What's everyone's beef with Crystal Reports?

At one of the VSLive! Orlando sessions there was much disdain expressed for
Crystal Reports for .NET by many. I'm wondering what the major issues are,
as I've always found it a pretty and effective tool, albeit not the most
intuitive thing to figure out. (And I've always wished you could save and
reuse formulas, but I understand that's now a feature in v. 10)

I like some of the things they've done with the Enterprise version, but I'm
skeptical about the licensing costs if I get serious about that direction.
Is that the major problem?

Chris
Wed Jan 21 14:32:15 CST 2004

One problem we've been having recently is that some large, complicated
reports (600+ page with details and lots of joins) take an incredibly long
time to load (1.5 - 5 minutes). This has to be some sort of bug, but Crystal
support hasn't been at all helpful.

Another problem we have with it is that you have to install the files on the
client machine to use them, as opposed to System.* assemblies, which can be
downloaded and used at runtime. To really be able to do no-touch deployment,
you can't use Crystal Reports for .NET.

Chris Capel

"Daniel Billingsley" <dbillingsley@NO.durcon.SPAAMM.com> wrote in message
news:ekhKIQF4DHA.1724@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> At one of the VSLive! Orlando sessions there was much disdain expressed
for
> Crystal Reports for .NET by many. I'm wondering what the major issues
are,
> as I've always found it a pretty and effective tool, albeit not the most
> intuitive thing to figure out. (And I've always wished you could save and
> reuse formulas, but I understand that's now a feature in v. 10)
>
> I like some of the things they've done with the Enterprise version, but
I'm
> skeptical about the licensing costs if I get serious about that direction.
> Is that the major problem?
>
>

Daniel
Wed Jan 21 14:40:25 CST 2004

I guess I should have added my interest in alternatives that solve these
types of problems. Is there a reporting engine that can be deployed like
this?

Also, if I understand things properly from the brief perusal of the
marketing stuff, using Crystal Enterprise would negate this issue as the
reports are actually all run on the reporting server and the .NET
application would then at most be just a tie from the app to the reporting
system. Can anyone verify that, if we're not getting too far OT?

"Chris Capel" <aoeu@nothing.com> wrote in message
news:ei9Hr2F4DHA.1816@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...

>
> Another problem we have with it is that you have to install the files on
the
> client machine to use them, as opposed to System.* assemblies, which can
be
> downloaded and used at runtime. To really be able to do no-touch
deployment,
> you can't use Crystal Reports for .NET.
>
> Chris Capel

Chris
Wed Jan 21 14:49:39 CST 2004

We're looking into alternative reporting solutions right now for our app,
but so far we haven't found anything with the power, flexibility, and
end-user report designer of crystal. We're probably going to end up using a
combination of crystal reports and PDF. Most of the users on any of our
sites don't design reports, just look at them. PDF is perfect for that. The
few people that needed to design them could just use Crystal. Then we make
up a little app that takes all the crystal reports and generates PDFs for
them periodically. We haven't investigated the ability to do no-touch with
this sort of thing, but Acrobat Reader is a little more ubiquitous and
generally useful than Crystal Reports, and so easier to justify requiring on
every client, and safer to assume the presence of.

Chris Capel

"Daniel Billingsley" <dbillingsley@NO.durcon.SPAAMM.com> wrote in message
news:OxBkN7F4DHA.1428@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> I guess I should have added my interest in alternatives that solve these
> types of problems. Is there a reporting engine that can be deployed like
> this?
>
> Also, if I understand things properly from the brief perusal of the
> marketing stuff, using Crystal Enterprise would negate this issue as the
> reports are actually all run on the reporting server and the .NET
> application would then at most be just a tie from the app to the reporting
> system. Can anyone verify that, if we're not getting too far OT?
>
> "Chris Capel" <aoeu@nothing.com> wrote in message
> news:ei9Hr2F4DHA.1816@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
>
> >
> > Another problem we have with it is that you have to install the files on
> the
> > client machine to use them, as opposed to System.* assemblies, which can
> be
> > downloaded and used at runtime. To really be able to do no-touch
> deployment,
> > you can't use Crystal Reports for .NET.
> >
> > Chris Capel
>
>

Christian
Thu Jan 22 15:49:02 CST 2004

SQLServer Reporting Services is coming out soon. I think the release date
was the 27th of this month.
It looks pretty good. Maybe you should look into that one.

As for the Crystal being very, very, very slow on opening large reports we
have run into that one. Also it will use up your disk space fast since it
creates a temporary file somewhere that can be very, very, very large if
your report is big.

Chris.

"Chris Capel" <aoeu@nothing.com> wrote in message
news:ei9Hr2F4DHA.1816@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> One problem we've been having recently is that some large, complicated
> reports (600+ page with details and lots of joins) take an incredibly long
> time to load (1.5 - 5 minutes). This has to be some sort of bug, but
Crystal
> support hasn't been at all helpful.
>
> Another problem we have with it is that you have to install the files on
the
> client machine to use them, as opposed to System.* assemblies, which can
be
> downloaded and used at runtime. To really be able to do no-touch
deployment,
> you can't use Crystal Reports for .NET.
>
> Chris Capel
>
> "Daniel Billingsley" <dbillingsley@NO.durcon.SPAAMM.com> wrote in message
> news:ekhKIQF4DHA.1724@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> > At one of the VSLive! Orlando sessions there was much disdain expressed
> for
> > Crystal Reports for .NET by many. I'm wondering what the major issues
> are,
> > as I've always found it a pretty and effective tool, albeit not the most
> > intuitive thing to figure out. (And I've always wished you could save
and
> > reuse formulas, but I understand that's now a feature in v. 10)
> >
> > I like some of the things they've done with the Enterprise version, but
> I'm
> > skeptical about the licensing costs if I get serious about that
direction.
> > Is that the major problem?
> >
> >
>
>

William
Thu Jan 22 16:06:14 CST 2004

I saw something about a new report engine from MS for SQL. Maybe SQL
Reports or something. Have not used it or looked at, but seemed
interesting.

--
William Stacey, MVP

"Chris Capel" <aoeu@nothing.com> wrote in message
news:etpNZAG4DHA.632@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> We're looking into alternative reporting solutions right now for our app,
> but so far we haven't found anything with the power, flexibility, and
> end-user report designer of crystal. We're probably going to end up using
a
> combination of crystal reports and PDF. Most of the users on any of our
> sites don't design reports, just look at them. PDF is perfect for that.
The
> few people that needed to design them could just use Crystal. Then we make
> up a little app that takes all the crystal reports and generates PDFs for
> them periodically. We haven't investigated the ability to do no-touch with
> this sort of thing, but Acrobat Reader is a little more ubiquitous and
> generally useful than Crystal Reports, and so easier to justify requiring
on
> every client, and safer to assume the presence of.
>
> Chris Capel
>
> "Daniel Billingsley" <dbillingsley@NO.durcon.SPAAMM.com> wrote in message
> news:OxBkN7F4DHA.1428@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> > I guess I should have added my interest in alternatives that solve these
> > types of problems. Is there a reporting engine that can be deployed
like
> > this?
> >
> > Also, if I understand things properly from the brief perusal of the
> > marketing stuff, using Crystal Enterprise would negate this issue as the
> > reports are actually all run on the reporting server and the .NET
> > application would then at most be just a tie from the app to the
reporting
> > system. Can anyone verify that, if we're not getting too far OT?
> >
> > "Chris Capel" <aoeu@nothing.com> wrote in message
> > news:ei9Hr2F4DHA.1816@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> >
> > >
> > > Another problem we have with it is that you have to install the files
on
> > the
> > > client machine to use them, as opposed to System.* assemblies, which
can
> > be
> > > downloaded and used at runtime. To really be able to do no-touch
> > deployment,
> > > you can't use Crystal Reports for .NET.
> > >
> > > Chris Capel
> >
> >
>
>