Not impressed with crystal reports

So I got an evaluation version b/c I figured it be easier to use Crystal Reports instead of creating PHP scripts to display my data.

I'm not really impressed so far. Sure, you can make the reports. It's the same as making a report in Access, basically.

But to get the "web component" working, so I could view my reports over the web, I had to place a one hour phone call to tech support. they walked me through this whole, huge, complicated procedure that I never saw in any docs.

I had to place another call today to find out that when I view a report, it takes up a connection for 20 minutes by default. The software only comes with 5 licenses, so you can see how this will be a problem with any amount of people. Of course we can buy more, it's the Army's money, but why should it be taken up for 20 minutes....anyway, tech support said there was a patch and you can set a command line option to take it down to one minute. much better, but still hidden.

I'm sure they love the people that don't look into it and buy those expensive licenses....

---John Holmes...

I've also checked that stuff out. We had a company develop a solution we could use to give our customers reports over the web, using the Crystal web reports. But since some customers complained about speed, the price for this solution and that it also was to complicated (they expected to click one button and then see the report), we tried using PDFlib to create PDF reports instead. Which was a lot easier according to the customers. Still have to write a lot of PHP code though...

//NoXcuz

Yeah, I'm guessing that's what I'm going to have to do. It's going to be hell for the guy that takes this over, but figuring out Crystal Reports isn't exactly easy either.

I'll have to brush up on the PDF stuff, that would be a nice feature...

---John Holmes...

You need to differentiate between Crystal Reports and Crystal Enterprise. Crystal Reports is used more for desktop applications like VB, Delphi, C++, Etc... Crystal Enterprise is used on a Webserver like IIS.. Just want to clear that up because Crystal Reports is the best Report writting software for desktops solutions you will find out there today.

Crystal Enterprise on the other hand is a little complicated to setup but once you get the hang of it it is a piece of cake. I have been using Crystal products for years so I got a hand up on newbees and I understand your pains with learning how to set it up but hang in there it is a great product. You can buy more then 5 licenses for it BTW..

The only bad thing about end users not liking to have to click more then one button is they are so Blanking lazy. The programs I write for my company basically are one step short of me running the program for them. The PDFlib is a good solution but really lacks in functionality I have set that up in the past as well.

I understand your post and frustration. Ok just thought I would say my piece on crystal.

Yes, you are correct. It's enterprise that was giving me the trouble. I've got it working now, though...

I'm going to keep playing with it for a couple more weeks, till the timeout hits, I guess, so maybe things will improve and I'll change my view on it the more I use it.

---John Holmes...

SepodatiCreations

Believe me it will get easier. I have seen a lot of post of people getting into Crystal Enterprise for the first time saying what the hell. It is not the clearest in the world to site down and setup. The setup program runs great it is all the other setup that leaves you scratching your head. Good luck with it post back again to let me know how things are going.

There are a lot of solutions out there it just all depends on how detailed you need things to be. I have a program written in VB that prints on a label printer. I wanted to port it to PHP but do not know how I can do that and still print to the label printer..

Good luck with CR Enterprise..

PHP actually has some printer functions...never really looked into them, though. Check the manual.

Maybe I should start another thread, but the thing that I really need is to figure out how to wrap a report in PHP. I need the report to be protected so that only certain people can read it. I guess I can just use the protection features of IIS. It would be great to create some kind of PHP wrapper to check a session variable or database before it allowed the report data to be sent.

---John Holmes...

That's also one of the reasons for us using PDFlib instead. Since it's a PHP script that generates the pdf files, the security lies within a PHP solution, with sessions etc.

I never dealt directly with the Crystal Enterprise stuff myself, I merley saw the (semi-)finished web product, which didn't appeal to our customers.
Though we use Crystal Reports to generate reports both embedded into systems and directly from reports we create ourselves. So creating the reports is probably not a big deal.

I prefer the PHP/PDF way, though the drawback is that the PHP scripts that produce PDF are no fun to write.

//NoXcuz

SepodatiCreations

As far as security and stuff you can setup the reports to use NT Authentication. Or you can setup Enterprise accounts as well. This is all done through ePortfollio. It takes a litte bit to figure out but it works great.

With enterprise standard, you can't have users...

yet another upgrade.

---John Holmes...

We use something called Brio and it works quite well.

The best part about it is the end user can make and save their own reports (basically SQL queries), and output them to Excel for furthur tweaking...

The thing I don't like about Brio is that it relies on datbase users and permissions... so the DBA needs to be involved when setting up new users.