Portability - Developing reports on Server 1 and running on Server 2

[hjmoffitt]

We are developing and teting reports on Server 1 and then when they are ready for production use moving them to a different server, i.e. Server 2. After we move the reports to Server 2, we have to go back into the report and reset the Location. This is done by clicking on Database, Set Location, and if you aren't logged on to the server, log on to the new server and then find all the tables or Stored Procedures on the new server. This has to be done for every report and it becomes a real pain when you have over a 100 reports to do.

Is there a better way of doing this? Is there some option that doesn't set the location?

We are using SQL Server 7 with OLEDB and Crystal Reports 7.0.


Holly

 

[jazerr]

We have a similar situation, and what we have done is fairly simple. when you are setting the locations on the reports(for stored procedures), they default to look like this:

GV_GRANDFORKS.dbo.Proc(as_student_info;1)
This hard codes the report to whatever server and table/procedure you are using. We have gone ahead and just set the locations/aliases to look like this:
as_student_info

You need to make sure that the ODBC sources are named the same thing, and this setup will allow the report to read from whatever server you put it on...

Let me know how it goes...

 

[StevenK]

I have a similar situation through an application that sets up Crystal Reports from a Delphi 5 application. Through code I am able to set the location of each of the tables associated with the crystal report object. I follow the rule of first setting the 'LogOnInfo' for each report table and then setting the location, something like ..:
(1) CRReport.Database.Tables.SetLogOnInfo(server-name, database-name, 'user-name', 'password')
(2) CRReport.Database.Tables.Location := database-name + '.dbo.' + table-name.
..Maybe a programmer could create an application that sets up this set of information before running the reports..

Steve

 

[hjmoffitt]

I removed all hard codes to the tables but I can't remove the hard code for the server. Even though I removed the hard code to the tables, we still had to go through the rigmarole of resetting/changing the location when we moved the report to another server. We are developing reports on our server for a client site and then shipping the reports to the client site. After the client receives them, they have to reset the location. What a pain!

We are using CR7 with SQL Server but not ODBC instead we are using OLEDB so I haven't checked into that end yet. Don't know if it makes a difference. Just thought I would let you know what was going on.