Would someone please explain the difference? Are these the same product, and if not what are they each used for?
Crystal Reports is a design tool--you use it to create and maintain reports. It is similar to Desktop Intelligence and Microsoft Access is this regard. It also has an SDK (COM, .Net, Java)
for programmatical access.
BusinessObjects Enterprise is a report-deployment platform:
supports a variety of report types (e.g. Crystal Reports, WebI, OLAPi/Voyager)
uses a desktop metaphor, called InfoView (nee ePortfolio), to allow people to access reports
has an Administrative console, called the Central Management Console (nee Crystal Management Console), to manage various aspects of these reports, including DB authentication
comprise of a number of Windows/Unix/Linus services (e.g. Job Server, Central Management Server, File Repository Server)
enforces access privileges (via NT, AD, LDAP, or Enterprise authenitcation)
runs reports on a schedule
distributes reports (via email, ftp, and other mechanisms)
has an SDK (COM, .Net, Java) to manage these aspects of the reports.
Business Objects is an enterprise which specializes in Business Intelligence and delivers tools which mainly help in analyzing, reporting enterprise data.
Crystal Reports primarily covers design and creation of different types of reports from various data sources. It was acquired by Business Objects.
Besides the answer you got above, Crystal Reports Server is a limited version of the Business Objects Enterprise product.
Related
Morning all,
I have recently deployed Crystal Reports 2013 and Crystal Server 2013 in a test environment, as we are currently using the 2008 version of both products.
As this deployment is in a test environment; I am keen to implement and try out as much as possible to implement the best solution as possible.
One of the things I have enabled is Auditing. Once set-up I went looking for the best way to utilise this but everything seems to allude to needing a Universe creation tool (Information Design Tool) which I don't have and can't obtain, as our SAP products are provided via a third party and we don't have access to the BI Client Tools.
So I'm back to trying to figure this all out via custom Crystal Reports.... I've read plenty of articles, one which provided me with the links needed between the Database Tables, but there don't seem to be any articles on what tables etc to use.
Has anybody done this?
Thanks in advance for any help, I'm tearing my hair out at the minute!
Direct RBMS access
Have a look at the official SAP documentation (I'm using the BusinessObjects manuals, but information in them should apply to Crystal Server as well), more specifically the Business Intelligence platform Administrator Guide (SP doesn't really matter, auditing doesn't tend to change much within a major release).
There are two sections that are important for you:
The Auditing chapter, more specifically the section regarding Audit events.
The Auditing Data Store Schema Appendix, which contains all the detail regarding the audit schema you could need.
Using a universe
Have a look at the SCN blog post Unlock the Auditing database with a new Universe and Web Intelligence Documents for BI4.1. It contains a download link to an LCMBIAR file which you can import into your BI4 environment, without the need for a universe client tool. There's also a webinar and documentation available. The prebuilt WebI documents should save you a lot of time.
Requirements:
BI Platform BI 4.1 Support Pack 5 or greater for the Web Intelligence Documents
BI Platform BI 4.1.x for the Audit database to be queried
Instructions:
Download the content (take the highest build numbered zip file)
Import one of the five 'Universe' LCMBIAR files into your system using Promotion Management (it will go into BI Platform Auditing folder)
Import the Web Intelligence LCMBIAR file (it will go into BI Platform Auditing folder)
Edit the connection that is imported (in BI Platform Auditing folder) with the correct login credentials.
Open the Web Intelligence document STA1 - Start here - Events over time.wid as your starting point!
The only issue might be with step 4, where you need to edit your connection. I don't know if you'd be able to edit the imported connection through the Crystal Reports application?
We are coding many reports in Crystal using the Visual Studio 2010 plug in. We're hosting the web application on Win Server 2008 Enterprise 64bit. We use SQL to sort the data being sent to the report.
The issue: On some reports the order is different on the server than when developing using VS. We're hitting the same DB in both cases and have confirmed that the data table being passed to the report is the same in both cases. We've confirmed that the DLLs are the same between the environments. We have a workaround which is to dictate the sort in the report. That seems like overkill.
Any ideas?
Thanks ST
This is most likely either record sort criteria in the reports or groups.
Both of these would override any ordering handled at db level.
I want to create a reporting website and if coding is required, I am familiar with C#. I saw people talking about Crystal Reports but wasn't clear whether it can work well in .NET web application. Besides Crystal, what are the other options? Is there simply a "database browser" web app that only requires a DB connection and all other customization is optional? Sorry for the stupid questions, I have zero experience in reporting.
Thanks
No problem,
It is depend on the report type that do you want to display and data quality that you want to achieve.
You can use traditional spreadsheet like utilizing for MS Excel or other spreadsheet software for half baken report. This report style can be further use or data feed for another report.
This techniques is easy since most of report generated is csv files or xml files that can be imported in spreadsheet.
You can use like Crystal report or report viewer from Microsoft (SQL Server or report viewer). This is an easy way to create report since it intend as presentation or end user support. You can drill down to its detail using report viewer but I suggest you use spreadsheet to do some report operation like pivoting or something.
In this case you concern about data quality too. is it half baken solution;to be processed later; or need cleansing using ETL?
You can use various tools or software like business intelligent tool from Microsoft SQL Server, or IBM tools or oracle tools to do that. There are many of them taht suite to your needs and can be integrate to your software.
If you want a database browser, you can download VS 2010 with SP1 and EF 4.1. I forget the web project template that can use as insert update delete and it is already created for you.
You might want to check Report Viewer for SQL Server Reporting Services or ReportViewer.
Does anyone know good ways/tools/approaches for using Crystal Reports with Salesforce.com?
I know that Crystal Reports for Salesforce exists but I'm wondering what other possibilities there are...
It looks like your data is tied up with salesforce.com if you can export data you could use crystal reports independent of salesforce.com.
Other links on exporting data:
http://sfdc.arrowpointe.com/2008/04/28/do-you-backup-your-salesforce-data/
http://ideas.salesforce.com/article/show/97976/Export_All_via_Data_Loader
http://ideas.salesforce.com/article/show/23579/Scheduled_Data_Export_to_backup_database
Our solution may not work for you, but we've decided to host our reports on an external reportserver which is written in c# and exposes a SOAP based web service because the Crystal Reports for Salesforce solution you mentioned didn't offer us the flexibility we needed.
The process is essentially:
Salesforce makes a soap based call to the report server
Report server collates data from Salesforce via the Salesforce Soap API
Report server renders the report and returns it to salesforce
To answer my own question, we eventually decided to set up a local read-only copy of the Salesforce database in MS Sql Server, and develop reports based on that. This allowed the report-writing people to use all the familiar SQL tools they know, without the restrictions on what-can-be-joined-to-what that the native Salesforce database has.
We're using a piece of software called DBAmp to do this - It makes Salesforce appear in SQL Server as a 'linked server', and provides stored procedures you can use to download entire Salesforce tables, or just download changes to a Salesforce table since the last time. This makes it very easy to set up a local copy of the data that gets updated every night.
Is there a way to publish my crystal reports and call them throuh html-based parameter page (preferably jsp) to our intranet?
We have developed reports using Crystal Reports, and we want users to be able to call these reports through an HTML-based page through our itnranet.
Any advice?
Well, I see you used the "Crystal Reports Server" tag -- that answers your question right there. :-) It provides web viewing, report scheduling, and all sorts of nifty backend features.
You may also want to consider a solution like rePORTAL at http://www.reportalsoftware.com. It allows you to securely publish reports for web access via your intranet or extranet. No need for coding.