SAP Business One and Crystal Reports

At the recommendation of SAP we changed from PLD to ALD.

After this XL-Reporter - XLR - was the recommendated report generator (with many complications during the installation process, many restrictions in the definition of reports, bad manuals and SAP workshop in which only the most simpled cases could be explaned and no answers could be given to more sophisticated problems - as we found).

SAP even announced to provide XLR a pre-installed component in SAP2007.

Currently we can't even get any senseful answers on basic questions sent to SAP support. It seems that SAP is not longer interested in XLR.

*Now everybody at SAP announces Crystal Reports as the prefered report generator.

And which product is announced next at SAP?*

I don't want to critize Crystal Reports - I have no own experiences but always heard about good ratings. But as Crystal Reports is a separate product outside of SAP B1 I expect problems in the cooperation of Crytal Reports and SAP B1.

It seems to be clear that there are business political reasons when SAP announces a new product. After SAP had bought this little israely company producing XLR it was XLR that SAP announced. Now after SAP has bought Business Objects (they also sold Crystal Reports) it is now Crystal Reports that SAP announces. For us this means that SAP announces new addons and products not in the interest of the user/programmer to provide the best to use product but only in the interest of SAP making the best business with lowest possible efforts!

SAP is such a large company - it should had been able to establish its own software development department to develop an excellent report generator.

After our own experiences with XLR we'll never start a new customer project based on XLR.

Our favorite software is currently the SwissAddon-Framework of Coresuite.

There we have an excellent report generator (Coresuite Designer) we use for complex reports that we can't achieve with the SAP report generator based on SQL-queries and for the print out of documents.

Furthermore we use the Coresuite Optimizer, where we can, among many other things, establish 'rules' (coded in SQL, C#, VB or Regular Expressions) linked to different forms in SAP which can handle much more complex processes than we could do only by the use of UDF and formatted searches. Actually we could realize a customer project which had not been possible using the standard functionality provided by SAP and without the much more complex to use SDK (we were able to realize a rental-system beside the standard functionality of SAP being an ERP-System mainly).

OK, currently we see no reason to change from Coresuite. But of course, being an inquisitive programmer, I'll have a look at Crystal Reports when there is enough time to do it.

Frank Romeni

This is very welcome news as I know firsthand how frustrating using XLR to create more complex reports can be. Can someone please comment on a couple general questions? Thanks a lot.

1. We are currently running 2005A SP:01 PL 31- any problems with compatibility? Should we consider upgrading to 2007 first?

2. We recently purchased (but have yet to install) Crystal Reports 11. As far as use with B1 and the CR Integration add-on, would you reccommend exchanging for CR 2008?

We have several reports developed with CR 2008, using user defined tables in B1. The reports run fine under CR 2008, but under the CR Integration with B1, I get a connection error. I have a valid ODBC connection for my B1 database, which CR 2008 is using. The report seems to load ok under B1, as it asks for parameters, but after parameters are entered, I get a 'Failed to open the connection' message box.

Hi

I try install the Addon "Crystal Reports Integration for SAP Business One" but when it started a message error is show:

"QI for IEnumVARIANT failed on the unmanaged server"

anybody can help me?

SAP B1 2005B PL 40

Where can I download the patch?

If we've designed a report that worked for one company DB, do we need to create another report (same layout) if we want to use this report for another company DB on another SQL server?

Hi all,

I'm not able to install .NET framework 3.5 on my SAP personal computer because I've this system error:

SYMPTOMS

When you try to install a hotfix on a Windows Vista-based computer in a domain, you may receive the following error message:

Windows Update Standalone Installer

Installer encountered an error: 0x8007177f

This machine is disabled for file encryption.

CAUSE

This problem occurs because you cannot encrypt files by using Encrypting File System (EFS). You cannot encrypt files by using EFS because a Group Policy setting is applied to the computer. The Group Policy setting prevents the computer in the domain from encrypting files by using EFS.

So, how we can install the .NET framework 3.5 on PC with Vista operating system ?

Thanks,

Massimo Sala - Italy LPE

Hi,

I followed your (excellent) installation demo to the letter including .NET.

The add-on has installed correctly, I can add.rpt files to the different menu areas.

But.. when I click to preview a report, I get the error message "Failed to open the connection" (twice) and then

"Reportname {6B382EA6-982F-4E10-97CC-FE525B0E418C}.rpt"

The reports can be view using Crystal Reports 2008 no problem.

Look forward to your help.

Hi,

I get an error msg when I register CR add-on. The msg is "Wrong digital signature for Add-On installer".

I've followed all instruction in Crystal Reports Integration for SAP Business One Installation Files.

Please help thank you in advance

Dody