Crystal Reports 2008 displaying a sample report |
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| Developer(s) | Business Objects |
|---|---|
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows |
| Available in | Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish |
| Type | Reporting software |
| License | Business Objects EULA |
| Website | http://www.sap.com/solutions/sap-crystal-solutions/ |
Crystal Reports is a business intelligence application used to design and generate reports from a wide range of data sources. Several other applications, including Microsoft Visual Studio, at one time bundled an OEM version of Crystal Reports as a general purpose reporting tool.[1] Crystal Reports is a popular report writer, and was especially so when Microsoft bundled it with Visual Studio versions 2003 through 2008. Microsoft discontinued this practice and later released their own competitive reporting tool, SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS).[2]
Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2010 is still available as add-on software.
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The product was originally created by Crystal Services Inc. as Quick Reports[3] when they couldn't find a suitable commercial report writer for their accounting software. After producing versions 1.0 through 3.0, the company was acquired in 1994 by Seagate Technology.[4] Crystal Services was combined with Holistic Systems to form the Information Management Group of Seagate Software, which later rebranded as Crystal Decisions and produced versions 4.0 through 9.0. Crystal Decisions was acquired in December 2003 by Business Objects, which has so far produced versions 10, 11 (XI) and version 12 (2008). Business Objects was acquired by SAP on October 8, 2007. Crystal Reports 2011 (version 14) was released on May 3, 2011.
Crystal Reports allows users to graphically design data connection(s) and report layout. In the Database Expert, users can select and link tables from a wide variety of data sources, including Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, Oracle databases, Business Objects Enterprise business views, and local file system information. Fields from these tables can be placed on the report design surface, and can also be used in custom formulas, using either BASIC or Crystal's own syntax, which are then placed on the design surface. Formulas can be evaluated at several phases during report generation as specified by the developer.
Both fields and formulae have a wide array of formatting options available, which can be applied absolutely or conditionally. The data can be grouped into bands, each of which can be split further and conditionally suppressed as needed. Crystal Reports also supports subreports, graphing, and a limited amount of GIS functionality.
Accessible data sources include the following:
Crystal Reports came integrated with Visual Studio versions prior to 2010. Crystal Reports competes with several solutions in the Microsoft market, such as SQL Server Reporting Services, XtraReports, ActiveReports, Telerik Reporting, and List & Label. Crystal Reports also provides solutions outside of the Microsoft market, for instance allowing Java developers to build applications with Crystal Reports components.