This is the traditional reporting tool that is used in many financial organizations. I have used SAP Crystal Reports 12 in my organization. We can design highly formatted reports using this tool. It can connect to multiple data sources such as ODBC, OLE DB etc. We can create reports with different formats such as pdf, csv, txt, xls, etc. We can also create html, xml reports. The price of this tool is also cheap. We can create detailed graphics, instrument panels.

There are some written exercises based on SAP Crystal Report that facilitate learning. the integration with the different IDE of development are optimized. it is compatible with the most popular database administrators, MYSQL, SQLSERVER, POSTGRESQL. and more... The designer of Crystal is fantastic, drag and drop add-ons to create your report.

I had a lot of problems and spent a lot of time trying to adjust the space between the rows. I hope that in the future, SAP Crytal Report will make it easier. should block the sizes of pre-established and blocked sheets to avoid leaving the margins.

Overall, this is complete and robust application that is going to be in the market for a very long time because of the value it brings to the table.

- My Journey in SAP Crystal Reports started when my career in SAP also started. It has been a crawl, to a walk kind of journey where initially, I could only do some basic things in Crystal Reports but now I can do some pretty amazing staff with the application like Drill downs, create layouts from scratch, reports with sub reports,charting, report optimization etc.- SAP Crystal report is a very important tool in the SAP ecosystem and very crucial to a successful career in SAP. You literally cannot call yourself a senior SAP Consultant if you have not attained a certain level of expertise in Crystal reports. - With SAP Crystal reports you can create interactive reports from various data sources both SAP and Non- SAP data sources which can be customized to the very specific client needs.- It goes without saying that SAP Crystal Reports integrates seamlessly with applications in the SAP Ecosytem. - One of the most awesome things about SAP Crystal Reports is the fact that reports and layouts can be exported and shared in various formats including excel, pdf, and more.

- There is definitely a learning curve involved in crystal reports. If you want to be able to do respectable things in Crystal reports, then you might want to invest in acquiring the knowledge. For example, I have had to buy like 2 courses from Udemy on the same. The courses have been a huge help. I wouldn't be where I am today without the courses.

Overall, I've had a fine experience with Crystal. It is somewhat antiquated when it comes to visual BI, but its great for printing - which so many customers still demand.

The finance teams I've worked with over the years rely heavy on Crystal. It provides them everything they need. It is also great for quick/dirty ad hoc reporting. When someone needs an answer, Crystal is helpful in delivering results quickly. It also provides great pixel-perfect printing (which many competitors do not).

Crystal has its place in the business intelligence world, but tools like Power BI and Tableau are much more teachable and much more visually compelling.

I use Crystal Reports a ton. I have tons of reports scheduled to provide end users with statistics and patient data. It makes everyone's jobs easier.

Crystal Reports lets you create custom reports that allows you to extract data that you need. It is a great tool to drill down to a certain level when you have a large pool of data. I love the fact that you can schedule Crystal Reports through BI, and have them emailed or saved to a network folder.

It isn't always intuitive. Creating formulas can be tricky and some of the functions and operators don't work as you would logically expect them to. Creating a report can be very time consuming.

Best class application to build reports , easy and with great features , One of my best development tool

Lots of features , using it from years and made 500+ reports , simple loving it Can connect many different databases and support connection providers supports sub reports , drill down reports and Hyperlink Conditional formatting and Reports wizards It's fast and never hangs Good support even with integration with Microsoft tools used for creating dashboard , charts

I think it needs some kind of subscription features like SSRS It's little time consuming to format and align tables ,texts ,lines

Good - very minimal issues. Mainly reaching out for help with complex formulas.

Ease of use - ability to link up multiple data sources. Customizations are user friendly and quick to learn.

SAP Crystal Reports fulfils all the aspects we needed for our custom database reports.

I am the administrator of our ERP system which supports Crystal Reports. I use it primarily for modifying reports and creating labels. Most of my learning has been self taught. It's very easy to use and has great resources.

The only issues I have had is trying to figure out which barcode fonts I need to use. Once I figure it out though it's very easy.

This is the traditional reporting tool that is used in many financial organisations.I have used SAP Crystal Reports 10 in my organisation. We can design highly formatted reports using this tool.It can connect to multiple datasources like ODBC,OLE DB etc.we can create Reports with different formats like pdf,csv,txt,xls etc. we can also create html,xml reports. The price of this tool is also inexpensive. We can create detailed graphs,dashboards.

more features can be added in it to make the reports more attractive. Customer support is not that good.you have to be good in report designing and know sql to work on crystal reports.

Crystal reports are a great way to see your data in many different ways. Customization is fairly easy with some training.

We have always had an issue with our reports reconciling to our system. They take some training to get them set up correctly.

The Crystal is used in my laboratory to generate the calibration certificates that are delivered to the clients with each team. It allows a great configuration both of appearance and of manupulation and access to databases where all the data is saved. It is really a useful and powerful tool and that can be used with little training, reading the manuals of the software.

The software allows you to do many things as you know more about SQL and the like. It is necessary to learn a little about the operation of the DBs to squeeze the potential of the Crystal

The most difficult problem to overcome is the necessity to be logged into the database in order to run a report.

Our industry based software comes with a limited scope of canned reports and Crystal has proven to be a great supplemental reporting program. When our software falls shorts, Crystal offers many solutions. Upper level management, executives, and owning partners love how they can drill down into the finite details the Crystal reports can be built to display. And our data analysts use very detailed reports with minimal formatting exported as excel documents to create a plethora of pivot tables and other analytics including profit margin information and auditing information. I also like that the formulas are more similar to excel then other reporting syntax I have used.

Anyone who has built a Crystal report from scratch can tell you it can be difficult to link tables and other data source issues can cause major problems with the information. Some of this difficulty comes the complexity associated with the software tables linked to the crystal report data source of course... but I do not think the average user can pick up the syntax very easily. And I have found that advanced formatting and cascading parameters can be a major headache.

I like that crystal report is able to customize the different reports we generate daily and multiple users can view them. Also, I like that it allows for multiple users to feed and draw data from these reports. I like that its all centralized in one place with the flexibility of expanding or changing if need be. I am impresses with how data can be formatted with the various options and once you are trained it actually easy to use.

I like that crystal report is able to customize the different reports we generate daily and multiple users can view them. Also, I like that it allows for multiple users to feed and draw data from these reports. I like that its all centralized in one place with the flexibility of expanding or changing if need be. I am impresses with how data can be formatted with the various options and once you are trained it actually easy to use.

This tool takes time to become acquainted with, fortunate for us some of our guys were already familiar with the tool and was willing to train the other team members. The upside to this tool is once you are trained it is a good tool to use.

I work with this software every day and personally I think it's a perfect mix between the world of programming and design. It allows us to give a personal touch to everything we do. Perfecting as time goes on. It's how to ride a bike. It makes connections to multiple databases and is very accessible. Very good indeed.

SAP Crystal Reports is one of the tools I most enjoy working with. Sincerely. It's linked to SQL - we can get our signature on a report that looks vulgar - through code. We were able to do 1001 things, and really have a style. It is an art, combined with the fact that it is programming. It is fabulous. I really love working with Crystal - it's my weakness of how good it is.

Like any software, if the code is too heavy, or if it is a very complex procedure, crashes a little. But nothing special. Tolerable and irrelevant in the case.

We currently are using the 8.5 version. We are able to use it for almost anything that we can possibly think of with our Oracle software. There isn't too much that we aren't able to filter, twist, and turn to create some sort of report that we are needing. It might take a few minutes to figure out the best way, but we eventually get to something.

The biggest con that I've come across is the exporting of the data into any Excel format. It seems to not carry over the same formats that we've already set in Crystal Reports. Smaller cons are things like maybe being able to filter the same data selection in more than one way or maybe also offering a "Contains" option.

Crystal Reports is a key software for our business. We use it daily to streamline data gathering in order to make sound business decisions and plan effectively.

The best thing about the software is the variety that it offers in terms of report writing. You can link many different databases together and pull them all into one report.

The software is fairly complex and could be a bit more intuitive. I am using an older version, so it is possible that the new versions are better. The software is quite costly.

Crystal Reports is built into a custom program that we use everyday. Our business couldn't function without it. It generates reports from very large databases and allows for great customization of those reports. We did have some issues after upgrading to Windows 10, but those have all been resolved.

What I like most about this software is it's seamless integration with our own program and the flexibility it offers us. We are on the cutting edge of our industry and I don't think that would be possible without this software.

No cons

Crystal Reports has become our essential tool for the day to day business life. It is compatible with many databases.

Fully customizable Report tool suits for the entire company. Even without an expert in programing Crystal Report can be used to deliver decision-making reports. Very easy configuration with MS SQL, MS Access, and much more other databases.

Could not notice any big cons up to now.

We came from doing things using an excel-and-quickbooks-based homebrew system to Sage 300 and Crystal Reports. Using Crystal Reports saved us days or weeks of time last year generating financial reports and architectural transmittals. + Extremely Versatile + Can be used to bend commercial software to individualized needs

- Report designer is not intuitive, but this is common for powerful and customizable software! - Testing reports with Sage 300 specifically can be a bit of a pain as you need to re-enter parameters repeatedly.

I have used SAP for a little over a year and though it has its cons I’m satisfied with its offerings. It really helps with keeping track of reports and that does it for me.

Let me first mention the design of this program, it is really nice. I love that files can be dragged and dropped, which makes it easy to maneuver. I also love that is is a good collaboration tool and works well with some other softwares like Excel, Access among others. It is fully customizable and I love that.

There are still some functions that need improvement. Some of the graphs have some limitations like changing marker sizes or formatting numbers on axis.

Outstanding invoices and payment receipts.

Love the ability to create forms like invoices, statements, receipts, etc. You can add images to the reports. Easy to suppress sections depending on page.

The software doesn't allow for really complex business rules. To get great reports, you need to setup views in your database instead of doing it within the reporting tool. It doesn't always easily swap from production to test databases. Often times, I have to go back in and remap the tables or views manually. Thank goodness for the "View SQL" option, where you can see what database it is using for each table/view. When they are out of sync, it's a long, manual process to fix.

There's a lot to like about Crystal Reports, I don't think anything else out there has the flexibility and versatility in terms of data display and formatting. Its strength is paper formatting, it's like desktop publishing software for databases.

There are some weaknesses, export to Excel has never been perfect (although it can get pretty close if you use vertical guides to identify where columns should go). It is so paper-oriented that if you need to make a large layout you have to find a matching paper size -- challenging if you don't have a large-format printer. And the expense of course, not for the Crystal software, but the enterprise server so that others may view and run the reports. Very spendy.

Fully customizable reports that can be exported in a very large variety of formats. In depth formula editor allowing for endless possibilities.

No built in scheduler. Reports need to be ran manually unless you purchase a different application.

I used this software during my previous work experience. Among the different reporstica tool I used I believe that Crystal Reports is one of the best in terms of usability. The things I appreciate most of this software is the dynamic division of sections into groups and subgroups, the ability to easily modify the report output even from the view in the preview tab, and editable grid.

Incorporating some reports in web pages I had some problems like misalignment etc. The designer should be a bit 'improved in terms of appearance and functionality, also the graphs should be more attractive.

If I need dynamic, impressive reports, SAP crystal reports is very flexible and offers many solutions to various requirements

1. Depending on the report requirements, Crystal reports has great capabilities to allow you to create all kinds of reports. You can place images, forms etc using OLE. 2. It allows a user to define multiple data sources, making it flexible when transferring to different platforms. 3. It allows a user to conditionally suppress sections within the report which enables certain parameters to be checked in certain sections of the report. 4. It enables the drill-down feature which allows the final user of the report to drill down further within a report to view more specific details. 5. It can do complex queries and allows a user to incorporate SQL statements in a flexible manner. 6. A user can create sub-reports, group selections and easily format various sections of the report in order to achieve different requirements. 7. It allows format parameters to be used easily and flexibly e.g. one item on the report can be bolded and displayed in italics due to specified parameters. 8. Supports different types of data sources e.g. HANA, MS SQL, Excel etc

1. For a new user, it might be challenging to create new reports and one might not fully utilize most of the features. 2. Graphical features such as charts are not as enhanced as in other reporting tools. 3. Development of complex reports might take a bit of time depending on the user's experience level 4. When you export a report created with crystal reports to excel, there is a lot of distortion depending on the excel format. It will take a lot of trial and error and eventually, the data on the report is hard to edit on excel. 5. It might crash often after a software update.

Learning Crystal Reports is only part of the educational process for learning Business Intelligence Reporting. You need to have the fundamental ability to become familiar with how a business operates, how it uses information. You need to be able to translate a company's requirements for managing and and acting on information to the technical organization and structure of its data systems. To be a successful report developer you need to be able to speak both languages. There are some great resources out there for Crystal Reports professionals, such my own Crystal Reports group on LinkedIn, where developers meet and share ideas as well as where employers and recruiters come to find them. There is also the Crystal Reports Users Group Crystal Users group, both hosted by Yahoo Groups, which have been serving and supporting Crystal Reports professionals for over a decade. Plus many web sites, online tutorials, video tutorials, skills training and more. Just don't forget that there are two sides to Business Intelligence Reporting - and Crystal Reports is only one of them. Crystal Reports is a highly featured and flexible business intelligence tool that has been around for over 2 decades. It is database independent, meaning you can develop reports against just about any database or structured file format, from Microsoft SQL and Oracle, to flat file to text file to spreadsheets to anything for which you can access via ODBC, DAO, XML, OLE DB, JDBC and many more protocols. Crystal Reports integrates seamlessly into SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise products as well as other SAP data management products. Reports can link tables internally within the design template, or developers can build their own external SQL Queries, views, stored procedures or universes and build their reports off those data sources. Crystal also allows developers to script their custom own SQL-based query in the Database Editor. And if your data source changes, Crystal provides tools for mapping your existing report over to the new similarly structured data source. Record selection formulas can help filter out unwanted data to improve the efficiency of report performance. Crystal Reports has a highly flexible report design editor that features multi-pass linear data processing, allowing analysis to be performed while reading records as while printing records. Data may be grouped or sorted based on raw data or on formulas that can analyze and manipulate record data for customized processing. Crystal Reports allows developers to create virtually any kind of data-based report, from tabular column listings to data-driven letters to charts, cross-tabs, free-form and (pre-printed) form-fitting solutions. Extensive summary functions, running totals, and a rich formula programming language (Crystal also supports Basic syntax) provide unlimited opportunity to manage and manipulate raw data for analysis and presentation to the customer, be it a management report, operations report or customer-facing report. With sub-reports, it is possible to link together tangentially Connected Data sources, expanding the opportunities of publishing relevant information onto a single page or report. Individually formattable multi-section detail, page and group headers and footer sections allow the developer to play with suppression, paging and other formatting options and formulas. Crystal Reports is a WSIWYG design tool, allowing you to see what you are doing as you do it. Whether you use the the grid or guidelines with the Design Tool, or the size and alignment tools with the Preview Tool, Crystal lets you create the report as you want to see it. You can integrate external images, files, or even BI products, such as Crystal Dashboards (Xelcius). Through the use of parameters, reports can be designed to include user input in the record selection, formatting and operation of the report. Reports can be generated for printing, export to Adobe Acrobat, to Microsoft Excel or many other formats. Crystal can also be easily linked into 3rd party applications through XML, Java, Visual Studio or other APIs. Crystal Reports can also be easily delivered through the Crystal Reports Server or the Business Objects Enterprise Server, providing a hosting platform for both scheduled automation and on-demand report generation.

For someone experienced in business intelligence, databases or programming, Crystal Reports is relatively intuitive, though it will take time and experience to learn how to fully leverage every feature. There are included tutorials that teach the basics, but real world situations often defy the simplicity of the provided solutions. There are plenty of third-party resources from Yahoo and LinkedIn groups to user support web sites and video, instructional and printed training materials. Crystal is not something that the home user can jump into. The license is relatively expensive and does not include a database server, database or other data source. Licensing for enterprise environments can get pricey quickly. While many employers hire report developers directly, there is a large community of professional report developers who work contracts, either independently or through contract employment agencies. In most cases, the employer provides the licensed Crystal Reports tool, but if a company has only infrequent report development needs, they may expect the consultant to provide their own copy of the software. SAP is really not set up for supporting the individual, however, preferring to engage the company in business-licensed products. Crystal Reports has incredible flexibility but their are limitations, mostly in formatting. Working with lines and boxes is not as flexible as, say, Microsoft Word. Charts and graphs have many features and options but they can be difficult to try and force your data to conform to the usage requirements. Graphics cannot be edited in-template, and some image formats are not supported (though you can easily convert an image to a supported format). The design tool can have issues with orphaned text at the bottom or the top of a page. While you can include comments in formulas, there is no ability to provide comments to the actual data, static, calculated value or other objects within the report design. Rules applied to the selection and manipulation of data can have unexpected results, leading to manual troubleshooting of report design and database queries. Like any piece of template design software, there are bound to be situations where you want to do something a certain way that is not supported by Crystal Reports, which can lead to frustration. But there are usually ways to think outside of the box to accomplish what you want. Crystal Reports is getting a little long in the tooth. While still one of the worlds' most popular reporting tools, It hasn't received a major update in many years, while Microsoft's SQL Server Reporting Services as well as open-source and other business intelligence competition products have grown in popularity, and it shows. The user interface and feature set hasn't significantly changed in quite a while. Of course, it was already pretty rich and complete, but it lacks the feel and finish of many current generation software products. There is also no version available for the Apple Mac, which means no support for iOS devices. Some feel that SAP doesn't see the Crystal product line as the best place for its R&D investments, pushing more data analytic based products such as Web Intelligence. I think there is room and demand for both and wish SAP would wow me with an upgrade that would transform Crystal Reports into a new generation of business intelligence reporting that sets the bar for everyone else.