SAP Crystal vs. uberVu (discontinued)

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

I liked uberVU a lot, and thought I was lucky to have found them (they actually responded to my tweet when I was vendor-searching, which was good to know as they were doing just what we were planning to use the software for). They are relatively small, which allows to have a great personal relationship and we felt very valued as a client. They provided great value - some of their competitors allow for more features (which explains their higher price), but there was no way to opt out of the unnecessary features to lower the price - uberVU didn't have any of that, it was just what we needed and in our price range

• 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

• Easy to see what people are saying on social media about clients.
• Creates reports that can be limited to certain time frames.
• Able to see the reach of users so you can breakdown by influencers.

• 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

• I honestly didn't have any issues with them. Being able to set the real-time alerts as "every 15 minutes" took some figuring out to do, and we were still in the trial mode while we did that - it wasn't particularly intuitive for other users, but once we walked them through, everything worked well.

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.

I find it a great tool in the digital strategy world to see what people are saying across social platforms. It's much more efficient that doing a search on the platform itself and provides a lot of information extremely quickly

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

All the users found the product intuitive and easy to use.

A couple of times it was a little slow, but this didn't result in any negative impact for us. There was no downtime as I could recall or notice.

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

Every time we needed help, the support was great. We had no issues, mostly needed usability walkthroughs and had questions about features.

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

Incentivized

I got the training while I was evaluating and in the trial period. Then I trained the others myself

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

Not applicable since it is SAAS - all we needed was to sign up, which was easy

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

Radian6 and Brandwatch were on the short list. We picked uberVU for its combination of price and features. It did not have extra features we didn't need, they were customizable and flexible enough to meet all of our needs

• 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

• Easier to handle crisis.
• Ability to find out statistics to quantify and qualify what you're doing for customers.