Gil,
I was hired by our company (initially) to soley do report writing. You definitely need a working knowledge of RB. But as Wendy mentioned, as soon as I discovered the user-friendliness off Crystal I have primarily stuck with that - even for the most simple reports. The main reason we use RB is for reports that have to parse thousands and thousands of records (ie. like the LaborDtl table, or the PartTran table). RB is much quicker for things like that.
With that one exception, I would say that Crystal exceeds RB both in ease of use and in its power to put data where you need it. After all, it was designed by Seagate to do JUST that (and for millions of customers, I presume). You can also use Crystal to report off of Excel spreadsheets, Access databases, and hundreds of other sources (including Outlook, text files, etc.)
Report distribution is also an important issue with reports. I find the interface for RB into Vantage (Custom Report Links) and also with the Report Builder tool to be very cumbersome for users. With Crystal we use the Web Component interface. This allows all our Crystal reports to be organinzed into directories on one PC (a NT 4.0 workstation), while the end-user is able to view the report in their Internet Explorer browser. From there, the user can export the report to PDF, EXCEL, WORD, etc. They can resize by %, freeze frames, print, search, view a tree view of the data. Modifying the report requires no additional maintenance. If I create a new report, I email the user the report link, which they then click on in the email and it opens in their browser automatically. They can then save it to their "favorites" if desired and keep track of their own reports. There is also a feature whereby a user can browse all of the reports to find one that they need. (This can be turned off as well if security deems it necessary).
My Advice: Learn both tools, but learn Crystal well. You are going to need it!
Troy Funte
Liberty Electronics
I was hired by our company (initially) to soley do report writing. You definitely need a working knowledge of RB. But as Wendy mentioned, as soon as I discovered the user-friendliness off Crystal I have primarily stuck with that - even for the most simple reports. The main reason we use RB is for reports that have to parse thousands and thousands of records (ie. like the LaborDtl table, or the PartTran table). RB is much quicker for things like that.
With that one exception, I would say that Crystal exceeds RB both in ease of use and in its power to put data where you need it. After all, it was designed by Seagate to do JUST that (and for millions of customers, I presume). You can also use Crystal to report off of Excel spreadsheets, Access databases, and hundreds of other sources (including Outlook, text files, etc.)
Report distribution is also an important issue with reports. I find the interface for RB into Vantage (Custom Report Links) and also with the Report Builder tool to be very cumbersome for users. With Crystal we use the Web Component interface. This allows all our Crystal reports to be organinzed into directories on one PC (a NT 4.0 workstation), while the end-user is able to view the report in their Internet Explorer browser. From there, the user can export the report to PDF, EXCEL, WORD, etc. They can resize by %, freeze frames, print, search, view a tree view of the data. Modifying the report requires no additional maintenance. If I create a new report, I email the user the report link, which they then click on in the email and it opens in their browser automatically. They can then save it to their "favorites" if desired and keep track of their own reports. There is also a feature whereby a user can browse all of the reports to find one that they need. (This can be turned off as well if security deems it necessary).
My Advice: Learn both tools, but learn Crystal well. You are going to need it!
Troy Funte
Liberty Electronics
----- Original Message -----
From: Gil Amilbangsa
To: Vantage Users Group (E-mail)
Sent: Wednesday, October 09, 2002 7:06 PM
Subject: [Vantage] REPORT BUILDER & CRYSTAL REPORTS
Hi All,
We're in the implementation phase of Vantage 5.20. Initially we intend to use it out of the box with little or no modification of the stock standard forms, reports, etc. However, we recognize that somewhere down the track, we may need to extensively modify forms and reports and create new ones. By the volume of email in this group that relates to reports and forms, it appears that is inevitable.
We'd like to get some basic idea of when Report Builder should be used and when Crystal Reports should be used. Any opinion is welcome. Pls respond off-line if you prefer.
Thanks,
Gil Amilbangsa
Australian Healthcare Equipment
gil.amilbangsa@...
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