Crystal Reports is a business intelligence application used to design and generate reports from a wide range of data sources. Several other applications, such as Microsoft Visual Studio, bundle an OEM version of Crystal Reports as a general purpose reporting tool. Crystal Reports became the de facto standard report writer when Microsoft released it with Visual Basic.
History
The product was originally created by Crystal Services Inc. as Quik Reports when they couldn't find a suitable commercial report writer for their accounting software. After producing versions 1.0 through 3.0, the company was acquired in 1994 by Seagate Technology. Crystal Services renamed itself to Seagate Software, and later Crystal Decisions, and produced versions 4.0 through 9.0. Crystal Decisions was acquired in December 2003 by Business Objects, which has so far produced versions 10, 11 (XI) and the current version 12 (2008). Business Objects was acquired by SAP on October 8 , 2007 .
Features
Report designer
Crystal Reports allows users to graphically design data connections and report layout. In the Database Expert, users can select and link tables from a wide variety of data sources, including Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, Oracle databases, Business Objects Enterprise business views, and local file system information. Fields from these tables can be placed on the report design surface, and can also be used in custom formulas, using either BASIC or Crystal's own syntax, which are then placed on the design surface.
Both fields and formulae have a wide array of formatting options available, which can be applied absolutely or conditionally. The data can be grouped into bands, each of which can be split further and conditionally suppressed as needed. Crystal Reports also supports subreports, graphing, and a limited amount of GIS functionality.
Supported data sources
Accessible data sources include the following:
- Databases such as Sybase, IBM DB2, Ingres, Microsoft Access, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, Interbase and Oracle
- Btrieve
- Spreadsheets such as Microsoft Excel
- Text files
- HTML XML files
- Groupware applications as Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise
- SAP: BW, Info Sets, Tables, and Business Objects Universes
- Any other data source accessible through a web service, ODBC, JDBC or OLAP.
Development
Crystal Reports comes integrated with Visual Studio. Crystal Reports allows Java developers to build applications with Crystal Reports components.
See also
- Business Software Solutions Applications and Services
- Business Objects
- Seagate Software
- Crystal Analysis
- Crystal Decisions
- Crystal Enterprise
References
- ^ Peck, George (2008). Crystal Reports 2008: The Complete Reference . McGraw-Hill Professional. p. 566. ISBN 9780071590983 . http://books.google.com/books?id=WJimSiFQII0C . Retrieved 2009-07-09 . "Not only was Crystal Reports bundled with earlier versions of Visual Basic..., but every Professional or higher version of VS.NET, up to and including Visual Studio 2008, includes an option to install Crystal Reports as well...."
- ^ "Crystal Reports links dBASE and Paradox data". Data Based Advisor . September 01, 1992 . http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-9259653_ITM . Retrieved 2009-07-09 .
- ^ "Seagate to acquire Crystal Services". San Jose Mercury News. 1994-05-11 . http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_text_direct-0=0EB71CFF568507EE&p_field_direct-0=document_id . Retrieved 2009-04-14 .
- ^ "Crystal Decisions Repay Investors' Faith". CBR. 2001-09-01 . http://www.cbronline.com/article_cbr.asp?guid=E7019550-F89C-4BC2-B40D-2BEECAC04A94 . Retrieved 2009-04-14 .
Bibliography
- G. Taylor, Allen (June 3, 2008), Crystal Reports 2008 For Dummies (1st ed.), For Dummies, pp. 396, ISBN 0470290773 , http://www.dummies.com/store/product/Crystal-Reports-2008-For-Dummies.productCd-0470290773.html
- Peck, George (June 19, 2008), Crystal Reports 2008: The Complete Reference (1st ed.), McGraw-Hill Osborne Media, pp. 968, ISBN 0071590986 , http://www.crystalbook.com/crtcr/program/book/intro_2008.asp
External links
- Crystal Reports official site
- Crystal Reports official community site
- C# Crystal Reports Tutorial
- Reviews:
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