SAP Crystal Reports and Crystal Reports Server
August 22, 2018

SAP Crystal Reports and Crystal Reports Server

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

SAP Crystal Server

Overall Satisfaction with SAP Crystal

SAP Crystal Server software enables self-service access to reports, dashboards and data exploration within a secure BI infrastructure that’s quick to deploy. It was used by my department.
  • It requires a developer skilled in Crystal Reports’ proprietary language, but one of CR most touted benefits is its flexible, customizable report design.
  • Using CR, a developer can create highly formatted, pixel-perfect reports in nearly any layout desired and in up to 24 different languages.
  • Like other major business intelligence vendors, SAP typically buys technology instead of innovating it. As a result, a number of interfaces must be used to leverage CR, including a report designer and a dashboard designer.
  • Security is built into the report itself, so when you need a report for two different audiences, the developer must modify the security settings for each report- in effect duplicating the report for each person.
It's licensing model is confusing. There are a lot of product SKUs, many versions and a number of features. For example, you license the server, but then you need to get user licenses on the server, then there are add-ons. You need mobile user licenses for the server, plus you must license a designer tool to build reports and license a designer tool to build dashboards. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but as you can tell, you’re spending much more than the initial cost.

SAP Crystal Feature Ratings

Pixel Perfect reports
8
Customizable dashboards
9
Report Formatting Templates
9
Drill-down analysis
7
Formatting capabilities
8
Integration with R or other statistical packages
7
Report sharing and collaboration
8
Publish to Web
7
Publish to PDF
7
Report Versioning
8
Report Delivery Scheduling
8
Delivery to Remote Servers
7
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
8
Multi-User Support (named login)
7
Role-Based Security Model
8
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
7
Single Sign-On (SSO)
7
Responsive Design for Web Access
7
Mobile Application
7
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
8
Javascript API
7
Java API
8
Themeable User Interface (UI)
8
Customizable Platform (Open Source)
7