Deployment: Crystal Enterprise RAS, Standard, Pro?

QUESTIONS:
1. Can you move to version 9 and still utilize the ActiveX viewer or something of similar quality?
If so, does the viewer still need to be installed locally?
To achieve this, what’s the best way to go? CE RAS? CE Standard?

2. Our current licensing is for 5 concurrent users. Does anybody out there understand the current
licensing scheme with all the different versions of CE. My understanding is that with CE RAS or CE Standard the 5 concurrent licenses still hold true. Am I correct in this assumption?

Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks.


Paul Prevost
pprevost@igc.com

 

[Guyute97]

1. The activeX viewer is still available and works very well. I believe there was a version change so users will get a new request to download the viewer.

2. The concurrent license schema is still the sam so it should not be a change from your currect inplementation.

Also, CE 9 has an import wizard and should be able to import your CE 8 settings, users, reports, which should minimize upgrade time/expense.

--Guyute

 

[gashandler]

Just a couple things you should be aware of:

If you have any parameter drop down lists that are very long the max supported by CE9 is 50.

The Excel export drivers changed so you'll want to test any applicable reports to see how much work it will be to reformat them if necessary.

If you have large batches of reports that are scheduled to run you'll want to be aware that the CE9 engine takes a little longer to run reports. Not a big deal for most people but if you have 1000 reports or so scheduled to run over a couple hours you can anticipate that the time it takes to run them could double.

Anyway, these are things that annoyed me about CE9. They may have no effect on you whatsover.

 

[mdwyer]

"If you have any parameter drop down lists that are very long the max supported by CE9 is 50. "

I'm building dynamic parameter picklists with hundreds of values, no problems.

Maybe we're not thinking about the same thing?

 

[gashandler]

Re: Parameter limit of 50

I forgot to mention that the problem is isolated to the DHTML viewer in CE9. Below is from Crystal Kbase:

A report that has a parameter value with hundreds of default values is saved to Crystal Enterprise (CE) 9. In the Crystal Management Console, the option, 'Prompt the user for new value(s) when viewing' is selected for this parameter, so when the report is viewed on demand the user will get the option to select a value from the list of default values defined in Crystal Reports 9.

When the report is viewed in ePortfolio using the DHTML or Interactive DHTML viewers, the list of default values appears, but not all the values that were defined in the report appear in the list. If the same report is viewed using the ActiveX or Java viewers, the list will display all the default values. If the report is scheduled, the user can also see all the values for the parameter.

Why is this happening?

Solution

This happens because of a limitation of the DHTML viewers in CE 9 because of performance issues when more values are displayed. Only the first 50 values in the list will be displayed.

This is a known issue with Crystal Enterprise 9. This issue has been assigned Track ID ADAPT00082925.

As of the publish date of this article, there is no file update to correct this issue. There are no known workarounds.


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[SmokeEater]

Changing DSN at runtime

I am using the developer version crystal reports 9. Is there any way to change the DSN at runtime. I have downloaded the examples from the crystal site and they are of no help.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[SmokeEater]

Sorry posted in wrong spot !!