SAP Crystal Reports Reviews

One of the most valuable features is the ability to precisely place data fields and labels on the report canvas either in Design Mode or Preview Mode. This is a great feature because when a report page requires many data fields, each item needs to be as close as possible.

Another valuable feature is the ability to select and format or align multiple data fields and labels because there are times when a group of fields needs a smaller font or to be moved together across the page.

There are two items that would improve the product. One is a simple text search across all formulas, and the other is a debug mode that would allow the developer to step line-by-line through long or complicated formulas.

I've been using it for 17 years.

We have had no issues with the deployment.

There have been no issues with the stability.

There have been no issues scaling it for our needs.

For the most part, technical support is responsive and helpful. However, the majority of technical support is in another country which can cause problems scheduling a contact time and can hamper verbal communication.

The initial setup is straightforward. However, on a couple of occasions the licensing was corrupted and required uninstalling and reinstalling the software.

Implementation was done by our in-house team.

It allows me to pull data from multiple data sources without coding SQL. Creating SQL code to copy is one of my favorite uses.

We have better efficiency overall and we've saved on doing data imports -- $36K so far. I can do them myself using Crystal Reports.

Also, it's essential to our ERP function.

I have an old version and there's no hyperlink function. Otherwise, everything I could wish for is probably already out there!

However, I had an issue where if I had the main application in one Window and a fly out menu on another monitor, it would crash. It was probably a hardware issue on my side.

I've been using it for nine years. We purchased it in 2007 and I was one of the first employees to be trained on it. I use it practically every day.

I had no issues deploying it.

I had the instability issues, described above, which led to the system crashing.

We've had no issues scaling it out.

I've never needed to use it as I am able to find the answers on Google.

I believe it was bundled with our Tyle/Eden solution.

We implemented it with out in-house team. Our configuration is pretty simple. We don't use any of the enterprise features.

It is essential for our ERP reporting to function, so the value is very high.

I can't live without it. I wish it could do a few more things, such as better hyperlink functionality. I have an older version, so I have no idea if a newer version has the features I would wish for.

It is quite a bit to take in at once. Just start with something that is meaningful to you.

Report Wizards and Sample Reports are very useful for us, and I'd say they're the most valuable features as well. I only wish there were more reports to choose from because the wizards make it easier to create a quick report.

Reporting once a month at our partners meeting with my providers, Crystal Reports ensures that I get the information directly from our SQL database so that I can combine and manipulate my reports as needed.

For me, the biggest area for improvement would definitely be the sample reports and wizards with more options and themes you can use to create more report styles.

We've used it for five years.

The software was installed prior to starting my position with this practice, so I'm not certain whether there were or were not any issues with deployment.

There are no issues with the stability.

We have had no issues with scaling it for our needs.

In my experience, technical support is good, although I haven't really had to call in for many issues.

I haven't used anything similar to Crystal Reports in the past.

It was already set up when I began my current position, so I wouldn't know whether setup was straightforward or complex.

The way it allows formatting, that is, the ability to organize the display and fields as we like, are the key elements for us. Presentation for end users is always the big concern for us, so the formatting is an important feature the we find most useful.

We're also able to drag-and-drop tables, joins, and fields, which expedites very basic data pulls. Sometimes, though, a SQL query and export to .xls suffices.

We're able to export to .pdf as well as integrate with PowerPoint. This has become a part of our instructional and sales presentations.

Some of the graphic displays are dodgy. That component is the least intuitive of all the features.

I've used it for ten years, from stale Seagate versions through SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL platforms.

There have been no issues with the deployment.

There have been no issues with the stability.

We've had no issues scaling it for our needs.

I've never had to contact customer service.

I've never had the need to use technical support.

There were no issues encountered during the deployment. You need to delete prior versions before implementing the latest one because they seemed to clash.

We implemented it with our in-house team.

The product is expensive.

Lean on the vendor for the initial implementation and follow their steps to ensure independence down the road.

It has a lot of flexibility and can be used with a variety of data sources. A lot can be done with grouping and sub-reports.

Our organization previously exported a lot of data to Excel. This had to be endlessly manipulated by sorting, cutting, modifying pasting, de-duping, resorting, etc. Using Crystal Reports means all this manual work is eliminated. The report comes out sorted and in the right format without need for any manipulation.

Crystal also has a lot of options for grouping and creating formulas.

Some features are difficult to use for beginning users, such as shared variables.

About 10 years

With older versions of Crystal there was frequent "crashing" and reinstalling of the program. I have not seen any problems with Crystal 11.

Straightforward. Crystal has an easy installation process.

In-house set-up.

It's a great product that can be used out of the box, however it's always good to invest in training.

The ability to create reports via the GUI with click and drag at the table level as well as from SQL via Command objects.

I have used CR with a number of different db types (Oracle, SQL Server, etc.) for a number of different data types (health care, accounting, manufacturing, etc.). 

I have been using the app since version 5 in 1996. I was a certified instructor and implementation specialist on CR and BOE (and its predecessors Seagate Info) via the developers from 1997 through 2002.

What little I have seen of other products I would select CR and BOE but I am not the decision maker of the organization..

There are many suggestions but the first would be to develop a template of how you would like your reports to look. Consistent layout helps users focus on the data rather than figuring out how to view a report, e.g., this report shows drill down links blue and underlined like the Web, but the other shows them in boxes with a note at the top that you can click on boxed items for more info.

• Ease of creating custom reports
• Being able to edit in design view without having to refresh the data
• Ease of linking tables
• Ability to create union queries

We use the product to run weekly update reports to show managers how many hours have been billed to specific grants. The reports include formulas to flag if we are behind on billing out the grant or have overspent. We also run reports to see what type of legal issues clients are contacting us about and reports on time slips that managers use when creating work plans and goals.

Retain parameter lists when upgrading

Ten years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

We previously used Microsoft Access.

We implemented it in-house.

I'm not sure. We are a non-profit, so we were eligible to purchase the product from TechSoup at a significant discount.

I don't really have any advice since we didn't test any other reporting software. I like Crystal Reports. I think it's very easy to use and there are numerous forums I can look to when I need help.

The ability to plug into multiple data sources and present consistent formatted reports for our internal and external clients. We work for multiple clients around the country and this allows us to present standardized reports. Crystal Reports also allows us to pull SAP and present it as an analytical tool rather than downloading data and manipulating it in Excel.

One key improvement has been the elimination of tedious and redundant work. Where we used to do a lot of data manipulation from SAP, we can now run a Crystal Report and get the data we need in the format we desire. It has saved a lot of unnecessary man-hours.

The graphing portion of Crystal Reports is still lacking. I realize that there are other Business Objects programs out there more graphics intensive, but it would be nice if Crystal could fully service those needs as well.

Four years.

No issues encountered.

When we first started using Crystal Reports 2008, we had multiple stability issues. It seemed like at least once a day (usually more than that), it would crash on us. Save Early, Save Often became our way of life. It has improved dramatically since 2011 and Enterprise version.

No issues with scalability.

Excellent. The sales reps and the technical support folks have been very supportive and have always responded promptly.

Excellent. We have only had two issues that we went to technical support with but they were very thorough and worked through the issues with us.

No previous solution used.

Straightforward for me. I only had to install the Crystal Reports client and the SAP Integration kit. Everything worked as intended after that.

No other solutions were evaluated.

You should fully understand your business needs and work to integrate all of the applicable programs available as part of the Business Objects suite. It can be a complicated process with all of the available tools.