Thinking of (finally) upgrading to Pervasive 9 - will Macola 7.6.300b run on this platform? We don't want to upgrade to a more recent version of Macola just yet because of the conflicts with Crystal 8.5. We don't want to upgrade to a higher version of Crystal just yet because of the problems with their new licensing - we are very Crystal-heavy here, and it would require LOTS of time to re-do all of our reports with only 1 true developer license. Lots of parameters. Any advice out there?
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Still running Pervasive 2000i, Macola 7.6.300b
- Thread starter joybee36
- Start date
The crystal version is a mostly a non-issue.
You will never have to redo any of your reports, regardless of what version of crystal you have. I have customers with crystal version 6 running against a 76400a database all day long.
The issue is this: Crystal 76300c and later gives you the option of installing crystal v10 ICRs. All this means is that if you do take this option, you cannot use your older version of crystal to modify the macola built-in ICRs. All of your old reports will still work and none of the table names have changed.
Likewise, you can buy any version of crystal up to and including XI, and it works on all versions of Macola. Again your only limitation is on modifying built in ICRs and running them through the Macola interface.
Nor is there any "conversion" from any version of crystal from 5 to XI. You open it, you save it, you are prompted to update to the new version, and you answer yes. That is it, you're done.
For the most part crystal reports are not backwards and forwards compatible, so once you go to a version of crystal you should go to it company wide.
Software Sales, Training, Implementation and Support for Macola, eSynergy, and Crystal Reports
"If you have a big enough dictionary, just about everything is a word"
--Dave Barry
You will never have to redo any of your reports, regardless of what version of crystal you have. I have customers with crystal version 6 running against a 76400a database all day long.
The issue is this: Crystal 76300c and later gives you the option of installing crystal v10 ICRs. All this means is that if you do take this option, you cannot use your older version of crystal to modify the macola built-in ICRs. All of your old reports will still work and none of the table names have changed.
Likewise, you can buy any version of crystal up to and including XI, and it works on all versions of Macola. Again your only limitation is on modifying built in ICRs and running them through the Macola interface.
Nor is there any "conversion" from any version of crystal from 5 to XI. You open it, you save it, you are prompted to update to the new version, and you answer yes. That is it, you're done.
For the most part crystal reports are not backwards and forwards compatible, so once you go to a version of crystal you should go to it company wide.
Software Sales, Training, Implementation and Support for Macola, eSynergy, and Crystal Reports
"If you have a big enough dictionary, just about everything is a word"
--Dave Barry
Also what licensing issues are you concerned about in regards to crystal?
Software Sales, Training, Implementation and Support for Macola, eSynergy, and Crystal Reports
"If you have a big enough dictionary, just about everything is a word"
--Dave Barry
Software Sales, Training, Implementation and Support for Macola, eSynergy, and Crystal Reports
"If you have a big enough dictionary, just about everything is a word"
--Dave Barry
- Thread starter
- #4
Exact told me that the newer versions of Crystal require a different licensing structure (at least when purchsed through Macola...). My understanding is that only one "developer" will be able to use the select expert and report creation features, and that every report will have to be set up with parameters to be used by anyone else in our organization. Of course, this would be a MAJOR pain... that being said, I don't care if Exact doesn't support the version of Crystal that we are using, and I never use the ICR's anyways, except to chop them up and modify them. We have not updated our Macola versions for quite a long time because of this very issue...
The parameters issue is total BS. The rest of it could just be someone that doesn't know what they are talking about.
Andy, Peter, Steve, have any of you heard about Parameter issues by user with newer versions of Crystal on 76300c and newer?
You may have been discussing Crystal Enterprise Express, rather than Crystal Reports 10. This is a different product. There is only one good reason to buy Crystal Enterprise Express - to run reports on the web.
If you like I can demonstrate Crystal 8.5 working on a 76400a pervasive environment over the web.
Bottom line is, with what you have described, I would stay with crystal 8.5, with however many designer licenses you need.
To view reports, buy a crystal report viewer at $30 a pop. Datalink Viewer from Millet Software is my favorite. They also sell Visual CUT, a great, cost effective way to schedule, burst, and deliver crystal reports (less than $400). Google them up for details.
Software Sales, Training, Implementation and Support for Macola, eSynergy, and Crystal Reports
"If you have a big enough dictionary, just about everything is a word"
--Dave Barry
Andy, Peter, Steve, have any of you heard about Parameter issues by user with newer versions of Crystal on 76300c and newer?
You may have been discussing Crystal Enterprise Express, rather than Crystal Reports 10. This is a different product. There is only one good reason to buy Crystal Enterprise Express - to run reports on the web.
If you like I can demonstrate Crystal 8.5 working on a 76400a pervasive environment over the web.
Bottom line is, with what you have described, I would stay with crystal 8.5, with however many designer licenses you need.
To view reports, buy a crystal report viewer at $30 a pop. Datalink Viewer from Millet Software is my favorite. They also sell Visual CUT, a great, cost effective way to schedule, burst, and deliver crystal reports (less than $400). Google them up for details.
Software Sales, Training, Implementation and Support for Macola, eSynergy, and Crystal Reports
"If you have a big enough dictionary, just about everything is a word"
--Dave Barry
maccrystal
Technical User
I agree with Don, the parameter story sounds like a tall tale. If you examine the ICR's you will find that most of them are still 8.5 version even on 7.6.400a. It's also intresting that business objects only supports XI on MS SQL 2005, yet Exact says is ok to use V10 on that platform.
The biggest issue in leaving 8.5 is if you use the Crystal Compilers to deploy your reports as that is no longer supported in V9 and up. You must rely on Viewers, Crystal Reports Server or deploy on Intranet (IIS).
If you want to deploy report, Millet Software is excellent. You can also use a product called re-crystalize to convert and prepare the ASP code necessary to run report off an IIS server. We have used Re-crystalize to hang crystal reports into weborders/view.
The biggest issue in leaving 8.5 is if you use the Crystal Compilers to deploy your reports as that is no longer supported in V9 and up. You must rely on Viewers, Crystal Reports Server or deploy on Intranet (IIS).
If you want to deploy report, Millet Software is excellent. You can also use a product called re-crystalize to convert and prepare the ASP code necessary to run report off an IIS server. We have used Re-crystalize to hang crystal reports into weborders/view.
crystalreporting
Instructor
There is no issues that I'm aware of with parameters in later versions of Crystal.
However, it sounds like none of your existing reports use parameters i.e. filtering is controlled via selection criteria or the select expert. If this is true, then the story you're getting is correct in that most third party viewers (Datalink Viewer etc.) rely on the parameters to prompt the user at runtime and NOT the selection criteria.
Again, assuming all of your reports don't currently use parameters, then you would indeed need to convert them to use parameters if you wanted your end users to change selection criteria at run-time when using most (if not all) of the third-party report viewers.
Peter Shirley
However, it sounds like none of your existing reports use parameters i.e. filtering is controlled via selection criteria or the select expert. If this is true, then the story you're getting is correct in that most third party viewers (Datalink Viewer etc.) rely on the parameters to prompt the user at runtime and NOT the selection criteria.
Again, assuming all of your reports don't currently use parameters, then you would indeed need to convert them to use parameters if you wanted your end users to change selection criteria at run-time when using most (if not all) of the third-party report viewers.
Peter Shirley
If you are going to upgrade, the best thing to do IMO is to upgrade to ES. It's stable and it will put you to the most current version. We did this a year ago and though it was difficult since I did the upgrade myself. Exact was very leery about letting a customer do the upgrade but I have my MCSE certifications and CS/IT degree. Saved the company about $40k in upgrade costs. We upgraded from 7.5 pervasive sql.
However it is worth it in the end. Something you might want to consider.
However it is worth it in the end. Something you might want to consider.
MacolaHelp
Instructor
Check out doc 13.467.012 at the portal regarding pervasive 9 and that it only works with 300c and above, although another reseller I know said it did work with 300b, but they upgraded. Sounds like a test would be in order. I may try this, but not this week.
Your crystal reports should not be an issue unless the macola client loads different versions of the viewer and export dlls. Again, a test would be the way to go. I believe I have previously downloaded a trial version of pervasive 9 that works for 30 days or so. You should be able to use the older ICRs and reports you already have. The licensing had to do with the seat based licensing instead of concurrent licensing. As long as you compile the reports in 8.5, you can have the full version on your "developer" machines, and distribute the compiled reports to other users, in which case you would build parameters and user prompts into the reports. Do you currently have users doing their own selections without prompts? Just curious.
Your crystal reports should not be an issue unless the macola client loads different versions of the viewer and export dlls. Again, a test would be the way to go. I believe I have previously downloaded a trial version of pervasive 9 that works for 30 days or so. You should be able to use the older ICRs and reports you already have. The licensing had to do with the seat based licensing instead of concurrent licensing. As long as you compile the reports in 8.5, you can have the full version on your "developer" machines, and distribute the compiled reports to other users, in which case you would build parameters and user prompts into the reports. Do you currently have users doing their own selections without prompts? Just curious.
- Thread starter
- #10
MacolaHelp, you hit the nail on the head! Currently, all of our employees use the "full" versions of the reports, using the select expert to select criteria to report on with no prompts. My concern is that an upgrade to Pervasive 9 and a more current version of Macola (7.6.400 or above) would make our Crystal 8.5 reports useless. I would prefer to stay on Crystal 8.5 to avoid the seat based licensing and stay with our concurrent licensing if possible - am I dreaming?
MacolaHelp
Instructor
Actually, version 8.5 is the version that started the seat based user licensing rather than the report generation licensing. So, in my case, I had maybe 30 users running crystal reports, but only 2 or 3 machines used for development, so I had a 5 user license. If you compile the reports and put the parameters in the compiled reports, you can stay within the technically correct licensing rules. The version I got from macola was 8.5 developer, but when I had some issues I needed crystal decisions answers to, they told me they didn't support compiled reports in 8.5 or the use of the developer version on terminal server. All nonsense as far as I could see, as I'd been using it for a couple of years at that point in time.
Version 9 crystal and above no longer have the compiled reports options, but Don G could explain better how to distribute these reports via the preferred crystal distribution method as I haven't experimented.
The only problems I encountered with 7.6.100+ macola using crystal 8.5 was that my ICRs were still version 7 & some had been modified. When I tried to run the modified ICRs on the same workstation as one that also used compiled 8.5 reports, I had to do registry entries to allow them both on the same machine, and some exported differently to pdf or xls on some workstations, which makes the case for the report generator of choice to be the same for the macola client (ICRs) and the internally developed reports. The 2 crystal viewer dlls behaved differently on workstations with the macola client than those without just running compiled 8.5 reports. When you install the macola client, tell it you want to use 8.5 ICRs and you'll be fine if you continue to use 8.5. Or, buy the version 10 crystal developer and determine how to distribute the reports to the users so they are in sync with the ICRs. You can also rewrite existing modified ICRs in 8.5. My recollection is, however, that due to the licensing of seats on crystal 9 and above, that it could end up being fairly expensive compared to crystal 7 and 8.5.
Don or Peter: can you tell the user if there is improved performance of report run times using pervasive 9 versus 8.5? I just haven't experimented with it yet. Also, Don, is the crystal viewer or visual cut the preferred solution to the different versions of crystal components on the same workstation?
Hope this helps you. Good luck.
Version 9 crystal and above no longer have the compiled reports options, but Don G could explain better how to distribute these reports via the preferred crystal distribution method as I haven't experimented.
The only problems I encountered with 7.6.100+ macola using crystal 8.5 was that my ICRs were still version 7 & some had been modified. When I tried to run the modified ICRs on the same workstation as one that also used compiled 8.5 reports, I had to do registry entries to allow them both on the same machine, and some exported differently to pdf or xls on some workstations, which makes the case for the report generator of choice to be the same for the macola client (ICRs) and the internally developed reports. The 2 crystal viewer dlls behaved differently on workstations with the macola client than those without just running compiled 8.5 reports. When you install the macola client, tell it you want to use 8.5 ICRs and you'll be fine if you continue to use 8.5. Or, buy the version 10 crystal developer and determine how to distribute the reports to the users so they are in sync with the ICRs. You can also rewrite existing modified ICRs in 8.5. My recollection is, however, that due to the licensing of seats on crystal 9 and above, that it could end up being fairly expensive compared to crystal 7 and 8.5.
Don or Peter: can you tell the user if there is improved performance of report run times using pervasive 9 versus 8.5? I just haven't experimented with it yet. Also, Don, is the crystal viewer or visual cut the preferred solution to the different versions of crystal components on the same workstation?
Hope this helps you. Good luck.
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