asked on

Automation of Runnign Crystal Reports

Hey everyone..........I have a general question.

Has anyone had experience with any third party software that can be used for scheduling Crystal Reports to run and export to a pdf file.

My criteria is as follows: I will need to run about 30-40 reports at night and all of the CR(s) will need to be converted to PDF files and then moved to a specific network location. I can write some maintenance scripts for the moving the files around the network, but I do need the scheduling and automation software. I have investigated Crystal Enterprise and another solution called rePortal that will do these things. Crystal Enterprise is so expensive for our small business that it isnt even a foggy dream. The rePortal program is around 3000, but I was hoping for some other suggestions on programs out there. I really want a proven program to do this scheduling and converting to pdfs instead of coming up with my own coded solution.

One final note..... My end users will Never run these reports ad hoc and will never have crystall installed on their destops. All they need is the files.....

Any advice woluld be greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Bob

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

frodoman

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Mike McCracken

Here are links to several tools

http://www.kenhamady.com/bookmarks.html

Just a warning on potential Crystal licensing problems. Depending on version of Crystal and the editiion you purchase, there are licensing implications to your plan. The main pitfall is the Broadcast license (it is gone in CR10 and CR9 advanced). This one states if you are automatically producing reports and presenting them in a way that more than 50 might (read as can) look at them then you need a broadcast license. Price is very expensive. If there are any manual steps in the process then you get around the issue. For instance, in your proposed process if someone had to run a second script in the morning to move the files (reports in pdf format) to the common directory, then no license is required.

mlmcc

vmrfadmin

ASKER

mlmcc,

I am using CR9 Full Developer Edition. One of the reports creates account information for all our customers. It has aprox 400 accounts in the report, and one person per account will view this information. . . If I purchase a program to schedule the run of this report I hope I dont have to get some other license from Business Objects. They are about impossible to deal with....I just hate calling them.

Let me know if you think I would have a problem...

thanks...

bob

Kurt Reinhardt

Go with frodoman's solution - Ido's visual cut software is great. In your particular case, the report could be scheduled and bursted to the 400 account representatives, each of whom would see only their data.

~Kurt

vmrfadmin

ASKER

Thanks everyone.....I am still not sure which product I am leaning toward. I like CRD and the Visual Cut....

Thanks!!!!

Bob