Crystal Report Viewer Review

When upgrading my clients to Expandable 8.1.2 (and beyond), I often run into a mixed deployment of Crystal 8.5, Compiled Crystal 8.5 (Viewer7), and Crystal 10 reports. The result is many conflicts, and licensing is tedious to manage and remain compliant.

In this article, I’ve assembled some important facts about Crystal and the functionality between the various versions. I’ve also researched and reviewed six Crystal Reports Viewers that you may want to consider deploying at your installation.

1. You cannot compile reports higher than Crystal 8.5.
2. You cannot view Crystal 10 reports saved in “Crystal” format without Crystal 10 installed.
3. With the report manager tool, you can embed reports within Expandable.  These can be run by anyone with a login to ESI and permissions for the report. This option is not cost effective for users outside of ESI like Sales, Inside Sales, & Marketing.
4. If you do not convert all of your reports to Crystal 10, you must manage and segregate the different versions of the reports. It’s conceivable that you have a compiled version of a report, an uncompiled version and the exact same report upgraded and embedded into Expandable.  A single report change requires replicating the change to all reports.
5. The cost for the standard version of Crystal reports is $174 (good for viewing and creating reports).  Profession version is $450 (more extensive database capabilities).  Developer edition is $579 and allows for VB programming.  Even the cheapest is too expensive for just viewing reports.
6. Your company may not have the resources to create your own viewer.

Looking for alternatives, I checked many Crystal user websites.  There are many great sites with good information. My goals for a Crystal report viewer: 

1. Simple and easy to use.
2. Inexpensive
3. Allow running reports (up to Crystal XI)
4. Allow viewing reports saved in Crystal format.
5. Eliminate need for Crystal Compiler
6. Trial version available

With these goals in mind, I researched and reviewed six Crystal Report Viewers. I eliminated one quickly, when I found it only supported up to Crystal 9.  The website may be incorrect or the product was not updated. In either case, I did not want to look closer. 

The five remaining were diverse in terms of licensing costs (A free Adware supported version, Single user $25 to $50, 100 users for $3000 + maintenance) and features (Report scheduler, Batch processing, Shredder, Export and printing options, etc…). All of them met my goals. “Simple” and “Easy to Use” are subjective in nature.  While I want my report writer to have every option and feature, I want the viewer with few options (non-geeky) for the user and allows for “Set it and forget it” configuration.

 Conclusion:

There were no “Losers” but I had my favorite. Mind Connection’s “cView” product ranked highest. It has a very simple interface and I was impressed with Support.  I had emailed them late Friday night to request a Trial License extension.  My trial license expired and I wanted  to include screenshots in this review.  I quickly received a response telling me it was Saturday in New Zealand and I should hear from them by Monday.  But, within an hour I had received the license extension. This was very rapid response for a Trial License.

 Rollout Plan: 

1. Further testing or pilot users review (if required)
2. Purchase licenses & maintenance.
3. Identify users for Viewer
4. Identify users for Crystal 8.5 (compare to licenses)
5. Identify users for Crystal 10 (compare to licenses)
6. Install viewers.

 …wc

 EasyStreetSoftware, Crystal Report Viewer 

Jeff-Net, Report Runner Viewer 

Report output:

Free Ad Supported version:

Both program screen and report output show ads in headers.  However, printed reports do not include the advertisements.

Mind Connection, cView

All .rpt files become associated with the hairy eyeball icon.  Some users find it creepy…

Surfing Gecko Software, Crystal Ease

Toolbar Option setup:

Report output sample:

Browse for reports window:

Report Shredder option

Tatum Consulting, CRW Reporting 

Help File