Overview
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.
It's a great reporting tool for your business!
A essential tool for accurate report export from SAP
SAP Crystal Report Review
SAP Crystal is excellent for report building and aggregations
Crystal Clear Formatted Reports in Secure environment with sharing/distribution capabilities.
First time caller, long time user.
Effective for financial reporting, which is accurate.
SAP Crystal overall satisfaction
Crystal Delivers Thousands of Reports Per Week
Decent reporting tool
SAP Crystal Reports review
Powerful document and report automation
SAP Crystal Review
One of my top rated reporting systems.
Awards
Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards
Popular Features
- Publish to PDF (131)10.0100%
- Report sharing and collaboration (118)10.0100%
- Report Formatting Templates (115)10.0100%
- Formatting capabilities (133)10.0100%
Reviewer Pros & Cons
Pricing
Upgrade Version to SAP Crystal Reports 2020
$295
SAP Crystal Reports 2020 64-Bit
$495
SAP Crystal Reports 2016 32-Bit
$495
Entry-level set up fee?
- Setup fee optional
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Product Demos
Software TRAIL DEMO SAP Crystal Reports 2013
SAP Crystal Dashboard Design - Demo video
Features
BI Standard Reporting
Standard reporting means pre-built or canned reports available to users without having to create them.
- 8Pixel Perfect reports(111) Ratings
Pixel Perfect reports are highly-formatted reports with graphics and ability to preview the report before printing.
- 10Customizable dashboards(97) Ratings
Customizable dashboards are dashboards providing the builder some degree of control over the look and feel and display options.
- 10Report Formatting Templates(115) Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Ad-Hoc Reports are reports built by the user to meet highly specific requirements.
- 10Drill-down analysis(115) Ratings
Drill down analysis is the ability to get to a further level of detail by going deeper into the hierarchy.
- 10Formatting capabilities(133) Ratings
Ability to format output e.g. conditional formatting, lines, headers, footers.
- 8.6Integration with R or other statistical packages(63) Ratings
Integration with the open-source R predictive modeling environment.
- 10Report sharing and collaboration(118) Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration is the ability to easily share reports with others.
Report Output and Scheduling
Ability to schedule and manager report output.
- 9.2Publish to Web(89) Ratings
- 10Publish to PDF(131) Ratings
- 9Report Versioning(93) Ratings
Report versioning is the assignment of version numbers to each version of a report to help in tracking.
- 9Report Delivery Scheduling(96) Ratings
Report Delivery Schedule is the ability to have reports delivered to a destination at a specific data and time.
- 10Delivery to Remote Servers(52) Ratings
Ability to deliver reports to remote servers
Data Discovery and Visualization
Data Discovery and Visualization is the analysis of multiple data sources in a search for patterns and outliers and the ability to represent the data visually.
- 7.6Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)(51) Ratings
Pre-built visualization formats are canned visualization types that can be selected to visualize different kinds of data.
- 8.5Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization(75) Ratings
Location analytics is the visualization of geographical or spatial data.
- 7.8Predictive Analytics(41) Ratings
Predictive Analytics is the ability to build forecasting models based on existing data sets.
Access Control and Security
Access control means being able to determine who has access to which data.
- 7.8Multi-User Support (named login)(79) Ratings
Named model access means that users have access based on name and password.
- 7.7Role-Based Security Model(78) Ratings
Role-based access means that access to data is determined by job or position in the corporation.
- 8.4Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)(78) Ratings
Multiple access permission levels means that different levels of users have different rights.
- 10Report-Level Access Control(1) Ratings
Report-level access control means that the type of report determines who has access to it.
- 9Single Sign-On (SSO)(38) Ratings
Allows users to use one set of login credentials to access multiple applications
Mobile Capabilities
Support for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.
- 8.7Responsive Design for Web Access(60) Ratings
Web design aimed at producing easy-to-read sites across a range of different devices.
- 7.6Mobile Application(43) Ratings
A dedicated app for iOS and/or Android.
- 9Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile(57) Ratings
In-app dashboard reports and data visualization.
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
APIs are a set of routines, protocols, and tools for used for embedding one application in another
- 7.4REST API(8) Ratings
REST is an architecture style for designing networked applications
- 6Javascript API(35) Ratings
A Javascript API is a type of API
- 7.1iFrames(8) Ratings
An iFrame is an HTML document embedded inside another HTML document on a website
- 6Java API(35) Ratings
A Java application programming interface (API) is a list of all classes that are part of the Java development kit (JDK)
- 8.3Themeable User Interface (UI)(37) Ratings
A themeable user interface means that a specific visual them can be applied to it
- 7Customizable Platform (Open Source)(31) Ratings
A customizable, open source API Gateway is a fast and scalable type of API
Product Details
- About
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- Downloadables
- FAQs
What is SAP Crystal?
SAP Crystal Features
BI Platform Features
- Supported: Administration via Web Interface
- Supported: Live Connection to External Data
- Supported: Snapshot of External Data
- Supported: OLAP (Pre-processed cube representation)
- Supported: ROLAP (SQL-layer querying)
- Supported: Multi-Data Source Reporting (Blending)
- Supported: Data warehouse / dictionary layer
Supported Data Sources Features
- Supported: MS Excel Workbooks
- Supported: Text Files (CSV, etc)
- Supported: Oracle
- Supported: MS SQL Server
- Supported: IBM DB2
- Supported: Postgres
- Supported: MySQL
- Supported: ODBC
- Supported: EMC Greenplum
- Supported: HP Vertica
- Supported: SAP Hana
- Supported: Teradata
- Supported: Salesforce
- Supported: SAP
BI Standard Reporting Features
- Supported: Pixel Perfect reports
- Supported: Customizable dashboards
- Supported: Report Formatting Templates
Ad-hoc Reporting Features
- Supported: Drill-down analysis
- Supported: Formatting capabilities
- Supported: Integration with R or other statistical packages
- Supported: Report sharing and collaboration
Report Output and Scheduling Features
- Supported: Publish to Web
- Supported: Publish to PDF
- Supported: Output Raw Supporting Data
- Supported: Report Versioning
- Supported: Report Delivery Scheduling
- Supported: Delivery to Remote Servers
Data Discovery and Visualization Features
- Supported: Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
Access Control and Security Features
- Supported: Multi-User Support (named login)
- Supported: Role-Based Security Model
- Supported: Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
- Supported: Report-Level Access Control
- Supported: Table-Level Access Control (BI-layer)
- Supported: Field-Level Access Control (BI-layer)
- Supported: Single Sign-On (SSO)
Mobile Capabilities Features
- Supported: Responsive Design for Web Access
- Supported: Mobile Application
- Supported: Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding Features
- Supported: Javascript API
- Supported: Java API
- Supported: Themeable User Interface (UI)
- Supported: Customizable Platform (Open Source)
SAP Crystal Screenshots
SAP Crystal Videos
SAP Crystal Competitors
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 |
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
Frequently Asked Questions
Comparisons
Compare with
Reviews and Ratings
(558)Attribute Ratings
- 10Likelihood to Renew19 ratings
- 8Availability1 rating
- 8Performance1 rating
- 9.4Usability28 ratings
- 8.6Support Rating21 ratings
- 10In-Person Training1 rating
- 8.8Implementation Rating14 ratings
- 8Configurability1 rating
- 7Product Scalability1 rating
- 7Ease of integration1 rating
- 7Vendor pre-sale1 rating
- 8Vendor post-sale1 rating
- 7Data Visualization4 ratings
- 9.2Data Sources130 ratings
- 8.8Data Sharing and Collaboration125 ratings
- 8.5SAP Crystal Pixel-Perfect Reporting5 ratings
Reviews
(101-125 of 156)Great Reporting Tool
- possibilities for reports are endless because everything can be customized
- data integration
- scheduled reports
- user interface could be improved
- new users need a lot of training
- can make changes, but it's not as straight forward as it should be
SAP Crystal Server - Be organized, stress-free, and on the cutting edge with this product. Get things accomplished!
- Generates reports
- Organizes files and information.
- Easy to use and intuitive.
- Affordable.
- Feature rich.
- Easy to use but slight learning curve which could be improved.
- Updates create delays sometimes.
- Some features have limitations such as graphs.
- Incorporating into websites could be made smoother.
SAP Crystal Server Review
- Creates some great reports
- Helps you communicate your points visually
- Simplifies a great deal of data into something that's simple to understand
- Not always easy to work with
- Cannot export directly into PowerPoint
- Problems with security levels for different people
Trusty reports, easy to use
- Clear reports
- Great integration with our other programs
- Reliable
- Can't fix the header in a table - very frustrating
- Time-consuming to alter reports
Crystal Server Overview
- Quick to produce reports once you learn how to use the program
- No limitations to the types of reports you can produce
- Simple to share reports with others
- It's a pain dealing with security levels for the reports when not everyone has the same rights
- Not always intuitive
Crystal Review
- SAP Crystal Server can be connected to numerous data sources via numerous types of connections.
- SAP Crystal Server has a wide range of options to group, sort, and filter data in almost any way requested by the business. The limit seems to only be the imagination of the developer.
- Pixel perfect control of object placement within the canvas.
- We constantly get requests to be able to export to PowerPoint. The same holds true for other SAP BI Tools.
- Ability to scroll within a document and keep the page header in the same place. This would be comparable to 'Freeze panes' in Excel.
New SAP Crystal Reports User
- Crystal Reports makes it easy to pull records from multiple databases.
- It is relatively user friendly once you learn a few basic techniques in terms of formatting and organizing the reports.
- Help menus with functions could be improved, for example, providing a glossary of common functions and their syntax.
- Functionality can be tedious sometime;, with multiple mouse clicks required to make a single change, specifically for editing formulas or parameters.
Great solution for custom reporting
SAP Crystal Reports is used for users and roles mapping. This is easy to use, from basic reports to the more complex. It's easy for a manager to know what to request as access for particular transaction codes and roles for the required position.
It is also used for reporting segregation of duties (SOD) at intra roles and the user level. We also use reports for analyzing these reports for audits.
- Its ability to create great reports from a vast range of data sources, makes this a very good and easy way to create meaningful reports.
- Crystal Reports has managed to create every report I have tried to do without having to resort to using third party reporting tools, making it easier to maintain report projects.
- It has easily consumable reports which enable business users to make decisions quickly and instantly.
- User Interface can be bit slow at times.
- Debugging complex reports can be difficult.
- Syntax constructs - the syntax used in Crystal Reports (formulas) is slightly different than most other languages, using a combination of curly brackets and pipes with some traditional syntax.
Well suited for:
Advanced reporting
Flexibility - the limitations in how or what the report will look and feel is really limited by the developer. Formulas can be placed on virtually any field or level.
Formulas - Once you get the hang of the formulas in Crystal Reports, they are very powerful. Different flags and indicators can be constructed, suppression can be based on the formula fields, or formula fields based on other formula fields in conjunction with the source data.
Great for SQL
- Pulling data and manipulating that data
- It takes a bit to get used to the interface
Very powerful, pixel-perfect reports but expect to have to hire a CR guru & purchase many bottles of tylenol
- Tracking and generating detailed reports that can have profound impacts on the way businesses operate
- Allows businesses to drill down through data in order to identify issues normally overlooked
- Lets you connect data from a wide range of sources that normally aren't compatable
- A lack of 3rd party tools
- Not user friendly in regards to the target audience
- Confusing costs, confusing security procedures, and confusing licensing terms
Not Easy to Use, But Powerful
- The ability to create customized formulas is wonderful and makes it easier to only include the data needed in the report.
- The design interface makes it easy to design reports and place information where needed.
- Editing allows information to be suppressed which helps to eliminate duplicate information.
- It is not easy to use if you are looking to include advanced information like formulas. Some of the more advanced functions require some research into how to do them.
- It would be nice to be able to add additional detail sections and be able to prevent them from duplicating on every single page. It was difficult to work with this and I ended up creating a separate report in order to have it look the way I needed it to.
- The entire edit interface needs to be easier to use. When editing sections or text boxes, it takes some knowledge to know and understand how the options affect the outcome.
- Crystal Reports is very intuitive. For a first time user with no formal training on the software, I was able to create and edit reports without much difficulty.
- Crystal Reports is very robust. The complicated reports we run that pull data from all over our MRP and then perform calculations. The formatting of the data is done very quickly, without much wait time for the compilation of the information.
- The users manual is comprehensive. Again, I had no training with the software before using it, but the manual answered questions very well without having to go out and search online for answers on forums that may or may not have helped.
- Making charts can be a little tricky. The information is not displayed as well as I'd like without a lot of massaging/manipulating fields to make them display properly.
- Compiling running totals is also tough. A report I am working on will not calculate averages correctly, and I've tried all suggested ways. It will average three columns each with a "1" in them and output something that makes no sense - 5.67 or some other random number.
- The automatic tabs that are put in each time a field is added to the report are a little clunky and distracting. They don't line up next to fields and are just busy work to move/remove.
- Exporting to Microsoft 2003 (no versions higher than that) needs to be updated to more current versions of Excel.
Nice alternative to built in report writer.
- No limit on what data can be retrieved.
- Easy to create new reports from an old report with different focus.
- Wonderfully robust sorting capabilities.
- If a reports has a problem the whole program shuts down. This is a pain if you have several reports queued up.
- Maybe I'm missing something but it's a hassle to create a report on one computer and move it to another without requiring a password on the new machine.
- I would like a longer list of resent reports you can open.
Crystal Reports
- Ease Of Use
- Minimal Change Between Version (no need to relearn each release)
- Fast processing
- No ability to cancel report through code
- Hangs on slow db connections
- Oracle odbc randomly crashes app
- Our accounting system has details of each invoice. We take that data and manipulate it to produce a report for each of our sales reps each month that summarizes the activity for each of their customers for the current month and the previous 12 months so they can see trends. Also every quarter we send the reps a report with a product by product listing of what each customer has bought.
- Actually all of the printouts in our accounting system are generated by Crystal Reports - invoices, checks, financial reports, etc.
- Crystal Reports is so widely used that when you run into something you don't know how to do there are all sorts of answers available on the internet. Last week I learned how to make a report for a running 12 month period based on the current date without having to input start and end dates.
- Our sales reports are done in one run for all sales reps and then I pass them through some third party software to burst them for each rep and email them to the reps. It takes less than 1 minute to run, burst and email about 40 reports. It might be nice if that capability was built into Crystal Reports.
Great value, fantastic usability.
- SAP Crystal Reports is incredibly straightforward to use.
- SAP Crystal Reports allows me to customize very complex sets of data.
- When creating very complex reports, the processing time can sometimes be very slow.
SAP Crystal Reports Gets The Job Done
- It can connect to just about any database. Most of the time we connect to SQL Server, but we do have clients that connect to other databases such as Progress SQL. We originally started using it way back in the FoxPro days. Yes it connected to that too!
- Crystal is great at adding sub-reports. You will come across a time where data just does not relate well with other data. A sub-report comes in handy in those situations and can be inserted pretty much anywhere in your main report.
- Calculated fields are another big plus. They can be very simple or as complex as you need them to be. I really haven't found anything that Crystal Reports cannot do as far as formulas go and there is a "Crystal" syntax or VB syntax which you can pick from.
- When you're in the formula editor, the way it displays the syntax for the different formals could be better. They're a little cryptic. Maybe adding an example or two would help there.
- Sometimes I find myself Googling quite a bit to find out how to do some of the more complicated things. So I actually started using OneNote to track examples of how to do some of the things that are not very intuitive such as shared variables.
- One thing that could be much better is cancelling out of a long running report. There should be a way just to "kill" it instantly without having to wait. On some of my longer running reports, you can try to stop it, but it still ends up taking a long time to return control to the user.
- Crystal tries to use indexes where it can, but it would be nice if it could tell you exactly which indexes it uses. On some long running reports, you kind of have to "play" around with different things to get a report to run faster. If it had a feature where it could tell you what's slowing down the report, that would be helpful.
Normal Review
- Organize information
- Present in a useful way
- Easy to use
- Not very executive friendly for design
- Price for small operations
MInimal user but happy with reports I do use
- Report building
- Getting specific information from databases
- The help feature for on the go help could be better
- Well suited to financial statements
- Less suited to pulling net vs. gross numbers
SAP gets a thumbs-up!
We can easily adjust the formulas for quotes, so that each template is different. It's very easy to save the template and create a new one if needed. We do phone systems, cabling, security systems, etc., so we do not use the same quote template each time. It's very easy to use.
- Easy access to tools. I can easily find what I'm looking for in the software without even having to ask a question.
- Calculations and formulas are easy to use. If I need to adjust a formula or change a formula completely for quoting, I can easily do so. It's very straight-forward and easy to use.
- Clean software - the software looks very clean, and it is not scattered all over the place like some applications are. It's right to the point and it doesn't hurt my eyes when I use it! I am very happy with it.
- I honestly can't find anything where it would need improvement. I feel as though it's very easy to use and super helpful. It gets the job done, especially for quotes. Our business uses it primarily for quotes, and I have had no issues.
Crystal Reports Works with FileMaker!
- Linear Regression
- Reporting on Date Ranges
- Charting
- Command line parameters to run reports
- Small scale web use for small organizations
- Better web services integration and reporting and updating
Crystal Reports for All
- Simple queries. I am able to use SQL queries even when pulling from non-SQL databases.
- I am able to easily modify reports and change them to meet my needs. That allows me to save them.
- Crystal Reports will link to several different data types.
- There is a lot of help available for Crystal Reports. If I get stuck on something, I am able to find it easily.
- I want to be able to export to a more updated version of Microsoft Office.
- There should be a better way to ensure that everything is lined up correctly when exporting to Excel.
- Bring back the user application. I am the developer and I would like to create canned reports for users to allow them to just change the parameter fields and update the data.
- Producing reports is intuitive.
- In its most used form, the software is easy to use and understand.
- It seems that we can change and manipulate data very quickly.
- It seems hard for us to figure out how to automate report generation.
- A "walk through, visually of how to use the software would be helpful for new users.
- Easy access to information across various tables.
- One time set up that can be refreshed as needed.
- It required additional programming to pull the same information from various sources because it would not recognize different data with the same column headings.
- Learning curve for the first time was challenging.
Crystal Reports made our business better!
- Accuracy
- Customization
- Visualization of data
- Drill down
- Larger reports take a little while to populate
- Assist in creating the correct relationship between tables.