Scheduling a report to export in HTML format 1

[McChops]

Hi,

We are running Crystal Reports Server XI (an evaluation version) and would like to schedule our reports to export in HTML format, to an Unmanaged Disk destination. The only problem is that HTML is not a valid file format (It is with Crsytal Reports Developer which is what we are using to develop our reports in).

Is this a limitation with our evaluation version or with the Business Objects Enterprise/Crystal Reports Server suite? I believe I read a post earlier regarding Crystal Enterprise, which said HTML was a valid export option.

Thanks

 

[synapsevampire]

From the CR designer only, check out the feature comparison:

http://www.businessobjects.com/pdf/products//crystalreports/crxi_feat_ver_ed.pdf

Search for Export to DHTML.

-k

 

[McChops]

Thanks for the prompt reply Synapsevampire.

Can see this is a limitation with Crystal Reports Server.

Have searched the BO website and failed to find if this is possible (scheduling reports to be exported in HTML format to an unmanaged disk) utilising BO Enterprise XI R2.

Are you able to shed some light on this (our BO account manager would take weeks to get back to me on this!)?

 

[synapsevampire]

Yeah, they seem ot do their best NOT to make it easy to get information about their products, most of the information is marketing claptrap designed for non-technical people, for non-technical people.

I thought it was available in BOE XI, but you'll need to verify, or someone that hgas it should pop by.

As an alternative you can always set up a print to HTML driver and schedule it to print to that driver, that should work.

-k

 

[McChops]

Thanks again. Will follow up with BO and tinker with the print to HTML driver.

 

[IdoMillet]

Print approaches are typically not well suited for scheduled exporting because they don't provide a way to automate the setting of the exported file name and location.

Another approach is to use any of the 3rd-party report schedulers listed at

http://www.kenhamady.com/bookmarks.html

They should all be able to schedule HTML exports to any disk drive.

- Ido

Visual CUT & DataLink Viewer:
view, e-mail, export, burst, distribute, and schedule Crystal Reports.

http://www.MilletSoftware.com

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
Just to confirm :
A destination format of HTML is not available with scheduled reports in BOE XI R2 - It i salso not an export option when viewing the report..

The BOE ( and previously CE ) system only has a subset of the export format options available in Designer.




To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."

 

[synapsevampire]

The offline Viewer had it starting in CE 9:

http://support.businessobjects.com/library/kbase/articles/c2013995.asp

If you install CR 8.5 on a CE 8.5 system:

http://support.businessobjects.com/library/kbase/articles/c2012803.asp

This might work for CRS and BOE XI as well.

I can understand the difficulties with using a scheduled print to HTML as it will likely require that a single directory be set up for the driver, however a manual process is possible, or by cheating the processing with a macro recorder.

I would suggest looking at Ido's products though, he makes first rate stuff and it should prove less expensive than CRS or BOE XI.

-k

-k

 

[Ridyen]

I know it may sound crazy but you can use Crystal Reports to "generate" HTML. You can include/imbed the HTML tags as part of the report and then export the report as a text file but with an HTML extension.

Using group breaks, sections, etc. you can actually get pretty fancy on putting in anchors, links etc.

Just an idea but we did this for successfully for years and it worked very well.

 

[synapsevampire]

Ridyen: We knew that, they're asking about Crystal Reports Server/Crystal Enterprise.

-k

 

[Ridyen]

My reference to Crystal Reports was trying to get to the design of the report. It is there that incorporating the appropriate HTML tags would need to take place. Based on the feature comparison it looks like Crystal Reports Server can export to a text file. Assuming it can and the option to name the export file with an extension of .htm or .html exists, my method may be able to meet their needs.

Perhaps I should have said: "You can include/imbed the HTML tags as part of the report and then use the Crystal Reports Server to export the report as a text file but with an HTML extension."


In the past I used this method for three primary reasons:

1. When I first started pushing reports to the web, I don't believe there was a HTML or Acrobat export option available.

2. When the HTML options became available, the Crystal Enterprise option to export to HTML (DHTML) generated a large amount of code that was not really not necessary.

3. As I stated previously, I could also gain control of the report and incorporate links, anchors into the report.

Most of our reports are now output as .PDF files and this method is no longer utilized.

 

[synapsevampire]

Ridyen: Got it, however you're probably better off buying something that already does the job as a complex report would be a pain to convert everything to text and embed HTML.

-k

 

[MJRBIM]

HTML is not a format for scheduling from BOE-XI (R2).

We use BOE-XI (R2) to schedule the push of some RPT instances es to an FTP location in PDF format.

Some of our intranet websites then point to those PDF documents for people to reference.

Don't know if that is an acceptable work around....