SAP Crystal Reports Reviews

I appreciate the ability to connect to just about any structured data source. This makes it very flexible. We can use it in any Windows-based technical environment, but now we specialize with reports for just one data source, QuickBooks via QQube. Since we have Crystal Reports viewers available for our customers to use, they don't need to purchase the product, but can run the reports that we build for them.

We use it as a tool to build custom designed reports that our customers can run at a single click against their own data. It's the foundation of our company's existence.

We would like to see a Crystal Reports desktop version with built-in functionality to edit a single reference that exists in multiple formulas. This would be a big time saver. We would also like to select multiple detail area fields and insert the same summary field for all of them instead of having to do it one at a time.

We have used it for 20 years.

We haven't had deployment issue per se, as much as part of a greater stability worry.

It's always been known to crash unexpectedly, so get in the habit of frequent saving. I never liked the auto-save feature, though because it ends up saving things I didn't intend to retain. Since version 2008 it's been much more stable.

We have never encountered scalability issues.

I never use it because those folks don't even know as much about it as I do. However, if I encounter a bug, I will go to the SAP SDN to check it out or to report it.

No other solution has been used. I've been working with it since I worked in Tech Support for Seagate Software when they owned and supported the application.

It was simple and easy to install. The hard part was knowing/learning the structure of your data source and what you want to do with that data. Like any skill, it takes a long time to master. I have done incredible, innovative things with Crystal Reports, but only because I knew it so well and could synthesize breakthrough ideas on how to give the customer what they wanted.

Hire experts for a fixed period of time while longer term employees shadow until they learn how to use it. Otherwise a new reporting endeavour will take too long. The end users need their reports.

The ability to connect to most databases, be it Lawson, PeopleSoft, Excel or Access and that is only to name a few. The customization for clients is the absolute favorite feature, not to mention that I can do more formulas and bring in more data than most other reporting software that I have used. This includes using and tying in multiple databases.

With the reports I have created, mostly financial, it gives the business owners an easy way to see how their money is being spent, where it's going to and to see if they are remaining on budget and if not to adjust how they spend throughout the rest of the year. This alone is the single most important factor but not the only one. My clients use my reports for Inventory Control, Payroll and Human Resources purposes as well. All these reports can save a company lots of money if they are used as they are supposed to be.

I think the product is great and has so much now but I have noticed that it is not Excel 10 compatible and when the reports are extracted to XLS it defaults to MS Office version 95-97 which has dropped rows of data from sheet to sheet. I would like to see the ability to use the most current versions of MS Office.

I have used Crystal Reports for approximately 15 years starting with CR Developer 8.

There were no issues with the deployment.

Nothing that minor adjustments in the report developer did not fix. Once I had made the adjustments in CR Developer there was no issue in LBI which is where I deploy 90% of my reports to.

It's been able to scale for our needs.

Customer service was great I had a couple questions and they walked me thru it quick and easy.

The two times I have called support for the product have been very pleasant. The technical support person was very friendly, knowledgeable and knew how to fix my issue immediately. The second time I called I was on hold for about 17-20 minutes but again the person on the other end was very cordial and knew exactly how to fix my issue.

I have used numerous report writers in the past and by far Crystal Reports is the best. The user friendliness and versatility to create custom reports and designs to fit my customers needs has been a real useful business tool.

Initial set up was straightforward. You got instructions on how to install Crystal, how to set up your ODBC connections and the Oracle 10g client, which is what my business uses. There were no problems with the install on any of the PC's or desktops within the organization.

We did the install in-house. The only advice that I can give is to follow the instructions given they are literally fool proof and very straightforward. I would recommend that the Oracle Client, if that is what you are using, be installed first, then install Crystal Reports. Other than that there was no issues.

We are a large organization so we called and arranged a package of 25+ licenses at a real good rate. We paid for the product once then the additional licenses for the personal that would be using the software on a daily basis not to mention the license we had to have for LBI. We had gotten a great deal and I recommend that if you need more than one license to buy it. We have a few extra just in case, you never know when you will be adding another person who would need Crystal Reports.

I did not evaluate any other products but have used Report Smith, Lawson Report Writer and MS SQL Developer in the past and have found that Crystal Reports has more versatility, is easier to use, and meets the needs of my clients and organization better.

If your company has a reporting need which almost all do, then I would highly recommend Crystal Reports. I use the product so much in the past 15 years that I ended up becoming a CRCP as well.

It can gather data from many sources and consolidate that data.

It is easy to get quick results, but also allows you to create more in-depth reports.

It contains a relational database that allows you to join tables from different tables in the same report.

It can export to Excel, text files, or PDF and many other formats.

A non-IT person can create some reports, and an IT person can take it much further.

If you have Crystal Reports, it can import Excel files that were made in Excel 2003, files with a .xls file extension and file format. It does not yet recognize files with a .xlsx file extension, which would be from Excel 2007, 2010, 2013 or 2016. With Access files, Crystal Reports can import databases with a .mdb format, but not the newer format if .accdb.

This was true as of Crystal Reports 2013. They may have changed it since
then.

I have used it with several clients to create complex reports that required multiple data sources and complex relationships.

They need to make it work with new file formats for Excel and Access. It also needs to be more compatible with other data sources.

I have been using Crystal Reports for over 10 years, and this version for about two years.

I have seen integration with SAP , and it seems pretty seamless. There are versions of Crystal Reports that come embedded with other software programs, like Peachtree, etc. I would recommend that you upgrade to the full version so you can take advantage of some of the features.

I've experienced no issues with performance.

I have the single user edition.

Their support is top notch, although you may have to pay for it.

I created many reports using Access. Crystal reports is similar, but more robust.

I have the single user version, and had no problems.

I installed it myself.

It's a great product that works with many data sources. I highly recommend it.

The fact that I can write my own SQL command to pull data for a report. You can just select tables and join them together and get a report, but there are times when you need to do something more complex than just a simple query. I have used this to do things such as getting just the most recent records in a set of data, all of the procedures for a patient where the patient had a specific procedure, pivoting data so that I don’t have to use a cross-tab, and much more. At this point, if a report is going to use more than two tables, I’ll generally write the SQL for it so that I can tune it to make it run faster. I’ve written a blog about the best practices for working with commands, which can be found here: http://scn.sap.com/community/crystal-reports/blog/2015/04/01/best-practices-when-using-commands-with-crystal-reports.

Also, the ability to export reports to a variety of formats, even though there are limited options for formatting that output.

Not my specific organization, as I am a consultant. However, for many of my clients this is the de-facto reporting tool for operational data. Especially because it can either be integrated into an application using either the .NET or Java SDK, or reports can be published to Crystal Reports Server (an economical version of SAP Business Objects that just runs Crystal reports.) There are also many third-party tools available for working with Crystal Reports.

There are very few options for formatting reports that are exported to Excel or PDF formats.

The “Report Definition” export doesn’t contain all of the information about a report. The only way to get all of the configuration of a report is to write a program using one of the SDKs or to purchase a third-party tool.

SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise, which is the new version of Crystal Reports that is optimized for working with HANA, BEx queries, and other things specific to SAP’s other products definitely lags behind “classic” Crystal Reports in terms of features – especially when it comes to formatting objects.

I've used it for 19 years – since version 4.5. When I first started with it, I was also using its Delphi VCL component, and now I use the SAP Crystal for Visual Studio .NET component as well as the SAP Crystal for Eclipse Java components.

There were no issues with the deployment.

We haven't faced any issues.

I have not had any issues with deployment or stability. However, with SDK there are limitations on the number of open reports (3) and the usage of sub-reports (no more than 99 visible instances of a sub-report within a single run of a report). The options for scaling up from that are to purchase SAP Crystal Reports Server or SAP Business Objects, both of which can be expensive for smaller companies.

For companies that just have SAP Crystal Reports without one of the SAP server products that come with annual maintenance, about 3/10. Since SAP purchased the product, they have not spent much time focusing on companies that just own Crystal Reports, choosing to focus instead on the large companies that are running other, larger SAP products. However, there is a very good online community available at http://scn.sap.com/community/crystal-reports. There are several SAP support folks who answer questions there along with several other folks (like me) who are experts in the software. This is the “go-to” place for support and we’ll try to answer questions so that users can avoid having to pay to open a case with SAP.

I have used several reporting tools, including Web Intelligence which comes with SAP Business Objects. Each has its own place in the grand scheme of deploying a Business Intelligence solution. Crystal Reports is the tool for “picture perfect” reports, like form letters, or for very complex requirements. It is also a moderately priced tool that is good for smaller companies or for companies producing software that requires some reporting capabilities.

As a desktop tool, it’s very easy to install. The one thing that can be a “gotcha” is that you have to be logged in as a user that has Administrator credentials on the workstation because the install updates registry settings and adds a couple of files to subfolders under C:\Windows.

For implementing just SAP Crystal Reports, there’s no need for a vendor team. However, it’s very helpful to get some training on how to use the software. For the server products, like SAP Crystal Reports Server, it can be helpful to have an SAP Partner assist with configuration and training.

The tool can be incredibly powerful and flexible for generating reports. However, there is a somewhat steep learning curve to get beyond writing “basic” reports.

The ability to connect to IDAPI files. I have to use Paradox (Borland) as my database and this version of Crystal Reports is the latest one that still works with IDAPI files. I also rely heavily on the ability to run the reports in the viewer.

The reports can be viewed within our custom software product using the CR Viewer and can additionally be exported to various formats, such as Excel, for further processing. This gives the users the ability to do additional data processing in various ways without having to run a separate report for each variation.

I would like to be able to summarize formulas.

I've been using it in total for thirteen years. This version for five years, and previous ones for eight years.

This product basically works right out of the box. Except for an upgrade to SP3, we have not had any problems.

We've experienced no issues with performance.

It's been able to scale for our needs.

I haven’t used the customer service or technical support options other than searching for documentation on syntax. Searching for help on syntax has been successful. There is a lot of information on the internet for Crystal Reports.

I have used other versions in another workplace. At my current workplace, Crystal Reports 8 was previously used. This version was selected because of its ability to work with the IDAPI files.

The setup is very straightforward. We experienced no difficulty installing the product on our systems.

Our in-house technicians installed the product.

It is an excellent product. Having used other report writers, the only one that comes close is the one in MS Access but that is not a stand-alone product and can only be used with MS Access. Crystal Reports has a great deal of flexibility in how you display your company data. The designer has the ability to create formulas or conditions for almost every feature of the report including suppression and formatting.

In my experience, the strongest feature of Crystal Reports is in developing automated business intelligence reports which convert raw data into actionable business intelligence.

In 2000 when I joined a manufacturing firm, most of the accounting data was exported into spreadsheets, consequently extensive time was spent on preparing reports and making timely decisions. In 2002, I initiated utilization of the MS Access Reporting tool by importing Excel files into Access. I created reports about all accounts including customers, suppliers, employees and entities related to the business. I soon realized that MS Access reporting is a good start, but it became hard to integrate data from variety of sources, in addition to an additional step of importing data into MS Access. On further research, I found Crystal Reports to address the issue of data integration, and hence utilized Crystal Reports 8-9. I found Crystal Reports to be an excellent dedicated reporting tool, and I invested time in taking advanced training.

I would like to have horizontal paging like crosstabs.

I have been using Crystal Reports for the last 12 Years.

There were no issues with the deployment.

This is a mature product and so I have not came across any major stability issues.

It's been able to scale for our needs.

Previously, I used MS Excel, then Access before moving on to Crystal Reports.

It was fairly straightforward.

We performed an in-house implementation and this should be fine for all cases.

I found Crystal Reports to address the issue of data integration, and hence utilized Crystal Reports 2013. Crystal Reports is an excellent dedicated reporting tool, and I invested time into advanced training. I would say Crystal Reports is great tool, and has been in the business intelligence arena for a while. Hence, it's an excellent choice.

I like that Crystal Reports can easily connect to a multitude of datasource types, handling all with aplomb. It has a feature-rich toolset that allows me to shape and present the data to suit any report requirement thrown my way. Enterprise is simply the best report delivery product on the market.

I single handedly manage delivery of over 3,000 reports per month, a figure that would be unattainable without such a robust and dependable product.

I would like to see improvement in charts and metadata extraction. Reporting against the actual MDB database is cumbersome at best.

I've been using it for over 10 years.

I had minor issues with deployment, but the support was tremendous.

It’s an extremely stable platform. My reports run at around 99.94% on schedule yearly.

We've had no issues scaling it for our needs.

As I mentioned above, the support is very, very good, especially so when working directly with the service reps. The website is a little cluttered and difficult to navigate, but I’ve found a lot of help through sites such as ITCentralStation.com and other online communities.

I started out with Crystal Reports and Enterprise. I have used a few others in a limited capacity since then, but was disappointed in all.

The architecture/setup was handled by someone before me, so I can’t speak firsthand to any difficulties. However, from my conversations with that individual, there were no serious hang ups or difficulties with the initial setup.

I believe we did use a vendor team, and once again, not having first hand knowledge, I can’t really speak to this.

Buy it! I’ve seen the alternatives and they pale in comparison. There are third-party add-ins that have helped, but nothing else comes close out-of-the-box.

• You can write very complex formulas
• Field conditional formatting
• Subreports
• Specific formatting for report sections (headers, footers, etc.)
• Crosstab reports
• Coders can write their own custom SQL statement

Users have learned to write their own reports, reducing the load on our IT department.

• Easier to use crosstab interface so beginners create reports faster
• Allow for customization of crosstab row/column labels
• Installation takes more than 15 minutes on our workstations

I've been using it for seven years.

There have been no issues with the deployment.

There have been no issues with the stability.

We have had no issues scaling it for our needs.

I have never contacted tech support for help.

This product was recommended by our banking system vendor.

The setup is pretty straightforward. You can install all options to make it easier.

We installed it using our IT team. I would recommend scripting for a large deployment because it takes about 15 minutes per workstation to install.

Saberlogic Logicity provides free Crystal Viewer software. Users who only need to run reports can use this free of charge, so you can save on license costs.

• Document views or report models to make it easy for users to choose their data sources.
• Point novice users to the crosstab report. It is fairly easy to use.
• For moderate to heavy users, you should send them for training.
• Users with programming or scripting skills can create really complex reports.
• Saberlogic Logicity provides free Crystal Viewer software. Users who only need to run reports can use this free of charge, so you can save license costs.