Need recommendation on consulting costs of CE 8.0

[joshwallick]

My company is trying to decided whether or not to use Crystal Decisions consultants to implement Crystal Enterprise. Their costs seem extremely high, and I wanted to know if anyone else has used them. Were their costs worth it? We have many highly experienced technical resources within our company, and we wonder if we could do this in-house. Any recommendations would be helpful.

 

[mannejl]

We did it inhouse. I found their documentation lacking - so it was painful. We used phone support and these lists helped us out.

 

[bmitchel]

We also did it in house. Agreed that documentation is lacking. Using phone support to resolve issues. So far no real show stoppers.

 

[BlurredVision]

check out

http://www.crystalinfo.net/cr_links.html

for a nice listing consultants. Brian

http://www.crystalinfo.net

 

[Burgovision]

We used them for our SI7 to CE8.5 implementation - what a waste of money!!

They gave us nothing we could otherwise have learnt from a book....

 

[rhinok]

Let me answer your question with another question: How comfortable are you with the level of technical support you have received from Crystal Decisions? I have had hit-or-miss results during the last few years. Based on your experiences, how much trust would you place in a CD consultant? What is it that you expect the consultants to accomplish that you couldn't do yourselves, or at least with a less-expensive consultant or contractor.

Crystal Decisions consultants are a waste of money, in my opinion. You may actually get a really good consultant, but is he or she really worth that much money?

You can do it yourself with in-house talent if you have somebody willing to do a little homework and legwork. Btw, make sure you ask Crystal Decisions for the Crystal Enterprise sizing guide or they won't give it to you (because they want to charge you $10k/day for a CD consultant to fill it out). They should be willing to provide it if you're buying licenses from them, however.

 

[akuchin]

I used consultants based in Pennsylvania (

http://www.cne.com).

They were excellent even in tough times (we had some problems with the software) and I came under budget.

 

[synapsevampire]

I'd suggest going direct with a consultant, not with CD.

There are numerous resources here <glancing up>, both to hire or help you along.

I'm presently engaged, but I'll bet you'll get plenty of bites from a job posting here, and some of the people with more real world knowledge than the CD folk, though they get faster tech support

For Crystal Reports, I'd look for people with experience with your business model, make sure that they're capable of writing efficient SQL for your particular database (which the CD folk won't do, and many CR coders don't), and also that they're able to communicate well with your staff, as a good part of reports building involves interacting with and training your business people.

For Crystal Enterprise installations, look for people with a history of installing CE in environments that match your requirements. It's VERY easy to install CE, but when you try to use NT or LDAP security, multiple servers, integrate into existing WEBS, use the API's, etc., you'll require advanced knowledge.

Good luck with the implementation, and bookmark this site

-k

http://www.informeddatadecisions.com

kai@informeddatadecisions.com

 

[chris777]

CD is like anyone else, they have good consultants and bad consultants. But is anyone REALLY worth the cost that CD charges? I would go with a CD Partner or independent consultant.

I have been a Seagate Info and Crystal Reports consultant and what is going to make the decisions for you is &quot;how fast do we need to get up and running?&quot; If you can sit through the learning curve, use your internal people. If you need to get up and running right away then pay the price. Chris
DFW Crystal User Group

http://www.dfwcug.com

 

[Muwati]

Can anyone tell me what the &quot;Crystal Enterprise Sizing Guide&quot; is, how much it costs etc?

Thanks

 

[rhinok]

The Crystal Enterprise Sizing Guide is only available from Crystal Decisions. It is free, but you are have to request if from your Account Executive. You will typically only receive it if you state that you are considering a purchase from Crystal Decisions. You will also be required to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement in order to receive the document.

CD keeps tight tabs on the Sizing Guide because they would like to sell you CD Consultants who use the guide to size your environment.

 

[SteveRemington]

The book Special Edition: Using Crystal Enteprrise 8.5 (ISBN 0-7897-2616-5) contains a reasonable subset of the information contained in the Official CE Sizing Guide. Amazon stocks it and it is problably available from your favourite technical bookshop.

It is not a bad book for those people who want a good overview of CE 8.5, how it works and how to implement a system if you can ignore the CD sales pitch contained in the first couple of chapters.
Regards,
Steve Remington
Wave Business Solutions
steve.remington@wavebusiness.com.au