Crystal Reports - give it a go!
Updated January 15, 2018

Crystal Reports - give it a go!

Gugu Sibanda, CPA,CGA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with SAP Crystal

We recently changed from an older accounting system to an ERP system to help us streamline our business processes and operations. We use Crystal Reports to customize the reports we need in the new system. We have been able to manipulate the reporting process to give us the information we need and to exclude any items which do not add value to the particular report. Furthermore, we have been able to enhance the aesthetic appearance of our outbound documents with our company logo and a visually appealing format.
  • I like the fact that I can do a lot of cosmetic changes to the reports without having to have in-depth developer training.
  • Crystal Reports connects to a wide range of data sources, including OLE DB, which makes it widely usable.
  • Crystal Reports also integrates with a wide range of technologies such as Java, therefore it makes it easy for developers to write code in a language they are use to.
  • In order to obtain features such as mobile access or scheduled notifications, one would have to upgrade to Crystal Reports Server, which increases its cost.
  • In order to take advantage of the advanced features of Crystal Reports, a developer is needed, thus further increasing the cost.
  • Zoho
Having used Crystal Reports in the past, I decided to use it again instead of starting from scratch with a product I am not familiar with.
After trying to use Zoho, I found it not s user friendly as SAP and I did not deem it worth my while to invest time and energy into it. As the saying goes, if it ain’t broken, don’t try to fix it!
It is definitely well suited to our situation, as we need to customize the format of a large number of standard reports.

SAP Crystal Feature Ratings

Pixel Perfect reports
8
Customizable dashboards
8
Report Formatting Templates
9
Drill-down analysis
8
Formatting capabilities
8
Integration with R or other statistical packages
Not Rated
Report sharing and collaboration
8
Publish to Web
8
Publish to PDF
7
Report Versioning
7
Report Delivery Scheduling
7
Delivery to Remote Servers
8
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
7
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
6
Predictive Analytics
7
Multi-User Support (named login)
8
Role-Based Security Model
7
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
5
Single Sign-On (SSO)
Not Rated
Responsive Design for Web Access
8
Mobile Application
7
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
7
REST API
Not Rated
Javascript API
Not Rated
iFrames
Not Rated
Java API
Not Rated
Themeable User Interface (UI)
Not Rated
Customizable Platform (Open Source)
Not Rated

Using SAP Crystal

10 - Accounting, Operations and engineering
1 - Being the primary user and editor of reports, I am an accountant but have had to increase my IT knowledge so as to be able to adapt the technology at our disposal to the needs of the company
  • To work on our mobile field reporting platform
  • Obtaining the information we need in a user friendly format.
  • Easily adaptable to suit the changing needs of our businesses
  • Having the backing of a world wide software company, so continued support and development into the foreseeable future is assured.
  • We have been able to customize reports to the various levels needed by different end users.

Using SAP Crystal

It takes a while to learn it, but once you get comfortable with how it works, there is always something new to learn. There is always the satisfaction you gain when you succeed in making the changes you need.
ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Technical support not required
Well integrated
Consistent
Feel confident using
Slow to learn
Lots to learn
  • Changing the cosmetic features of the reports
  • Linking tables to the report
Not Sure - We have not reached that stage yet as we are working on our mobile platform.