Upgrade to CR 9 or Not? 2

[uni1]

Is there anyone out there that has upgraded from CR 8.5 to CR 9? Does the advantages outweight the disadvantages. We don't use Crystal for web stuff and I don't think we will need the repository component. Any information would be helpful, thanks.

 

[Naith]

If you're not going to take advantage of either the repository or web reporting, then why do you think you need to leave 8.5 at all?

8.5 will still be supported for a good while yet.

Naith

 

[synapsevampire]

If you use a SQL database, you'll probably find that being able to use real SQL to populate the report is worth it.

If you can't justify it given the features you mentioned, and the above, it doesn't sound like you must get it.

-K

 

[ChuckVanT]

Actually, I'm using both versions, and the biggest help to me is being to enter the SQL directly into a "Command" object. I've been jumping through hoops to do a Union query in CR 8.5 (ended up using a stored procedure). I'm using one even as I type this, in CR 9. We're also using the template option, and the attempt at a block comment in the formula editor is nice, too!

BEWARE, if you edit a CR 8.5 report in CR 9, you have to save it as a CR 9 report, and you can't use it in CR 8.5 any more!

Hope this helps,
Chuck

 

[synapsevampire]

CR 8.5 supported manual creation of UNIONS.

-k

 

[uni1]

Thanks for the input from everyone whether to change to CR 9. We have free upgrades and wanted to know if it was worth changing over. I can see a benefit in being able to write SQL to generate reports.

 

[chelseatech]

There are some cool improvements in CR9.
The SQL command is a great feature and they have made some great improvements to Crosstab formatting.

There are a couple of new chart types (Numeric/Date Axis, Gantt, Dial).

And formulas can be longer than 254 chars - it's now 64k in length, and you can use memo fields in a formula.

Any of those could be a great reason to upgrade. Editor and Publisher of Crystal Clear

http://www.chelseatech.co.nz/pubs.htm

 

[JohnEck]

One of the best reasons I have found to upgrade is ease of setting the datasource location. We have a production and reporting database. If I need to build a report for the production data I can build it using the report database and then change the datasource location so it runs of the production database. A big timesaver in development time.

 

[bdreed35]

One of the big reasons why my company is going to upgrade is the improved DHTML viewer. We have a client that has strict permissions set in IE for the Internet zone which causes issues with the ActiveX viewer. Since they also want to print from the viewer, ActiveX and Java were our only options in 8.5. In 9.0, we can now offer a zero client viewer and still give them the Printing functionality.

~Brian