choose the right sap crystal reports version for your use case in the sap business object bi...
TRANSCRIPT
Choose the Right SAP Crystal Reports Version for Your Use Case
in the SAP BusinessObject BI Ecosystem
Ravichandran Mahadevan, VP Product Management
PublicSession# 2745
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Agenda
SAP Crystal Reports
What’s new in SAP Crystal Reports for SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.X?
SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise
SAP Integration
What’s new in SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.1?
Choose the right verison
Recommendation
Roadmap
Q&A
© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. 4Public
Open, agnostic, and unifiedAccess any data, consume information anywhere
EnterprisePortals
MS OfficeOn Demand ServicesBrowsersMobile Devices
ERP
SAP Business Suite
Oracle E-Business Suite
PeopleSoft
JD Edwards
Unstructured data
in Social Media and
Hadoop
OLAP Cubes
Embedded Content
MS ExcelOracle, IBM DB2,
Microsoft SQL Server
and other relational data
sources
Unified Semantic Layer
Business Intelligence Platform
EDW
SAP NetWeaver BW
Teradata
Other data warehouses
SAP HANA Platform
Self-Service Dashboards and Apps Reporting
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SAP Business IntelligenceOne Suite for All Insight
ReportingSelf-service
Dashboards
and Apps
Deliver engaging information to users where they need it
Track key performance indicators and summary data
Build custom experiences so users get what they need quickly
Securely distribute information across your organization
Answer related questions by interacting withpre-defined reports
Build printable reports for operational efficiency
Discover areas to optimize your business
Adapt data to business needs
Tell your story with beautiful visualizations
Discover. Predict. Create.
Build Engaging Experiences
Distribute Information
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Self-serviceDiscover. Predict. Create.
Agility for business analysts and business
users
Discover trends, outliers and areas of interest in your business
Adapt to business scenarios by combining, manipulating, and
enriching data
Tell your story with self-service visualizations and analytics
Forecast and predict future outcomes
Portfolio
Lumira
Explorer*
Analysis*
Predictive Analysis*
* SAP BusinessObjects Explorer; SAP BusinessObjects Analysis; SAP Predictive Analysis
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Dashboards and AppsBuild Engaging Experiences
Build engaging, visual dashboards
Powerful environment to build interactive and visually
appealing analytics
Rich set of controls: buttons, list boxes, drop-down,
crosstabs, charts…
Use custom code to extend and build workflows
Portfolio
Design Studio*
Dashboards (aka Xcelsius)*
* SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio; SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards
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ReportingShare Information
High productivity design for report
designers
Quickly build formatted reports on any data source
Securely distribute reports both internally and externally
Minimize IT support costs by empowering end users
to easily create and modify their own reports
Enhance custom applications with embedded reports
Portfolio
Web Intelligence*
Crystal Reports*
* SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence; SAP Crystal Reports
SAP Crystal Reports
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For Internal Operational Reports and Customer Facing
Easy to consume, highly formatted documents with guided interactivity
Personalized, information rich documents communicate value quickly
SAP Crystal ReportsProven world standard for pixel-perfect reports
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Transform Data to Stunning Pixel-Perfect DocumentsReport Author build reports quickly
Build Professional Quality Documents Easily
Connect to data directly or via
semantic layer
Intuitive free-form reporting
with simple workflows
Transform, format and layout
data with precision and
powerful methods
Securely distribute relevant
reports globally to millions in
batch or on-demand
Embed reports within
business applications
Large Scale
Business ApplicationsMultiple delivery options
SAP Crystal ReportsWhat’s new in SAP Crystal Reports for SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.x?
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SAP Crystal Reports in BI 4.x
With the release of SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) 4.x , there are
two versions of Crystal Reports available for use with the BI Platform.
SAP Crystal Reports for enterprise
Major update & re-design of the
Crystal Reports Designer and
associated processing servers
Provides the foundation for all
future releases of Crystal Reports
SAP Crystal Reports 2011/2013
Incremental update to CR 2008 with
a few new features
Focused on serving the needs of
standalone, CR for Visual Studio,
and CR for Eclipse users
Continue to deliver existing
functionality with no regressions
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FAQ
Can both CR 2011/2013 reports and CR for Enterprise reports reside or run
on the same BI 4.x system at the same time?
Yes
Can both the desktop CR 2011/2013 designer and the CR for Enterprise
designer be installed on the same workstation?
Yes
If I have many CR 2008/XI 3.1 reports, how should I upgrade to 4.x and what
version of CR should I use?
Upgrade to 4.x and utilize CR 2011/2013. Consider using CR for Enterprise of new
projects. Migrate CR 2011/2013 reports to CR for Enterprise when time permits.
How long will CR 2011/2013 versions be around and supported for?
For the supported lifecycle of 4.x which is a minimum of 7+2 years from the initial
4.0 release.
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FAQ
How do I migrate a report from CR 2011/2013 to CR for Enterprise?
Open the CR 2011/2013 report with CR for Enterprise, change the data source and save to
the new format.
I am a new customer with not current CR content, what version of CR should
I use with the BI 4.x Platform?
If you are a new CR customer, evaluate CR for Enterprise first. The feature set may suit
your needs, and the there is no need to consider migration if you start with the newest
designer.
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SAP Crystal Reports for enterprise Design and deliver information to engage and empower your audience
Highly formatted, professional looking reports with interactivityNew report designer user experience for improve report creation productivity
UI Harmonization across SAP BusinessObjects clients reduces user learning curve and accelerates adoption
New Charts to visualize insights
Greatest breadth and depth of data connectivitySupport for new Semantic Layer to guarantee a trusted, single version of the truth
Interoperability between SAP Crystal Reports and SAP BusinessObjects Analysis provides insightful information to be delivered as formatted reports
New SAP connectivity to SAP BW and SAP ERP provides a consistent data access across the BI suite
New Direct to Data connectivity with shared data connections
Scalable and efficient content delivery for ease of consumptionNew multilingual support reduces TCO by minimizing the number of reports required to support a global deployment
New alerting mechanism enables faster dissemination of information to the entire organization
New Crystal Reports SDK’s provides flexible report embeddibility
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Easy-to-use, new design environment for novice and professional
designers
Create simple reports to represent complex data within a few minutes
Streamlined experience across the suite
SAP Crystal Reports for enterprise Create Stunning Documents faster than ever before
Tabbed Tool Bar
WYSIWYG
Point and Click
Easy-to-use
Navigation Panel
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SAP Crystal Reports for enterprise Smart Formatting
Smart Guidelines Guidelines for easy column resizing
Drag and drop to reorder column
Automatic resizing and column shifting
for object and column insertion
Smart Default Formatting
Designer detects patterns in formatting
and adjusts automatically
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Modern styling and unified look and feel for all BI solutions
Common query design experience across all data sources
SAP Crystal Reports for enterprise Consistent Experience Across the BI Suite
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SAP Crystal Reports for enterprise Three New Visualizations
Tag Cloud Displays a cloud of dimensions
Tags are drillable
Treemap Uses the size and color of a box to
denote importance of a dimension in
relation to the data set being analyzed
Each box is drillable
Box Plot Charts five dimensions of data and
outliers
Drillable
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Single trusted version of the truth
Exposes data in easy, every day business context via
integrated query panel and shared semantic layer
Break data silos, combine data from heterogeneous
sources within a report with multi-source universes
Hierarchical navigation
SAP ERP data access: model ABAP Functions, Info
Sets and InfoSet queries in .UNX universe
HANA support via HANA-JDBC to display tables, views,
and analytic views
New Data sources: Hadoop Hive, Essbase, XML files,
Webservices (WSDL 1.1) and OData 2.0
Common Semantic Layer (.UNX)Reduced learning curve and effort to build reports
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Data Sources – Direct to Data Support
Provide direct connectivity to Enterprise focused data sources without requiring a
pre-authored data model.
Supported data sources Generic ODBC, JDBC, OLEDB
Oracle, MySQL, DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Access,
Microsoft Excel, Sybase, Teradata, SAP HANA
Displays previously created connections
Leverage data mapping UI from online templates feature
Lower TCO with shared data connections Reports that run on the BI Platform now utilize shared data
connections instead of having data connection information stored
per report.
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How it Works Reports Managed by the BI Platform
DBMS
Report
Report
Report
DBMS
Info
DBMS
Info DBMS
Info
Relational Connection
Report
Report
Report
DBMS
Crystal Reports For Enterprise Crystal Reports 2011
CR for Enterprise reports saved to BI Platform MUST use Relational Connection objects to hold
connection info. CR 2011 reports continue to store connection info in each report.
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Simplifying Enterprise ReportingSAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise with Relational Connections
Simplified Authoring
Create reports directly off relational data sources without first modeling the data
Connect to data in a few clicks, without knowing database system details
Simplified Deployment
Maintain DBMS middleware in a single place (on server, not on designer desktop)
Ease Life Cycle Management
Simplified Administration
Change DBMS connections for multiple reports all at once
Reduce report maintenance costs
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SAP Crystal Reports for enterprise
SAP BusinessObjects Analysis,
Edition for OLAP
SAP BusinessObjects Analysis,
Edition for MS Office
Analyze data , zero in on the area of interest , leverage
the view within SAP Crystal reports to broadly publish
the reports
Interoperability with SAP BusinessObjects AnalysisFlexibility to format and share content
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Crystal Reports metadata
– Text Objects
– Prompts
– Tooltips
– Anything with text…
SAP BusinessObjects Business
Intelligence platform supported
features
– Translation Manager
– Translate Locally or via
Export/Import using XLFF
– Schedulable Translation
Create Once, schedule and publish
reports in multiple languages
French
German
English
Multi-lingual ReportingReduce effort and number of reports for global deployments
SAP Crystal ReportsScalable and efficient content delivery
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Users subscribe to alerts within
BI launch pad
Notifies subscribers when
specific criteria has been met
Platform Driven AlertingReduce information overload with exception reporting
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New BI Platform Features for CR content
Insight to Action
Bind SAP Report to Report Interface (RRI) actions to report
objects
Enable actions via a simple right-click menu command
Invoke actions from the report
Invoking an available action on field passes data from
report
Supported only for reports based on BEx Queries
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Planned innovationsNew Crystal Reports SDK
RESTful Web Service
Navigate reports via REST service
Expose Report Structure/Metadata represented in OData and data
exposed via JSON
Push data into the report
Supports multiple export formats via a single URI call
Platform support
Supports both CR 2011 and CR for Enterprise content
Embed report content via any HTTP/Web capable programming
language
CR Javascript API
Embedding
Client rendering handled via server-side Javascript
Supports CSS styling
No client-side installation or deployment
Javascript
Event listener support to load custom javascript functions (i.e.
events for drill downs and group hierarchies)
openDocument URL’s are compatible with CR JavaScript API
customizations
Integration with other APIs (e.g., Google Maps, Google
Translation)
Logo customization in the viewer, Styling / Skinning of DHTML
Viewer
SAP Crystal Reports for
Enterprise 4.1
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SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise
Comprehensive Support for SAP HANA
Create Crystal Reports based on HANA’s relational and OLAP data structures
Direct OLAP access to Analytic and
Calculated views including hierarchies &
variables (required BI Platform to manage
connections)
Authored relational UNX universe support
Direct Relational access (JDBC & ODBC) to
tables, views, and analytic views
Support for JDBC & ODBC SSL
Authentication: Single Sign on through SAML
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SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise
Streamline Report Design
The SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise designer introduces more efficient workflows and features focused
on reducing time to create and format reports
Freehand SQL command object
Customize the SQL to optimize the query to
relational data sources
Verify Database options
Ensure the report query reflects the modifications
to the underlying data source
Subreport Enhancements
The datasource for a subreport is no longer
restricted to be of the same type as the main
report.
Eg. A BW report with an ERP universe subreport
is now possible
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SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise
Data Sources
Significant focus on performance and reliability is provided in BI 4.1 when accessing BEX queries through
Crystal Reports
Enhanced SAP BW support
Persist variable values in query panel and consume in HTML
viewer
Level selection for BW Hierarchy Variables
Level selection based on relative depth for BW Hierarchy
Node Variables
Variable selection before design time display of query panel
Toggle between technical name vs. member caption for BW
variables
Enhanced SAP ECC support
Support SAP ECC’s optional parameters with no default value
when access through an authored universe
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SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise
Mobile and Viewers
Interactive Crystal Reports in SAP
BusinessObjects Mobile BI
Opendoc support in Mobile BI
Right to Left support in HTML viewer Mirrored interface based on product locale
Right to left reporting of Arabic
Bi-directional text support in a single report
Other enhancements Paging capability for flat LOVs in HTML viewer (next,
previous)
Default view action in BI Launchpad
Choose the right version
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Choose based on Data source
SAP Crystal Reports 2013 and SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise can run side by side on the same desktop client.
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Data connectivitySAP Crystal Reports 2013 vs. SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise
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NetWeaver integration
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BI 4.x platform
Servers can be run side by side on the same server. SAP BusinessObjects BI4.x server install package
installs both set of servers by default. Reports created in SAP Crystal Reports 2013 will processed on the 32
bit servers, reports created in Crystal Reports for Enterprise will be processed by the 64 servers.
SAP Crystal ReportsRecommendations
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SAP Crystal
Reports 2011SAP Crystal Reports for enterprise
(CRe)
Foundation for all future releases of SAP Crystal
Reports
“Risk free” adoption of Innovation
Preserve existing investments - Run with existing
CR 2008 content
Adopt at your own pace - Run CR 2008, CR
2011/2013 and CRe content from the same
common platform
Adopt SAP Crystal Reports for enterprise “Risk free” adoption of Innovation
Roadmap
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Planned Innovations Future DirectionToday
SAP Crystal Reports for EnterpriseProduct road map overview - key themes and capabilities
This is the current state of planning and may be changed by SAP at any time.
Streamlined report design
Chart extension API.
Richer chart formatting.
Enhance report formatting.
CR 2013 to CR for Enterprise
bulk transition tools
Data sources
Additional BW, SAP ECC table
support.
Support UNX view time security
Mobile, and viewers
Crystal Reports content in
custom built mobile applications
OEM/Developer
Richer RESTful web services
(Release 4.1 SP6)
Streamlined report design
Improved user experience
Custom SQL objects
Verify database
Data sources
Modeled and unmodeled connectivity to
data.
Enhanced SAP HANA support
SAP BW BICS connectivity
Mobile, visualizations and viewers
Interactive Crystal Reports in SAP
BusinessObjects Mobile
New visualizations
Right to left UI
OEM/developer
RESTful web service, Odata, Opendoc
AJAX API
Information access
Alerting
Insight to action (RRI)
Streamlined report design
Charting enhancement: waterfall
chart
QR code and Bar Code support
Vertical Alignment of text
Direct to data connectivity
enhancement
Crystal Reports for HANA / HANA
Cloud Platform
Support Crystal Reports for HANA
Cloud Platform.
Restful API for report viewing,
refresh ,export workflow.
SAPUI5 embeddable viewer.
OEM/Developer for BI platform
Continued REST API
enhancements
Customizable and embeddable
SAPUI5 viewer
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Planned Innovations Future DirectionTodayToday
SAP Crystal Reports 2013Product road map overview - key themes and capabilities
Viewer interactivity
Interactive parameters
On-report sort and drill
Breadth of data access
Direct connectivity, web technologies,
semantic layer
Data visualization
Over 40 charts
Dashboard integration
Report delivery
Scheduling and publishing
Multiple export formats
Localization
Embedded into applications
New platform support
Visual Studio 2013, Office 2013, SAP HANA,
Hadoop
New platform support
Continued support of new data sources,
applications, and operating systems
Continued improvement
Minor updates to existing features including:
– Vertical Alignment
– Conditional formatting for Line and Box
– Show Description of selected parameter
value(s) in report
New platform support
Continued support of new data sources,
applications, and operating systems
Continued improvement
Minor updates to existing features
This is the current state of planning and may be changed by SAP at any time.
(Release BI4.1)
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Questions?
Idea Place (enhancement requests): http://ideas.sap.com
Product Documentation: http://help.sap.com/
4.x eLearning: http://www.sap.com/LearnBI
CR Classic to CR for Enterprise wiki:
http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/BOBJ/From+Crystal+Reports+2008+to+SAP+Crystal+Repo
rts+2011+or+SAP+Crystal+Reports+for+Enterprise
© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.
Thank you
Ravichandran Mahadevan
VP Product Management
SAP