Options for using CR 8.5

[mmemon]

Hello,

I have Crystal Reports 8.5 developer edition along with the enterprise server. I have many reports that I publish for the staff to access view eportfolio. This is the only way I have done this for our users.

We have a new application being built in VB.net. In this application. Here is what they want:

1) A user will enter the app, press a button for a report to be generated in read-only format and placed in a directory on the server.
2) This report will then be picked up my other employees via HTTP from other company sites via url that has a query parameter in it that would be passed to the crystal report.
3) Report will be displayed to the user.

First all, I heard that you need version to be able to embed into Vb.net if that is what I need to do to accomplish the above. However, I read that you can still use old versions of the Active X control in the Vb.net and just point the app to an external control which would be the crystal reports executable.

Anyway, what I guess I am trying to figure out is do I need to worry that I have an old version of Crystal and would I even need to add anything into the VB.net project to accomplish this. Can I build a report and have it saved as pdf and place it on the server for pickup on the outside?

I am trying to think of differrent approaches that I can handle this.

Thanks

 

[Al42]

>Can I build a report and have it saved as pdf and place it on the server for pickup on the outside?

This is where my thoughts were going before I read this line. If the report is being read in a web browser, my feeling is that it should be a pdf file. Almost anyone comfortable using a web browsert is comfortable getting a pdf file in his browser.

This is a code snippet copied from a program that creates a report as a pdf file, sends it to the user and deletes the report (pdf) file. You can use any globally unique filename you like:

Dim crReportDocument As New CrReport
Dim crExportOptions As New CrystalDecisions.Shared.ExportOptions
Dim crDiskFileDestinationOptions As New CrystalDecisions.Shared.DiskFileDestinationOptions
Dim fName As String
crReportDocument = New CrReport
fName = "C:\" & Session.SessionID.ToString & ".pdf"
crDiskFileDestinationOptions.DiskFileName = fName
crExportOptions = crReportDocument.ExportOptions
With crExportOptions
  .DestinationOptions = crDiskFileDestinationOptions
  .ExportDestinationType = CrystalDecisions.[Shared].ExportDestinationType.DiskFile
  .ExportFormatType = CrystalDecisions.[Shared].ExportFormatType.PortableDocFormat
End With
crReportDocument.SetDataSource(myDS)
[green]'Print the pdf file[/green]
crReportDocument.Export()

[green]'Send the pdf file as a HTML page[/green]
Response.ContentType = "application/pdf"
Response.AppendHeader("title", "Title of report here")
Response.WriteFile(fName)
Response.Flush()
Response.Close()

[green]'Delete the file - the user can save or print a copy[/green]
System.IO.File.Delete(fName)

There's no need to have it 'picked up'. The browser (assuming that the user has the Adobe Reader installed) will display the report as an Adobe Acrobat file. I include a 'Get Adobe Acrobat Reader' link on the page from which the user can request my report.