Discussion Locked

Question on Crystal Reports -- Please he

0 helpful
3 replies
Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

Hello everyone!

I am using Crystal Reports 8.5. How do I go about publishing my report on the Web? The problem I'm facing right now is: If the user doesn't have a copy of Crystal Reports on their machine, they're not able to view the report. I uploaded the .rpt file onto the Web server.

Should it be in a different format? Am I missing a step? So far I've heard that I need to be using Crystal Enterprise in order for users to see the report. Is that true?

I do not want to export this report as another format because I need the report to be dynamic.

Please help.. Thank you in advance!

-- Jackie

3 replies

by joseph moore

You actually have a couple of options here.

Yes, Crystal Enterprise is the new (the past couple of years) verion of the web-enabled Crystal Reports. You design reports in Crystal Reports, then you publish them to a Crystal Enterprise-powered website.
Then any user goes to the website, logs in (using one of several authentication methods, including Windows user account login or a special Crystal Enterprise login/password), selects the report(s) they want, selects their options, and runs thereport. All of this is in a browser window! It is actually a very cool way of doing this. You get the Crystal Reports formatting and clean look, and you get a simple HTML browser interface that all users now know how to work with.
You need to BUY Crystal Enterprise, though. It is its own product. And I believe it is rather expensive, especially the licencing.

Also, there is a web engine with Crystal Reports. Go to their web site and read this article:
http://support.crystaldecisions.com/library/kbase/articles/c2000492.asp
(please remove any spaces)
The article is called "How to view reports through a web browser using Seagate Info or Crystal Reports."

Next, you can get a "Report Distribution Expert" from Crystal Reports. An article on that is here:
http://support.crystaldecisions.com/library/kbase/articles/c2006523.asp
(again, remove any spaces).

What you can do is make an RPT file, then run the Report Distribution Expert on it. It makes a self-extracting file for that RPT file (includes a whole install program). YOu send this EXE to your users 1 time. They install the program, and then they can run this one RPT file you made. The report can pull from live data to be dynamic. I have used this solution, and it worked good enough.

hope this helps

by jacmari

Thank you so much for your help! The information really helped. Thanks again!

-- Jackie

This discussion is closed to new replies.