Integrate with Blackbaud Raiser's Edge

[mthompson610]

Hello- Just found out that Blackbaud is getting rid of their Crystal Report add on. This means we can't create or change any of our dozens of reports. We need to purchase our own Crystal Reports. I downloaded a trial and it won't except my blackbaud mdb file. So what format do I use to save the export so that these work?

And 2nd question, will I still be able to run these from within Raiser's Edge by connecting to the files on my hard drive? Very frustrating that this is changing in a month and we were just notified

Thank you for you help.

[former_member1013732]

I am in the same situation and hoping there is a response soon on what format to use. We rely on several Crystal Reports that I have to move to CR2020 in less than two weeks! Help!!!!

[ido_millet · Accepted solution]

Ken Hamady has a recent blog on this: https://kenhamady.com/cru/archives/3166

[former_member1063331]

Michele - your old reports will still run and be usable in RE. No worries there. If you build anything new or want to change the architecture or a formula in an existing report you will have a problem. You also will not be able to embed any new reports into the Custom Reports area.

I'm attempting to help find a solution for everyone to view any new architecture. I am here looking for that answer as my phone call with SAP really got me nowhere. (I'll ask elsewhere)

[former_member11696]

Blackbaud was an OEM partner, they are under contract, even if expired, to continue supporting Crystal Reports. Although it could be that time has expired now also.

Ask them if they have any special DB connectivity required, other than what Dell posted above, need CR 2016 - 32 bit, to work with their DB. Sometimes OEM's used a custom database connector.

[mthompson610]

Thank you so much! This helps tremendously. Hoping this will fix my issue and I won't lose all my Crystal reports (most of which I inherited). I can make changes and update them but to rebuild them all (some are very techincal) would be a nightmare.

[DellSC]

If you downloaded a trial of Crystal 2020, then your problem is that you need the 64-bit Access data driver in order to access the database. Earlier versions of Crystal were 32-bit, but 2020 is 64-bit and it requires 64-bit data drivers.

There are some challenges with installing the 64-bit Access client side-by-side with the 32-bit Access client that you're currently using. Here are some links that walk you through the process:

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/learn-explore/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/How-to-i...

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12270453/ms-access-db-engine-32-bit-with-office-64-bit

As for your questions about being able to run your reports from within Blackbaud, you'll need to contact them to confirm as we have no way of knowing how they've implemented the Crystal SDK.

-Dell