Comparing Crystal Reports for Enterprise 4.2 vs. Crystal Reports 2016?

[dallas_marks]

What is the feature gap between Crystal Reports for Enterprise 4.2 and Crystal Reports 2016? In other words, what features will prevent a Crystal Reports 2011/2013 report from being converted to CR4E after a BI 4.2 upgrade.

Also, I'm having difficulty getting customers interested in Crystal Reports for Enterprise. What are the benefits to using it over CR20xx?

[former_member245746 · Accepted solution]

There are some new features in CR4E:

1，Redesigned user interface allows for easier report creation

2，Improved semantic layer support. With CR4E you can create reports against the BI 4.x common semantic layer(UNX).

3,  Direction connection from CR4E to a SAP BEx query using SAP BICS connectivity.

4,  Native 64-bit processing servers in BI 4.x are supported.

5,  All text-based elements are translatable, and all translations can be managed and scheduled at the platform level with the Translation Management tool.

6,  Users can self-manage alert subscriptions; the BI platform alerting framework can make use of alerts created in SAP CR4E.

7, New chart supported: Tag Cloud, Box Plot, Tree Map, Waterfall chart.

More detailed comparison can refer to:http://www.sap.com/bin/sapcom/en_us/downloadasset.2009-01-jan-20-08.comparison-of-features-by-versio...

If customer wants to move to CR4E, the way to migrate a report is: open the CR Classsic report with CR4E, change the data source(UNX or BICS) and save to the new format, the customer needs to migrate the reports one by one.

Most of the CR Classic customers are using direct data access, and there are still some functions not available in CR4E, so some customers prefer to still use CR Classic.

[former_member183781 · Accepted solution]

"Redesigned user interface allows for easier report creation" is not entirely true.

Redesigned UX in CR4E allows for easier creation of BASIC reports, but the CR4E user interface actually makes the creation of COMPLEX reports much more difficult.

[former_member245746 · Accepted solution]

Thanks a lot for your feedback, we are planning to review full UI implemented today and make it user friendly.

[former_member183781 · Accepted solution]

If there is a SAP "Customer Connection" or "Customer Engagement Initiative" program planned around the UX gaps is CR4E, you should be re-starting the ASUG Influence Council for Crystal Reports.

Lots of good "Real World" Feedback through that Channel.

Thanks...!

[former_member245746 · Accepted solution]

Thanks a lot for your suggestion, it's very helpful. Crystal Report team will discuss this and make a plan for UI improvement, "Real World" feedback will be very helpful.

[former_member183781]

Totally agree with Dell's comments above...I was part of the 4.2 BETA in September, but not taking part in the "Ramp Up" - so I can't comment on anything that has changed since then.

In general, if you are NOT using BEx queries, HANA or .UNX universe as a Data-Source, there is no reason to use CR4E.

If you are using Relational DB as your Data-Source, or you intend to use Custom Crystal Reports (via ABAP List Views) in SAP ECC - then you should stay on the CR-2013/16 code-base.

There are still a lot of Functional Design tools in CR-2013/16 that have not been included in CR4E yet.

For Example - https://ideas.sap.com/D30934

[DellSC]

As a long time Crystal user (19+ years), the only benefits that I can see for CR4E are:

1. You can connect it to data using a .UNX universe.

2. It has been optimized for working with BEx queries and HANA.

3. When reports are run inside BusinessObjects or Crystal Reports Server, they run in 64-bit mode and can consume 64-bit data connections (the design tool is 32-bit, though...)

However, you must have either BusinessObjects or Crystal Reports Server to use it.  Also, some of the formatting options that you have in what I call "classic" Crystal are not available, you can't use arrow keys to move objects, etc.

I know there are people who like it, but, personally, I avoid it when I can.

-Dell