Crystal Reports Solutions: Report Re-use

If you write a different Crystal Report for each distribution list, you may be doing a great deal of repetitive work. The costs of this include:

• Wasted development resources

• Wasted resources in terms of testing, tweaking, and troubleshooting

• Boredom and time pressures that produce mistakes

• Housekeeping headaches

• Inconsistencies

• Difficulties in report optimization

• Labor intense process of changing items common to multiple reports

You are all too aware of this. In fact, you're frustrated by it. But you have 31 departments each wanting a slightly different report. Some want different information, some aren't allowed to have certain information, and others simply want the information presented a certain way. Thus, you sit down and modify the same report for 31 different permutations and you keep 31 versions on file for each of 31 distribution lists.

This seems nuts, doesn't it? The good news is it doesn't have to be that way. Not at all! Fortunately, we have an answer. And it doesn't cost much. You need to automate your Crystal Reports distribution with a Crystal Reports scheduler. We have a software solution to allow you to do just that.

Solving the manual Crystal Report distribution problem

This is what we recommend.

1. Make heavy use of subreports.

2. Use a scheduler, and set the parameters to make use of what you need.

Of course, the subreports part is easy. But you need a good scheduler to take full advantage of that strategy. We offer an inexpensive Crystal Reports Scheduler. A Crystal Reports Scheduler is a tool that automates report distribution. You can "set it and forget it." Once you set the parameters and assign the distribution lists, you're going to wonder why you didn't do it this way sooner.

Now, here's the really neat part. You solve not just the problem of writing all these different reports, but you will also prevent any of the following problems--or solve them, if you already have them:

• Slow network performance.

• Data crashes.

• Manual report distribution, which is costly.

• Labor-intensive distribution, due to manual methods.

• Being tied to a daily grind mandated by user report schedule demands

• Late report deliveries, missed report deliveries, and duplicate report deliveries.

• Interruptions due to report delivery activities.

• Interruptions of report deliveries due to emergencies, sickness, conferences, meetings, or other priorities.

• Inability to use the same report multiple times with different parameters and/or destinations.

• Inability to upgrade the network to handle the increased report traffic.

When you use a Crystal Reports Scheduler, you can:

• Use the same report multiple times with different parameters and/or destinations. This eliminates several potential problems, right at the source. Plus, it saves you time.
   

• Break the ankle chain that requires real-time presence during report distribution. For example, if you want to distribute reports an hour before normal starting time to reduce peak loading on the network, a Crystal Reports Scheduler allows you to do that without your needing to also be there an hour before normal starting time.
   

• Schedule reports for automated delivery during non-peak hours. This alone justifies the cost of a Crystal Reports Scheduler several times over. What do you think it would cost you to upgrade your network? Going from 100MB Ethernet to 10GB Ethernet means all new cables (and LAN testing)--and that alone is thousands of dollars you won't need to pay if you use a Crystal Reports Scheduler.
   

• Ensure on-time deliveries of your Crystal Reports to the right people. No more late deliveries, no more missed deliveries, and no more accidental deliveries to the wrong people or to the same people 2 or 3 times.
   

• Eliminate interruptions in your work flow, due to needing to deliver reports at a set time.
   

• Eliminate interruptions in your report deliveries, due to emergencies, sickness, conferences, meetings, or other priorities.

At this point, you are probably "sold" on the need for a Crystal Reports Scheduler. But now you are faced with the task of evaluating the various Crystal Reports Schedulers on the market and deciding which one to buy.

Of course, we are going to recommend one of our own Crystal Reports Schedulers and not one sold by our competitors. But there is more behind that recommendation than simply wanting to be your source for a Crystal Reports Scheduler. We also have a track record of continual development, giving you a full-featured product to fill your needs efficiently.

So, what are the choices? First of all, if you are running Crystal Enterprise you already have a Crystal Reports Scheduler built in. This approach gives you a Web-based reports distribution.

But if you are not running Crystal Enterprise, you need a strong Windows-based Crystal Reports Scheduler. Two such products are:

• cViewSERVER. This is a scheduler that runs as a Windows service, which means you don't have to be logged in for it to run. It's built on the .NET platform, and that gives it major performance advantages. But you must run Crystal Reports 9.0 or higher to be able to use it.
   

• cViewMANAGER. This is our original scheduler. It runs as a Windows application, and it is compatible with earlier (pre-9.0) versions of Crystal Reports. Like cViewSERVER, it has a high level of functionality with major benefits.

Isn't it about time you started saving your company money with a Crystal Reports Scheduler? Insist on quality--insist on cViewSERVER or cViewMANAGER.

This article is copyrighted by Crystalkeen, Mindconnection, and Chelsea Technologies Ltd. It may be freely copied and distributed as long as the original copyright is displayed and no modifications are made to this material. Extracts are permitted. The names Crystal Reports and Seagate Info are trademarks owned by Business Objects.