simple crystal reports questions

[pgstein]

Hi, I am considering purchasing the newest crystal reports XI for my company, but never using CR before I have a few questions.

I need to buy the developers edition to design my own reports, right?

After they are designed, where do the go from there? Do I have to design an application or webpage to make them viewable? or does the end-user have a CR program of their own that they use to view reports?

As you can see, I am clueless on what CR actualy does. and don't want to spend the money and realize its not what I want.
Thanks,
Paul

 

[Madawc]

Crystal is a very neat software tool. A reporting tool that allows you to produce neat-looking reports very quickly. It isn't a full programming language, though it does include a lot of options that you can control in a subtle way. Crystal has a 'flow', a fixed cycle that you have to slot your own code into.

Users would need their own copy of Crystal or Crystal licence before they could run the reports themselves. They can see the output: you can export reports as Excel, Word, Acrobat/PDF or HTML (web page). All of these are quite neat and usable.

Someone else will need to advise you about the difference between editions.

Madawc Williams (East Anglia, UK). Using Windows XP & Crystal 10

 

[dgillz]

You do not need the developer edition to write your own reports. ALL the editions give you this ability. The users can view the reports with a crystal report viewer -- see

http://www.milletsoftware.com.

Or youcan web enable your reports, but this requires Crystal reports server or Business Objects Enterprise -- both of which are large investments ($7500 entry level).

So to put the question back on you, what are your needs, and then we can decide what software fills the needs?

Software Sales, Training, Implementation and Support for Macola, eSynergy, and Crystal Reports

http://www.gainfocus.biz

 

[pgstein]

Thanks for your responses,
Basically, all I need is to be able to generate reports based on the information in my database such as averages per month, etc. And then whoever needs the reports can view them.

Right now we have a Visual Basic app that queries and generates some of the reports, but I figuered that Crystal Reports would be faster and easier to use.

 

[dgillz]

How many people would be designing reports?

I would but crystal reports XI professional, for the proper number of users, then buy however many viewers you need from Millet Software.

Software Sales, Training, Implementation and Support for Macola, eSynergy, and Crystal Reports

http://www.gainfocus.biz