Crystal Reports

Crystal Reports ( Crystal Report ) is a software for creating reports. With Crystal Reports, information can be retrieved from databases or text files, processed and presented in form of graphs and tables. A distribution of reports on web technologies is possible with the help of Crystal Reports Server or BusinessObjects Enterprise on Eclipse/Java- respectively. NET runtime environments.

Crystal Reports was originally developed by 1984 in Vancouver, B. C., Canada, based company Crystal Services. The software quickly reached a large spread through its partnership with Microsoft. 1994 Crystal Services was acquired by Seagate Technology and renamed in Seagate Software. In 2000 the company was renamed Crystal Decisions. In 2003, Crystal Reports was acquired by Business Objects and evolved in a row. Early 2008, Business Objects was acquired by SAP.

SAP has released a heavily revised version of Crystal Reports, with the name Crystal Reports for Enterprise (hereinafter briefly CR4E ). In contrast to the conventional Crystal Reports supports CR4E 4.0 except " universes " no other data connections (eg databases ). A migration strategy of Crystal Reports by CR4E does not exist yet, according to SAP currently; the current recommendation is " Stay with CR2011 for now ."

The rest of this article refers to Crystal Reports, not to CR4E.

Report design method

Users install the Crystal Reports Designer software on the PC and use it to represent certain data elements from tables of data sources listed below. For the acquisition of these data provides Crystal Reports either corresponding specific driver software or data is copied from the source systems into the standard ODBC, JDBC or OLAP. If a report has been completed, it is typically stored in its own format RPT. In this form, he may at any time be called and given the current data from the source systems. If the databases of the source systems are changed, automatically change the reports that were created with Crystal Reports. The reports can be output either viewed on screen, exported to various formats or printed ( see " Output Options "). The reports produced may consist of simple columns of values ​​, graphs or crosstabs. It is possible to include also sub reports in a main report. In addition, Crystal Reports (version 2008) offers the possibility to use flash files. There are numerous ways to modify the reports resulting in the appearance or in the graphics and format, as well as add graphical labels and images in different image formats.

Data sources used

Among the data sources used for Crystal Reports include:

  • Relational database management systems (RDBMS ) such as Oracle, Sybase, IBM DB2, Ingres, Microsoft Access, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Interbase, etc.;
  • Btrieve;
  • Spreadsheets from eg Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice.org;
  • Text files;
  • Formatted files, such as XML;
  • And data sources that are accessible via web service, ODBC, JDBC or OLAP.

Output Options

Output options of Crystal Reports include paper printouts, text files such as CSV or XML files, RPT files in the Crystal Report Format, HTML, PDF, Excel or Word files

There are UI controls for viewing reports that can be integrated into your own applications, based on the following technologies:

  • ASP.NET
  • Windows Forms
  • WPF (from Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2010 )

Versions

Versions and selection of essential new features:

  • Version 6
  • Version 7: Integrated geographical mapping, custom tooltips, Wizard for running totals, crosstab, highlight fields, COM Report Designer Component (RDC ).
  • Version 8: Data Explorer, automatic saving, advanced formatting features (circles, ovals, conditional font formatting etc. ), JPEG-/PICT-/PNG-Unterstützung, embedding hyperlinks, hierarchical grouping, Basic syntax in formulas, (D ) HTML report viewer export to (D ) HTML, Lotus Notes as a data source support SQL features "SELECT DISTINCT " and " TOP N".
  • Version 8.5: Copy all reports in the clipboard, report alerts, parameter query on the Web, Export to XML and PDF.
  • Version 9: Numeric or date X axis in graphs, gauges and Gantt charts, repository, vector-based images, conditional formatting in charts, NET viewer for Windows Forms and Web Report Viewer SDK for COM, NET. . and Java.
  • Version 10: Funnel chart, report viewer component for Java.
  • Version XI: Dynamic image search, drag and drop in crosstabs and charts, the report type "N -value at Top-N ", user-defined functions in Java, dedicated server component (Crystal Reports Server ).
  • Version 2008: Multilingual draft report and report view, XSLT transformation during the XML export, Adobe Flash integration, integrated barcode support.
  • Version 2011: Export to Excel XLSX workbook, new data sources using ADO.NET and POJO.
  • Version 2013: Identical to version 2011 has been renamed as part of the release of the Business Objects Intelligence Suite 4.1 in 2013..

Editions

The following editions of Crystal Reports have been published:

  • Standard: was available for all versions up to XI.
  • Professional: was available for all versions up to XI.
  • Developer: has been available since version 7 This edition contains in addition to the other editions viewer for the web and for integration into applications, as well as access to the following APIs: Until version 9: Crystal Reports Engine API
  • Up to version XI: COM Report Designer Component (RDC)
  • Up to version XI: Java-based SDK for report generation
  • . NET based SDK for report generation

Crystal Reports 2008 and 2011 there only as a developer and server edition.

Software maintainer Table (information) Java virtual machine#Execution environment .NET Framework Oracle Corporation Ingres (database) Plain Old Java Object
208812
de