Common Report Distribution Questions

When distributing reports with Crystal Reports, it's safe to assume that you'll be using one of a number of mechanisms, including

• A management/distribution system such as Crystal Enterprise

• A custom Web or Windows application using a Crystal Reports or Report Application Server SDK

• A compiled report

• Email or other manual distribution mechanisms

Although you can distribute reports through a thick client Windows application using the free Crystal Reports runtime libraries and components, server-based or Web-based applications might require additional licensing. Review the licensing information available on the Crystal Decisions Web site to understand how licensing might impact your applications.

One of the most interesting points to note about sharing Crystal Reports and the most common issue found across all mechanisms for sharing Crystal Reports is that the data source(s) are improperly configured most often when it involves moving a report from a developer's desktop to a report processing server. The same data source connectivity method needs to be created on the server because it is on the workstation where the report was designed.

Second only to that is the issue of conflicting .dlls, or multiple copies of Crystal Reports files on the same physical PC. This shouldn't be surprising because different versions of Crystal Reports, and its associated viewing files, are bundled in so many different third-party applications.

Crystal Enterprise

Crystal Enterprise actually handles the delivery of reports without additional effort from application developers or report administrators. This does not exclude the possibility of running into issues when viewing reports, however. If you want more detailed information on Crystal Enterprise, refer to Hour 23, "Distributing Crystal Reports." You can also find more information on Crystal Enterprise at the Crystal Decisions Web site:

http://www.crystaldecisions.com/tycr/products/crystalenterprise/

A few of the main benefits in using Crystal Enterprise to distribute and share your reports include

• Centralized management of all your organizational reports both relational and multidimensional reports

• Secure access to all corporate reports

• Zero-client Web delivery of reports

• Centralized data source connectivity mechanisms

• Reduced data access and client support issues across the organization

• Robust and scaleable Enterprise-ready architecture

The best advice we can give you if you run into report viewing errors or issues when using Crystal Enterprise to distribute your reports is to try different types of viewers to narrow down the problem. For example, if you are using the DHTML viewer in ePortfolio (one of the many Crystal Enterprise "client" applications for business users) and find some report formatting issues, try changing your preferences to the ActiveX or Java viewers.

This will give you a good indication whether the report itself is formatted incorrectly, or the report viewer you are using is the root of the issue.

Additionally, an index to any whitepapers or guides to Crystal Enterprise can be found on the Crystal Decisions Web site at

http://support.crystaldecisions.com/tycr/docs/

Custom Web or Windows Application

Regardless of the approach used to share a Crystal Report, we can make a few common assumptions about all applications: You are using SDK components of some kind, either the RDC (Report Designer Component) or RAS (Report Application Server). We also know that you need a report viewer, which comes in different "flavors" such as, but not limited to, DHTML, ActiveX, and Java.

You might even be using the Crystal Offline Viewer, which is a more robust report viewer application that must be installed on a business user's desktop PC in order to view Crystal Reports files offline. Although many organizations now prefer the use of the DHTML viewer, because it is not installed in any way on a desktop PC, viewers such as the ActiveX viewer still prove useful for many applications.

Distributed Components

One major advantage of the ActiveX viewer is that it is a "distributable" component that many Microsoft Visual Basic developers include in their applications, which enables the viewing of Crystal Reports. Other common distributable components in corporate applications include additional RCAPI (Report Creation API) files that enable not just the viewing of Crystal Reports, but the actual modification of reports as well.

Regardless of the application development environment, the Crystal Reports runtime files required for distribution with your application are dependent on the following:

• How the Crystal Reports engine is accessed

• The types of data used for the reports

• Whether or not you will export data

• Additional components such as charts, maps, formula language functions, and so on that might be used

If you've developed an application using any processing or viewing components of Crystal Reports prior to version 9, some update work will be required. Why? Because a new Print Engine is used in Crystal Reports 9, which means that older runtime components shipped in Visual Studio version 6 and earlier won't understand what to do with the report.

One of the common tasks you'll undertake is updating your application to include the newer distributed components included with Crystal Reports 9. Crystal Reports 9 includes a help file that details which files to distribute with your application. To locate this information, search the help file (Runtime.chm) for details.

Additionally, because the ActiveX viewer is the most common distributed Crystal Reports component with Windows applications, it's helpful to know a few of the most common issues that can arise with it. For detailed troubleshooting information, you can download the "Crystal_Web_Viewer_for_Actx.pdf" by searching by filename at

http://support.crystaldecisions.com/tycr/docs

As for some of the more common issues with the ActiveX viewer in applications, the two that surface the most are as follows:

• The container directory for the ActiveX viewer is incorrectly configured on the Web server for your application.

• An older version of the ActiveX viewer is already installed on the end user's desktop.

Distributed Components with Visual Studio.NET

Additionally, some of you might have questions about the version of Crystal Reports that comes with Microsoft Visual Studio.NET. The release of the Visual Studio.NET version still provides the ability to embed runtime report processing and viewing capability in a windows application the Windows Forms Viewer, for example, developed in any .NET language, such as C# or VB.NET. Refer to Appendix A, "Crystal Reports for Visual Studio.NET," for more information on, and a feature comparison of, Crystal Reports for Microsoft Visual Studio.NET.

When developing applications with VS.NET and Crystal Reports, it's important to consult Crystal Decisions to make sure that you are within the terms of the End-User License Agreement.

Compiled Reports

Compiled reports are a report distribution feature in earlier versions of Crystal Reports. It provided a way for reports to be "wrapped" inside an executable that would allow interaction with the report and not require any installed Crystal Components.

Compiled Reports are no longer considered a very efficient or robust way to distribute reports, and many Crystal Reports users find that this method doesn't work well in large deployments. The files and documentation required for compiled reports are not on the Crystal Reports CD, but you can find them on the Crystal Decisions Web site.

If your application still uses compiled reports, refer to the Crystal Reports 9 help file for information on where to download support for compiled reports.

You can also visit the Crystal Decisions Web site under the updates section:

http://support.crystaldecisions.com/tycr/updates/

Manual Report Distribution

Many applications use the RDC to create Crystal Reports automatically, such as to export the report to a specific format, Microsoft Word for example, and then email the report out to a large number of users. Although this is still a perfectly acceptable solution for report distribution, Crystal Reports 9 has additional licensing considerations for distributing reports in this manner.

Make sure to consult with Crystal Decisions for more information on licensing. Licensing issues should always be considered before developing and deploying any report distribution solution.

You might also consider using the Crystal Offline Viewer, which allows an end user to view Crystal Reports with saved data in an "offline" mode, where the end user can still perform tasks such as drilling down on charts and re-sorting data. If you are using Crystal Enterprise, you might already use this within your organization. If not, it's highly recommended as an easy-to-use offline report viewing solution.