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April 06, 2021
SAP Crystal is being used for many solutions we use that just require some form of static reporting and batch reporting. It is used by managers and operations personnel to review data and aggregations.
- Aggregations
- Output in various formats
- Multiple data sources
- Summarizing data
- Maybe a little bit more easy to drag and drop/WYSIWYG capability
This tool is amazing for reporting. You can generate reports from different types of data sources easily. We are using this tool in the department of computer science and engineering in our organization for research purpose. Generally while working on research projects we have some huge datasets and that too from different sources and in different format we have to prepare meaning full reports out of them in order to use them as research findings.
- It can connect to different data sources
- Generates report with attractive charts and tables
- Very flexible and easily customize-able
- A little programming related to SQL and .NET is required for the efficient use of the tool
- Adjusting spaces between multiple rows is a bit difficult task
- Documentation part should be improved
May 08, 2021
SAP Crystal is being used by the entire organisation to report on analytics from the board members so that employees can easily see how the business is performing and what the quarterly targets are throughout the year. Although the board are the ones who decide on the information on the dashboard, it is up to the Marketing department to ensure that the reports are fully tailored to the board's needs and is easy for people to understand. The problem it addresses is that when there are company-wide meetings detailing the outcomes of the previous quarter as well as looking at how we can improve on the work we just did, using SAP Crystal, we can show the results to our entire employee base.
- It helps improve business process outcomes.
- Cost management reporting.
- Tailored reporting.
- Difficult to learn from scratch.
- Not user friendly.
- Poor compatibility.
SAP Crystal is being used across the departments among various Strategic Business Units. It is used as a tool to create reports from various data sources. It helps us to create advanced-level reports to drive strategic decisions. It helps to understand the business process and ease gap analysis. It is flexible to create BI reports for internal and external customers.
- It can create customized reports [for] internal and external customers.
- It supports requisite printing and distribution taking data from multiple sources.
- Report creation, distribution and analysis are well managed by SAP Crystal Report
- Reports are well formatted with clean pagination.
- Occasional slow performance, could use upgrade.
- Graphs and tables could use some cosmetic features e.g. formatting numbers and graphs are a little cumbersome.
- Connections to databases could be little faster.
April 09, 2021
In our modern, digital world, data is key to understanding how an organization functions, and serves as both a compass and barometer for an organization to progress further. SAP Crystal provides this functionality through its ease of creating reports and dashboards, making the process of developing visualizations for upper management a breeze. This function is important due to the "text-first" nature of the report, which helps in certain industries as opposed to purely charts or a numbers-driven style of reporting as seen with some other software
- Quick logins and assimilation with existing SSO
- WYSIWYG editor makes it clear for users to quickly generate and export reports
- Good text implementation for write-ups in the report
- The math/data capabilities of formulas, conditional formatting etc could be improved
- Learning curve when it comes to creating templates for organizational use
- Intermittent issues when connecting to data sources
December 01, 2020
All the divisions where the need of formatted reports was there, i.e. in HR departments to get the complete detail of an employee for all past performances indicators, hikes, travel opportunities, PII data or be it on the floor of manufacturing company. In real time replication of data , details of Sales Order/Purchase Orders or internal material movement order were printed in the highly formatted way using Crystal reports detailing each entity/price or other nuance of the type of report it was. Dynamic text of logged in the system was printed in some cases when movement for item was restricted by only some authorized persons so that Security guards can easily check and catch the unwanted movement of product.
- Highly formatted reporting capabilities.
- Pixel oriented perfect reporting for printing.
- Embedding of dynamic images/logo or barcodes for customized reports.
- Easy to share with other users.
- Dragging and dropping the elements into the canvas to fit in pixels is sometime difficult.
- Exporting the report in Excel looses formatting.
- Learning curve of Crystal is difficult for consultants as it's a bit tricky for data connections.
October 25, 2020
We use it as our main reporting tool as part of our software application for all internal and external reports.
- Fairly easy to learn the report designer. Even for people without strong database knowledge.
- Ability to reuse existing report components.
- Can design reports targeted for printing (can cleanly handle pagination).
- Can report from multiple data sources without the need for a data warehouse.
- Better handling of imported images from a database. Need to maintain aspect ratio.
- Add option to disable grid lines.
- Changing data source on same server needs a little TLC. Still have to change each table instead of just updating the connection.
- Pivot Table formatting.
- Chart formatting.
- Importing formatted text from MS Word.
- Support for HTML text formatting.
April 19, 2020
Create reports which are customizable to the needs of our organization. User-friendly and very likely the best for our clients. Intuitive and user-friendly interface. Reliable with financial reporting, which is very accurate and timely. Great with inventory control and stock control
- Reporting which is timely.
- Timely with financial management and easy to use.
- Intuitive user interface and customizable dashboard.
- Customizable reporting.
- Cloud based and documentation.
- Improve on training users.
February 18, 2020
We use Crystal Reports to generate over 200 standard reports for various data topics from our record-keeping system. These reports can be for the business or for our customers. We generate thousands of reports each week that are then delivered to our clients. Crystal is used within our organization. The enterprise has a variety of reporting tools in use. We have been using Crystal Reports for over 18 years on our team.
- Complex queries are supported through the use of stored procedures. Because of this, we are able to create very complex reports to satisfy consumer needs.
- User-friendly formats are supported and we can display these reports online.
- Running multiple queries without using stored procedures.
- We need to have developers write SQL code. Drag and drop type report creation can be difficult to accurately create without writing SQL. SQL relationships must be clearly defined for the drag and drop to work. This makes sense, otherwise, how would the tool know what the relationships are?
We use SAP Crystal to automate and generate a set of reports that are usually exported as PDF files directly to the user's email inboxes. Occasionally users also login to the Business Objects Server to access their reports in that format. We run Business Objects scheduler to schedule the reports to refresh usually once a week.
- Clean format for PDF is nice
- Connects to database to refresh queries
- It's quite clunky setting up a page footer or report footer.
- Headers are similarly hard to set up
March 31, 2020
SAP Crystal is being used by my organization to generate all kinds of reports across the entire organization. The company has been using the tool for more than 10 years and is still using it. The feature to automate and generate reports and sent the result to our client via email is outstanding at the time.
- Clean
- Connection
- User-friendly
- Clunky
- Hard setup
- No regular update
I used SAP Crystal for report visualization. The graphs in the tool are outstanding with strong information telling ability combining with tables and images. Apart from the graphs, it is designed to be very interactive so you can drag and drop directly to control and tailer the shape of the graph to your needs.
- Integration
- Connection
- Hard initial setup
- Unstable
January 09, 2020
We use SAP Crystal to generate documents in our ERP system for things such as sales, purchasing, invoice, manufacturing documents, and automated shipping labels. The whole organization uses crystal reports in a way because it links into our ERP system. We no longer need an external company to do our documents, reporting as we now have the ability to do it in house. Crystal Reports allows us to produce highly customizable documents and reports for any business case.
- Advanced formulas.
- Producing automated PDF documents.
- Lining up formulas with database fields.
- Occasional crashing.
Crystal is used enterprise-wide for pixel-perfect reporting. We have both on-demand reporting use cases, and scheduled reporting via email or logging in to report inboxes. It is used against multiple source systems for all areas of the business, including clinical, financial, and operational. We generate PDF, Excel, and CSV based outputs.
- Pixel perfect reporting.
- Enterprise grade stability.
- Dated technology.
- There's a lack of web-based development for Crystal reports (though it exists for WEBI and the like).
While Crystal works against single databases, it hit performance concerns when trying to aggregate data across disparate sources. It is also used to display point in time reports, and while reports can be re-executed, it would not display real-time data automatically. It does have connectivity to most standard databases (SQL Server, Oracle...).
September 17, 2019
SAP Crystal reports is naturally embedded into SAP B1, we use it across the organization and have over 100 different reports created at the time, all these fill our departments with crucial information about their KPIs, we use Crystal for lot of different reports from a range of very visual reports with charts and colored graphics thru text/numeric grids filled with information, all are viewable from our SAP client.
- Excelent integration on SAP B1 client install
- Very easy for the user to access / export reports data
- User permissions/controls to enable/disable unwanted users to access the reports
- If IT department has no previous knowledge of crystal reports they will need training in order to start using it
- It would be great to have objects integrated on the reports
November 06, 2019
It is used as a tool to visualize reports that are generated in our developed applications. It facilitates us to be able to display rich information with images, tables, colors, and graphs. It has an excellent form designer by using drag & drop controls to give the shape we want to each of the reports. The viewer also allows us to print the information or export it to other common formats such as PDF. It integrates very well with Visual Studio IDE.
- It has many interesting tools and functions when used with Visual Studio IDE. This allows us to integrate many features of the IDE to design each visual element using drag and drop controls to customize reports
- We have been able to make successful connections to diverse data sources including SQL Server, MySQL, local and in the cloud
- You can perform complex queries by incorporating SQL statements
- There are no limits as to the type of data or objects that I can use. I can format the changes, add mathematical and logical functions, also add images configure the color fonts, all in design mode
- There is no backward compatibility with versions of previous reports. Some updates could cause data loss
- New versions take a long time to arrive
October 31, 2019
SAP Crystal Reports is used throughout our company. It allows us to present consistent and branded reports to all of our internal and external clients. It also allows us to have standardized cost reporting. Prior to implementing SAP Crystal Reports, we had different sites presenting clients with their own custom cost reports. Many of these were done in Excel and there was no consistency across our organization. SAP Crystal Reports has replaced those and now we provide one consistent and branded report.
- 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.
- There are a lot of features in Crystal Reports that do not always work as expected. You may find yourself searching the Web for how to get the results that you want.
- Crystal Reports does not provide updates on a regular basis. New concepts and ideas may be a while in implementing.
- The initial setup can be frustrating. There are times when you need to go outside of the install package to make it work with particular data sources, etc. It is not always a 100% install.
December 07, 2019
SAP Crystal Reports software is used within the organization for creating reports from several hundred external resources. I would not say it is an easy task to do this through the software. However, the contribution level of the system's ease of use to our research process is really huge and we really don't have any alternative. We are not even searching for one.
All of the reported materials are tweaked, edited, gathered, modified in the system itself. The formatting and the conditional output of the reports are really good and we could find no equal software to this from the perspective of the reporting. All in all, this is a well structured and easy-to-use system with extensive functionalities which can help in crucially reducing work-time by managing some necessary reporting tasks.
All of the reported materials are tweaked, edited, gathered, modified in the system itself. The formatting and the conditional output of the reports are really good and we could find no equal software to this from the perspective of the reporting. All in all, this is a well structured and easy-to-use system with extensive functionalities which can help in crucially reducing work-time by managing some necessary reporting tasks.
- Easy to use UI. Basically, even a non-technical user can learn to do everything in a week.
- The speed of compiling the data.
- Useful templates.
- Easy interface for integrating the data in the system from external sources.
- Scheduled reports.
- There are some specific points in the system which might become buggy or not easy to use, thus, require support.
- A lot of functionalities to learn for new users.
September 15, 2019
Many custom reports are developed by our IT department to serve our various departments. At this time, it is largely used for legacy reporting and for personalized, highly formatted emails. Many of our older reports are written using Crystal Reports. We are gradually phasing out those reports and moving to SSRS.
- Page formatting.
- Query generation.
- Capturing requests at runtime.
- Connecting to the database is complex and error-prone.
- Scripting is done in Visual Basic for Applications, and can be hard to debug.
- Changing the database underneath it can lead to problems getting back in sync.
September 03, 2019
SAP Crystal is mainly used by only 2-3 people within my company. It helps me tremendously tweak Viewpoint reports just enough to get them to include all the info we need when we need it. I have used Crystal at least once a day for almost 5 years now. If not every day, then at least once or twice a week. As far as our business problems that it helps address, it has helped us save a ton of money on not having to request custom reports through Viewpoint. We are able to take a canned report out of Viewpoint, add a new data line, or remove or even combine data to show it the way we need it. It has saved me a ton of time, and I would recommend it to anyone. I am excited to learn more about Crystal and how it can continue to help me grow and excel.
- SAP Crystal is easy to use and easy to learn it makes pulling data out of Viewpoint easy and quick.
- SAP Crystal has a ton of strengths when comparing weaknesses. One of its strengths is the speed of it. It pulls data super quickly.
- SAP Crystal has a little room for improvement in combining data tables and making it a little less confusing.
We use SAP Crystal reports inside our BI reporting in SAP Business Objects. We have multiple reporting options inside the Analytics, and the usage we give to SAP Crystal reports it is to cover those "fixed" reports which need to have a corporative style to be sent in or out the organization.
- Predefined Reports.
- Corporate style guide.
- Not for user to create the reports is a complex tool which needs IT assistance.
June 11, 2019
Crystal reports help us to pull automatic reports out of various databases directly (without importing into Excel first and running pivot tables) and display relations in the data. As long as there is a common data field (a campaign ID, for example), the reports are done in seconds across all the connected data sources. This exact process used to take at least an hour when done manually.
- Seamless parsing of data across different data sources.
- Ability to create sub-records and drill-down feature for granular data analysis.
- Complex queries or SQl statements are done in seconds.
- 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.
April 04, 2019
We use Crystal reports in our credit risk reporting function within the IFRS9 accounting standard to pick up specific delinquency reports at a customer level which needs to feed into disclosures on a quarterly basis. The idea is to receive canned reports by monitoring the amortization profile of customers and which goes as a feed to risk managers in creating early warning list by using specific credit utilization behavior.
- Great visualization for static format & precise tasks: For presentation to senior management /ex-co/vendors where concise decisions need to be made, Crystal is a nice choice to slide data into presentable views.
- Diverse data source connect: We have used it to write reports using data from DB2, SQL, Progress, Excel spreadsheets, XML data, Access, and Lotus Notes databases. It can also be used to join different database types together in one report.
- It uses the "recurring bands" structure for page layout which is efficient and fungible for generating different types of reports. Crystal doesn't require that we set up a metadata layer before creating reports and provides direct access to tables and dimensions.
- It is not very user-friendly for learning as during designs and debugging the error decryption is tedious and hard to figure out.
- When using sub-reports embedded in the main reports for different views of the same data sourced from multiple tables, this makes the process crazy slow. This is annoying and needs severe improvements.
- The visual capabilities need to seriously catch up with respect to market competitors. Security is also a concern at times while accessing data.
February 27, 2019
SAP Crystal reports is an integrated business intelligence platform that allows users to write reports, display KPIs and other metrics from data preserved in your database. SAP Crystal is used by various departments in our organization such as research and development, operations and human resource departments. The software has streamlined our decision making process and it has helped us make meaning out of our preserved data.
- Customer support is available 24/7 helping new users embrace and learn how to use the software efficiently.
- The reports generated are usually in many formats from formulas, cross-tabs and sub-reports thereby helping us understand our data.
- Can generate reports from data obtained from any virtual source
- The one-time fee paid per user is a bit high and may discourage small and mid-sized companies with many users not to acquire the software.
- A stable internet connection is required for the software to function well.
- There is no free trial plan of the software and it ought to be available to help in piloting purposes.
October 16, 2018
I use Crystal in a number of ways:
1. I answer a lot of questions about Crystal in online forums - the SAP Community forums as well as a few others.
2. I train our clients in how to use Crystal, not only the standard SAP classes, but also one I've created that walks through the most-asked questions from the forums and what their solutions are.
3. I personally use Crystal for a number of different tasks, including analyzing data when I do security reviews of clients' SAP BI Platform and SAP Crystal Reports Server systems.
1. I answer a lot of questions about Crystal in online forums - the SAP Community forums as well as a few others.
2. I train our clients in how to use Crystal, not only the standard SAP classes, but also one I've created that walks through the most-asked questions from the forums and what their solutions are.
3. I personally use Crystal for a number of different tasks, including analyzing data when I do security reviews of clients' SAP BI Platform and SAP Crystal Reports Server systems.
- In addition to linking together tables and views from the database in order to get data into your report, Crystal allows you to write your own SQL queries using an "Command". This feature allows for the use of very complex queries to get data for your reports.
- Crystal can connect to MANY different types of databases. It has native connections available for a number of them, including Oracle, and will connect to almost anything else using either ODBC or (less common) JDBC.
- Subreports, when used correctly, are a powerful feature for bringing additional data into a report.
- There are SDK's available to integrate reporting into either .NET or Java applications and websites.
- The option to export to Excel is very picky about report format to get a clean export. Once you know the tricks for setting up a report for this export, it's not hard to do, but it can be very tedious if the report has a lot of elements. This is the way it's been for years and SAP has indicated that it's not something that's going to be changed.
- Crystal requires that a user knows how the data they're reporting on is configured in the database - it's not really suited for a "casual" user, but for someone with at least some technical skills in relation to databases. This is not something that can or should necessarily be changed, but it is something that potential users need to be aware of.
- Other than new types of database connections, SAP has indicated that they will not be upgrading any functionality in "classic" Crystal. They instead have chosen to focus on upgrades to Crystal for Enterprise. The problem with that is that it requires the SAP BI Platform - either SAP BusinessObjects or SAP Crystal Reports Server.
- One of the major things that's not being upgraded is the Charting libraries, which were last updated in the early 2000's, before SAP purchased Crystal. So, Crystal doesn't have newer chart types available.
SAP Crystal Scorecard Summary
Feature Scorecard Summary
What is SAP Crystal?
SAP Crystal Reports and SAP Crystal Server are designed to help users create pixel-perfect, richly formatted, and dynamic reports from virtually any data source – delivered in dozens of export formats, in up to 24 languages. SAP Crystal Reports is a production reporting tool designed to turn almost any data source into interactive, actionable information that can be accessed offline or online, from applications, portals and mobile devices. SAP Crystal Server enables self-service access to
reports, dashboards, and data exploration within a secure infrastructure.
Categories: Business Intelligence (BI)
SAP Crystal Screenshots
SAP Crystal Videos (3)
SAP Crystal Downloadables
- Detailed information for SAP Crystal Server 2016’s supported platforms, such as Windows and Linux OS, browser, LDAP and hardware support
- Languages supported with SAP Crystal Reports 2016
- Product features to leverage with SAP Crystal Solutions for the small to midsize business
- Pixel-perfect reports created with SAP Crystal Solutions for small to midsize business
- Business goals to achieve with SAP Crystal Solutions for small to midsize business
- Implementation costs to consider with SAP Crystal Solutions for small to midsize business
- Comparison of features by version for SAP Crystal Reports and SAP Crystal Server software
SAP Crystal Integrations
SAP Crystal Reports for Visual Studio, SAP Crystal Reports for Eclipse
SAP Crystal Competitors
SAP Crystal Pricing
- Has featureFree Trial Available?Yes
- Has featureFree or Freemium Version Available?Yes
- Has featurePremium Consulting/Integration Services Available?Yes
- Entry-level set up fee?Optional
| Edition | Pricing Details | Terms |
|---|---|---|
| SAP Crystal Reports 2020 64-Bit | $495 | per single user license |
| Upgrade Version to SAP Crystal Reports 2020 | $295 | per single user license |
| SAP Crystal Reports 2016 32-Bit | $495 | per single user license |
| SAP Crystal Server 2020 1 NUL | $869 | per user license + first year maintenance to be added |
| SAP Crystal Server 2020 5 CAL | $8,744 | 5 concurrent users + first year maintenance to be added |
* SAP Crystal Reports 2020 Viewer allows you to view static data within a SAP Crystal Reports file. * SAP Crystal Reports 2020 - Full version allows you to create powerful, richly formatted, and dynamic reports from virtually any data source, delivered in dozens of formats, in up to 28 languages. If you already have an older version of Crystal Reports, buy a license for SAP Crystal Reports 2020 - Upgrade at a discounted, upgrade price. * SAP Crystal Server 2020, 1 NUL includes 1 license of: SAP Crystal Reports 2020 - SAP Crystal Server 2020. * As an add-on to SAP Crystal Server 2020 1 NUL, SAP Crystal Server 2020 5 CAL allows you to support a wider, intermittent audience of end users, up to five logged on at the same time.
SAP Crystal Support Options
| Free Version | Paid Version | |
|---|---|---|
| Live Chat | ||
| Forum/Community | ||
| FAQ/Knowledgebase | ||
| Social Media | ||
| Video Tutorials / Webinar | ||
| Phone |
SAP Crystal Technical Details
| Deployment Types: | On-premise |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems: | Windows, Linux |
| Mobile Application: | Apple iOS, Android |
| Supported Countries: | Global |
| Supported Languages: | English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Italian, Dutch, Russian, Korean, Traditional Chinese, Portuguese, Swedish, Polish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Thai, Czech, Hungarian, Slovakian, Turkish, Romanian, Slovenian |
Frequently Asked Questions
What is SAP Crystal?
SAP Crystal is an analytics and reporting software solution for SMBs. SAP Crystal comprises Crystal Reports for pixel-perfect reporting, and SAP Crystal Server for automated distribution and self-service access to reports, dashboards and data exploration.
What are SAP Crystal's top competitors?
Windward Studios, from PDFTron, TIBCO Jaspersoft, and Jet Reports are common alternatives for SAP Crystal.
What is SAP Crystal's best feature?
Reviewers rate Publish to PDF highest, with a score of 9.
Who uses SAP Crystal?
The most common users of SAP Crystal are from Mid-size Companies and the Information Technology & Services industry.