Oracle Analytics vs. SAP Crystal vs. Syncfusion Essential Studio

Oracle Data Visualization is very effective if used in an enterprise context with huge volumes of data coming from different systems. It supports dashboard and reporting capabilities and is easy to scale. It also allows you to leverage machine learning capabilities to extract hidden data trends. Visualization capabilities are powerful but not so various if compared to other solutions on the market. If you want to present a dashboard to an executive audience and you want to make your dashboards beautiful you must adapt them through PowerPoint.

Incentivized

Generation of templated reports is the strong suit of SAP Crystal. Allows users to change formats in templates bases on requirement with minimal effort. Automated report delivery requires the user to be aware of sql which cannot be expected from all users. Should support more document export formats and improve the UI for SAP B1 Users

Incentivized

The datagrid is probably their most popular control I would think. It is so flexible and configurable. Most of mine are plain views in ASP.NET Core, but I have a whole bunch that are dynamically created at runtime in my controller. That is so powerful.

• Available without of the box connectors for Salesforce and oracle Saas Cloud. This is a huge plus for our business since we don't need another middleware solution just for this sake.
• We are able to connect to our on-prem SQL Server database where we have our RMA database and other applications seamlessly without writing custom APIs.
• OAC writes directly into ADW which is another advantage for loading Excel files into ADW after dataflow transformations.
• OAC allows replication of the database from fusion ERP and lets us create subject areas using the data modeler.

Incentivized

• Crystal Reports allows us to create a consistent template for all of our reports.
• Crystal Reports and Server allows us to house a repository for all of our reports to make them easy to find and update when necessary.
• Crystal Reports can connect to a wide variety of data sources.
• Crystal Reports can be a little daunting when first implementing. There are a lot of nuances in learning how to truly master this software and it can be frustrating at times.

Incentivized

• Integrates well into Microsoft tech stack. i.e. ASP.NET, Blazor etc. So it acts as a plug-n-play, which is great!
• Shrinks the development cycle without adding too much of its own ecosystem overhead.
• Provides different UI skins so the controls don't appear as "stitched".

• More AI but with human back up.
• Less mumbo jumbo so even IT guys/gals can more easily work.
• More statistics (math) and orientation for those not familiar with it.
• More live as well as virtual (live) show casing of real situations in business.

Incentivized

• The export of reports to Excel is very cumbersome and the results are difficult to format.
• The design of reports and the graphical features (e.g. charts) feel quite rigid.
• The learning curve for a non-programmer is incredibly steep, making Crystal a specialty tool.

Incentivized

• Sometimes links point to dead addresses in the documentation.
• Some components have a difficult learning curve but that is usually due to the complexity of the control.
• Minor version changes introduce breaking changes, for example updating from 20.1.x to 20.2.x gives us licensing errors, which in my opinion is a kind of breaking change as it requires all users to update their licenses.
• Theming with CSS variables is not possible. Access to Theme Studio code is not possible. So a fully custom solution is needed to make Syncfusion Essential Studio Enterprise Edition components themeable with CSS variables.

Scalability and rich integration capabilities. In the future, if we go with Hyperion for the Financial Consolidation and planning purposes -BI integration with Hyperion is going to be much simpler as it has native interface connectivity and even integration capabilities with well known CRM products (Siebel) and ERP Products (Oracle EBS, Peoplesoft, SAP) is going to be easy and straight forward.

We have been using this product for so many years and it has truly become a cornerstone to our business processes when it comes to developing and distributing information via reports. We currently have over 500 reports developed to date over about 30 systems and that will continue to grow as user needs change.

It takes effort to include a new component library into existing software, especially in our case where we have 5 large applications that are written and maintained by about 100 developers. So changing such a core thing comes with a lot of effort. The other reason we will very likely renew our use of Syncfusion Essential Studio Enterprise Edition is that it works really well and has helped us to speed up the development process.

Great, if you are limited to using it along with other Oracle products; sadly, not if you are integrating with other products, which can be a challenge. It is a great product with tons of functionality and great integration with other in-house platforms. Great visuals and customization for data and analytics to provide decision-making data and analysis.

Incentivized

Crystal is very robust, but not always easy to use. It create wonderful looking reports, and so deserves a high rating. However, I have to take a couple of points off for the simple fact that I cannot hand it to a user and expect them to be able to do development with it.

Incentivized

I would rate Syncfusion® Essential Studio® a 10 out of 10 for overall usability. The components are intuitive to implement, with clear APIs and consistent design patterns across the suite. This makes it easy for developers to get started quickly and reduces the learning curve even when working with new controls.
In addition, the documentation and sample projects provide practical guidance that helps accelerate development. The built-in customization options also allow us to adapt the components to fit our branding and business requirements without excessive effort. Overall, the usability is one of the key reasons why Syncfusion has become an essential part of our development toolset.

No problems, it's that simple.

Incentivized

Other than anomalies or expected quirks, there were never any earth-shattering delays.

Incentivized

Oracle Analytics Support team is very proactive and I have never had a situation where I had to wait for more than a day or two to get my issues resolved. This is a very big help for us and we appreciate Oracle and its team for guaranteeing that experience.

Incentivized

The support community can be difficult to navigate. I've also run into issues with my login. The SAP system has a bizarre mechanism for validating users that requires users to have what is called an S-ID. A basic ID may not give you access to all the features in the portal. The limitation may include not being able to perform a simple task like downloading patches and updates. This isn't a big deal for single user license but for teams it can be a pain.

Incentivized

Although I have decades of software development experience, I had never created a website from scratch before, and my html and css skills are not particularly strong. Between documentation and incredible dedication from the support team they helped me overcome all of my challenges. It's amazing that they typically create sample code for most of the issues that I submitted. On rare occasions where I uncovered a defect they kept me informed as to its status, and typically resolved it in a short-term release, and/or gave me a reasonable workaround. They hopped on zoom calls with me on multiple occasions when necessary.

Oracle University offers very in-depth training.

Trainer was patient and thorough in going through the basics and willing to answer questions by email after the initial training

Incentivized

It was a private training site.

Incentivized

A properly implemented Endeca solution performs extremely well on the largest of datasets and it positions your organization to immediately achieve your ROI.

Just like any other implementation: When designing the differing reports, get end users' input, make sure to design the reports so that they display the information that the company requires, in the best and clearest way possible.

Test, test, test, revise when needed, and, particularly, do sufficient training so users are comfortable using Crystal Reports!

Incentivized

Feedback from the team has been very positive.

Oracle Analytics Cloud, is one of the most agile and secure data analysis platforms that according to the budget and the amount of use, you can use the resources you need under the cloud. The Oracle brand is also very well known in this field and can meet all the needs of an organization or industry in any sector.

Crystal reports is useful in case we want to import data from data base . We can write queries in it but Google Charts require to be implemented in our application using code so crystal reports is better than Google Charts.

Incentivized

Firstly, there is a free version for small businesses and it allows you to jump start without risk. I found one of the other products a bit short in the number of out-of-the-box supported events handlers for each control and, although you can manually add them, I feel more comfortable to just have them ready. After using the free version I just felt in love with Syncfusion Essential Studio Enterprise Edition controls and decided to stay with them; they have all I need and more. The usage of Syncfusion Essential Studio Enterprise Edition controls is straightforward and intuitive. Support is world-class even for the free version; you get answers in 24 hours at most. Also, the support team is ready to remotely connect to your project in case it is needed; we have had one situation like this, and the issue was solved.

We have seen the results of this in our initial research and are not surprised that Oracle does this like it does soo many other things in this area, so well.

Incentivized

• We've used OBIEE (or it's previous named product) for over 13 years and it's still the most used tool for BI by the business.
• We moved our largest business system off of Business Object into OBI so we could gain improved performance, reliability, and easier management of metadata.

• It is a decent buy for specific departments in terms of reporting capabilities but updates and cost (frequent) demands are higher with the benefits offered.
• So long as the requirements are not ever changing, with scheduling functionality, it's a handsome tool.

Incentivized

• First of all, I think the best positive impact is the reduce of time development. I do not know exactly how much time, but certainly, using the framework we save a lot of effort and time.
• About negative impact, sometimes using the controls of the framewrok have a signifcant impact in the execution time and page load.
• And of course, the use of Syncfusion Essential Studio Enterprise Edition has a significant impact of the learning of javascript and JQUERY.