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SAP Crystal Reports

SAP Crystal Reports

What Is SAP Crystal Reports?

SAP Crystal Reports 2020 software is the de facto standard in reporting. With SAP Crystal Reports, you can create powerful, richly formatted, dynamic reports from virtually any data source. Deliver the output in over a dozen formats, in 28 languages. A robust production reporting tool, SAP Crystal Reports turns almost any data source into interactive, actionable information that can be accessed offline or online, from applications, portals and mobile devices. $495 per designer ($295 as upgrade).

Who Uses SAP Crystal Reports?

Business intelligence users and decision makers from small businesses all the way to the world's most renown companies.

SAP Crystal Reports Software - 1
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SAP Crystal Reports Software - 4
SAP Crystal Reports Software - 5

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Reviews of SAP Crystal Reports

Average score

Overall
4.3
Ease of Use
3.6
Customer Service
3.9
Features
4.3
Value for Money
4.1

Reviews by company size (employees)

  • <50
  • 51-200
  • 201-1,000
  • >1,001

Find reviews by score

5
45%
4
40%
3
13%
2
2%
Erue
Erue
IT Consultant in Venezuela
Verified LinkedIn User
Education Management, 201–500 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Really effective and professional

5.0 7 years ago

Comments: This is the traditional reporting tool that is used in many financial organizations. I have used SAP Crystal Reports 12 in my organization. We can design highly formatted reports using this tool. It can connect to multiple data sources such as ODBC, OLE DB etc. We can create reports with different formats such as pdf, csv, txt, xls, etc. We can also create html, xml reports. The price of this tool is also cheap. We can create detailed graphics, instrument panels.

Pros:

There are some written exercises based on SAP Crystal Report that facilitate learning. the integration with the different IDE of development are optimized. it is compatible with the most popular database administrators, MYSQL, SQLSERVER, POSTGRESQL. and more... The designer of Crystal is fantastic, drag and drop add-ons to create your report.

Cons:

I had a lot of problems and spent a lot of time trying to adjust the space between the rows. I hope that in the future, SAP Crytal Report will make it easier. should block the sizes of pre-established and blocked sheets to avoid leaving the margins.

Michael
Michael
Senior Project Management/Business Analysis Consultant in US
Verified LinkedIn User
, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Revolutionized my daily tasks

4.0 7 years ago

Pros:

Crystal Reports allowed me to streamline my inventory refresh ordering and my custom ordering process into a single automated report. After setting reorder points in for all of my stock items I was able to get instant reports that tell me when I need to order and avoid stock outtages. At the same time each day, I run my report, save it as an excel file and forward to my production facility!

Cons:

Steep learning curve, but it is worth it. There is also a dependency on having good clean source data. Crystal Reports may actually point out some shortcomings in your source data and create more work short term.

Curt
Founder/Principal Consultant in US
Information Technology & Services, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

SAP Crystal Reports are great for financial and ad hoc reporting

3.0 2 years ago

Comments: Overall, I've had a fine experience with Crystal. It is somewhat antiquated when it comes to visual BI, but its great for printing - which so many customers still demand.

Pros:

The finance teams I've worked with over the years rely heavy on Crystal. It provides them everything they need. It is also great for quick/dirty ad hoc reporting. When someone needs an answer, Crystal is helpful in delivering results quickly. It also provides great pixel-perfect printing (which many competitors do not).

Cons:

Crystal has its place in the business intelligence world, but tools like Power BI and Tableau are much more teachable and much more visually compelling.

Ramesh
Ramesh
Associate Manager in India
Verified LinkedIn User
Computer Software, 5,001–10,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Crystal Reports Review

5.0 6 years ago

Comments: Best class application to build reports , easy and with great features , One of my best development tool

Pros:

Lots of features , using it from years and made 500+ reports , simple loving it Can connect many different databases and support connection providers supports sub reports , drill down reports and Hyperlink Conditional formatting and Reports wizards It's fast and never hangs Good support even with integration with Microsoft tools used for creating dashboard , charts

Cons:

I think it needs some kind of subscription features like SSRS It's little time consuming to format and align tables ,texts ,lines

Caroline
Caroline
SAP B1 Consultant in Kenya
Verified LinkedIn User
Computer Software, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

One of the Best Business Intelligent Reporting Tools for SME's

4.0 6 years ago

Comments: Crystal Reports helps us have a more detailed look of our company and helps us make informed decisions on what we need to do to improve various components of our business.

Pros:

I like that Crystal reports have a very strong capabilities like sorting of data. You are also able to retrieve most of your company' data for analysis using the tool. Crystal reports helps us create highly formatted and detailed reports - much more that what we are able to get from the SAP Business One software itself. Another awesome thing about Crystal reports is that it is that the process of creating reports is easy once you get used to the mechanisms of the tool. For example, once you pull a certain aspect of a specific set of data, yo can reuse it and only change a variable according to your new needs. Crystal Reports are also pretty affordable for small and medium sized companies.

Cons:

Though the initial purchase of crystal reports can be quite affordable, the tool gets expensive when you need to buy the server which is quite costly but essential for scheduled notifications and other benefits.

Deepali
Deepali
Software Development Analyst in India
Verified LinkedIn User
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

it makes easy to make reports as its features are very user friendly and easy to understand

3.0 7 years ago

Pros:

I used crystal report with Peoplesoft ERP and with Java also .When I compare crystal report with another report application I found it is much batter because of user friendly features for example there is no need to write manual sql just need to give table mapping it creates sql from itself.It gives option to open report in pdf and excel or in which form client want reports.No need to spend time to write so much code as many logic and feature is already present you just need to drag on your report.For me crystal report is fun with code where you design as per your require but no need take tension behind design.

Cons:

in crystal report it is little bit difficult to do mapping between two different different database's table.if you do also many time it will not give correct data.

Rohit
Rohit
Operations Manager (Systems - Philanthropy) in US
Verified LinkedIn User
, 201–500 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

My organization uses Crystal Reports as a primary reporting tool for our Oracle 12c database.

5.0 7 years ago

Pros:

It is difficult to make a sophisticated tool like Crystal Reports intuitive, but once you know the layout of how to add and view tables and links, it is quite easy. There is a lot of flexibility as well.

Cons:

There were some hick ups when we upgraded to Oracle 12c, but this could be because we were not using the most current version of Crystal Reports.

Angie
Angie
Accounts Receivable/Payable and Operations Manager in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Consumer Goods, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Great reporting system!

4.0 6 years ago

Pros:

Crystal reports are a great way to see your data in many different ways. Customization is fairly easy with some training.

Cons:

We have always had an issue with our reports reconciling to our system. They take some training to get them set up correctly.

Carlos
Carlos
Head of Industrial Metrology Lab in Venezuela
Verified LinkedIn User
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Useful tool if you need to process data from a DB and present them in various ways in reports.

4.0 7 years ago

Pros:

The Crystal is used in my laboratory to generate the calibration certificates that are delivered to the clients with each team. It allows a great configuration both of appearance and of manupulation and access to databases where all the data is saved. It is really a useful and powerful tool and that can be used with little training, reading the manuals of the software.

Cons:

The software allows you to do many things as you know more about SQL and the like. It is necessary to learn a little about the operation of the DBs to squeeze the potential of the Crystal

Paul
Paul
Owner and Creative Force in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Top of the line reporting tool

5.0 7 years ago

Comments: Robust and good looking reports for all areas of my business and clients

Pros:

This report writer is extremely easy to use. It provide good looking reports that are robust and allow easy integration into my visual studio applications. The ease of programming with crystal's api base gives me full control of how my reports are to behave without having to pass parameters in to the report.

Cons:

API programming on subreports can be tough but once learned, it's not too bad. Also, I found dynamic database connections are tricky due when working in domains. But again, once learned, it is easy to continue

Liam
IT & Project Manager in UK
Transportation/Trucking/Railroad, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

It Is Crystal A Clear Way To Improve Business

5.0 2 years ago

Comments: overall experience over the last 2 years have been amazing, the grouping, linking, analysis is all industry leading and there aren't many other products that can come close to this.

Pros:

the best part about crystal reports is how easy it is to visually design reports, also linking with an SQL Database is amazing, it allows you to connect to the back end of your system and pull through what ever you like whenever you like, you can export the file with the database parameters and take the file with you. its a fabulous tool with 2 decades of usage to back it.

Cons:

the biggest con with this, is the price, its very expensive and is only available on a perpetual licence, every time they release a new version you have to pay for the new one. their pricing model is very outdated.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Computer Software, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Dynamic and Interactive Reports

5.0 6 years ago

Comments: If I need dynamic, impressive reports, SAP crystal reports is very flexible and offers many solutions to various requirements

Pros:

1. Depending on the report requirements, Crystal reports has great capabilities to allow you to create all kinds of reports. You can place images, forms etc using OLE. 2. It allows a user to define multiple data sources, making it flexible when transferring to different platforms. 3. It allows a user to conditionally suppress sections within the report which enables certain parameters to be checked in certain sections of the report. 4. It enables the drill-down feature which allows the final user of the report to drill down further within a report to view more specific details. 5. It can do complex queries and allows a user to incorporate SQL statements in a flexible manner. 6. A user can create sub-reports, group selections and easily format various sections of the report in order to achieve different requirements. 7. It allows format parameters to be used easily and flexibly e.g. one item on the report can be bolded and displayed in italics due to specified parameters. 8. Supports different types of data sources e.g. HANA, MS SQL, Excel etc

Cons:

1. For a new user, it might be challenging to create new reports and one might not fully utilize most of the features. 2. Graphical features such as charts are not as enhanced as in other reporting tools. 3. Development of complex reports might take a bit of time depending on the user's experience level 4. When you export a report created with crystal reports to excel, there is a lot of distortion depending on the excel format. It will take a lot of trial and error and eventually, the data on the report is hard to edit on excel. 5. It might crash often after a software update.

Brittany
controller in US
Construction, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Crystal Report Review from the company Controller

4.0 6 years ago

Comments: The most difficult problem to overcome is the necessity to be logged into the database in order to run a report.

Pros:

Our industry based software comes with a limited scope of canned reports and Crystal has proven to be a great supplemental reporting program. When our software falls shorts, Crystal offers many solutions. Upper level management, executives, and owning partners love how they can drill down into the finite details the Crystal reports can be built to display. And our data analysts use very detailed reports with minimal formatting exported as excel documents to create a plethora of pivot tables and other analytics including profit margin information and auditing information. I also like that the formulas are more similar to excel then other reporting syntax I have used.

Cons:

Anyone who has built a Crystal report from scratch can tell you it can be difficult to link tables and other data source issues can cause major problems with the information. Some of this difficulty comes the complexity associated with the software tables linked to the crystal report data source of course... but I do not think the average user can pick up the syntax very easily. And I have found that advanced formatting and cascading parameters can be a major headache.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Hospital & Health Care, 5,001–10,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

High Performance Rigid Reporting

4.0 4 years ago

Comments: Although we have many reporting tools, we rely on SAP Crystal reports for our basic reporting requirements because of it's availability and flexibility. The reporting is very much reliable, quick and dynamic.

Pros:

Data Synchronization with different data sources. Using this for a long time, I am quite impressed with the way it performs with different data sources.

Cons:

The User Interface is very simple and outdated. It can be made more futuristic.

Catarina
SAP Consultant in France
Information Technology & Services, 10,000+ Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

My review of SAP Crystal Reports

5.0 5 years ago

Comments: I work with this software every day and personally I think it's a perfect mix between the world of programming and design. It allows us to give a personal touch to everything we do. Perfecting as time goes on. It's how to ride a bike. It makes connections to multiple databases and is very accessible. Very good indeed.

Pros:

SAP Crystal Reports is one of the tools I most enjoy working with. Sincerely. It's linked to SQL - we can get our signature on a report that looks vulgar - through code. We were able to do 1001 things, and really have a style. It is an art, combined with the fact that it is programming. It is fabulous. I really love working with Crystal - it's my weakness of how good it is.

Cons:

Like any software, if the code is too heavy, or if it is a very complex procedure, crashes a little. But nothing special. Tolerable and irrelevant in the case.

Mike
Project Manager in US
Government Administration, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

A bit of a learning curve, but a life saver!

4.0 8 years ago

Comments: My job involves working with similar data that is housed in different databases, both internal and external. Before Crystal Reports, I would pull several reports out of several databases, bring the data into Excel and run pivot tables, vlookups, etc... to be able to see the relations in the data. With Crystal Reports, as long as I have a common data field, (such as a part number) I can combine data from several different sources and run reports based on the related data. This is a much easier method. For example, I am now able to run a single report that shows our current orders, the current inventory available to fill those orders and based on that, make a single order to our vendor for re-stocking. This used to take at least 2 hours out of my day... now it is quick enough that I run the report twice a day and very rarely have stock outtages.

Pros:

The ability to pull and parse data from several different data sources and report on the related data sets

Cons:

The learning curve is a bit steep, but once you set up a report, it can be re-run easily any time and as often as you need, quickly and cleanly.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

One of the very powerful and traditional reporting tools

4.0 7 years ago

Pros:

This is the traditional reporting tool that is used in many financial organisations.I have used SAP Crystal Reports 10 in my organisation. We can design highly formatted reports using this tool.It can connect to multiple datasources like ODBC,OLE DB etc.we can create Reports with different formats like pdf,csv,txt,xls etc. we can also create html,xml reports. The price of this tool is also inexpensive. We can create detailed graphs,dashboards.

Cons:

more features can be added in it to make the reports more attractive. Customer support is not that good.you have to be good in report designing and know sql to work on crystal reports.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Business Supplies & Equipment, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Comprehensive reporting tool for SQL datasets

5.0 6 years ago

Comments: Crystal Reports provides us with the majority of our day to day business documentation, without crystal reports we would struggle to make informed decisions.

Pros:

It provides a safe and secure way of querying SQL databases, and creating business reports.

Cons:

Some of the features feel a little dated, designing reports that look good as well as making sure they include the right information requires a degree of skill and patience. You need to spend time learning how the specific program works, which is how it always used to be with all software, but nowadays users expect to be able to get going straight away.

Oleg
Financial Analyst in US
Banking, 5,001–10,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Great tool to build customized reports from Databases

5.0 3 years ago

Comments: I've been using Crystal Reports in my different roles, on and off for many years, and it is the best application of its kind out there. If you want simple no frills reporting, you can link your database to MS Access, and use built in reports there; but for advanced, professional reports you want to present to important clients or senior management, Crystal Reports is your tool.

Pros:

If you are familiar with MS Access, and it's built in Reports - Crystal Reports is similar feature, but much fancier, and a lot more flexible. You can built any kind of reports from your SQL Server Database. You can either do filtering in the report, or use custom view from SQL Server. Unlike MS Access where reports are simply nice - these look professional. (I mainly used it with SQL Server, but it also works with MySQL, Oracle, MS Excel, etc)

Cons:

I haven't had any issues, but I heard people say that their support is not very responsive. I was able to built some very sophisticated reports, and never needed any support.

ANDREW
Planning Manager in US
Cosmetics, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Good Software, could be a bit more intuitive

4.0 5 years ago

Comments: Crystal Reports is a key software for our business. We use it daily to streamline data gathering in order to make sound business decisions and plan effectively.

Pros:

The best thing about the software is the variety that it offers in terms of report writing. You can link many different databases together and pull them all into one report.

Cons:

The software is fairly complex and could be a bit more intuitive. I am using an older version, so it is possible that the new versions are better. The software is quite costly.

Keith
VP, IT in US
Warehousing, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Crystal Reports - Solid Reporting

5.0 6 years ago

Comments: I've used Crystal Reports in business since 1994. Each version has improved while maintaining ease and approachability. I highly recommend this software to anyone in need of an ad-hoc or print-ready formatted reporting solution.

Pros:

Crystal Reports can connect to a great number of data sources. Data Export functionality is feature rich allowing for exporting to most major file formats. Learning and understanding report creation and layout is very easy.

Cons:

Sometimes software updates can break functionality so take care in applying them. Crystal Reports is now owned by SAP, so beware of the horrible contractual and licensing agreements that may apply.

Sloan
Junior Project Manager in US
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Crystal Reports fixed our cost-tracking and internal reporting

5.0 7 years ago

Pros:

We came from doing things using an excel-and-quickbooks-based homebrew system to Sage 300 and Crystal Reports. Using Crystal Reports saved us days or weeks of time last year generating financial reports and architectural transmittals. + Extremely Versatile + Can be used to bend commercial software to individualized needs

Cons:

- Report designer is not intuitive, but this is common for powerful and customizable software! - Testing reports with Sage 300 specifically can be a bit of a pain as you need to re-enter parameters repeatedly.

Aimee
Aimee
Project Manager in US
Computer Software, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Easy to use reporting tool

5.0 7 years ago

Pros:

We use Crystal as our software reporting tool. It is easy to design, format, and implement custom dynamic group-by reports. We prefer this product over Microsoft's SSRS reporting tool.

Cons:

I wish it was easier to design a report that had pdf fill-in functionality, aka captured checklists and signatures

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Information Technology & Services, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Custom your report whatever you want it

3.0 6 years ago

Pros:

This is a very useful application for me, because it lets me modify according to what I need. I used to change signatories of my clients every now and then. also, i can add queries, that i used for filtering information that will be shown on the report.

Cons:

Maybe it can be difficult for others to use if they have no background in simple programming. But if they have. it is very easy to manipulate and custom the report.

Glenn
Senior HRIS in US
Financial Services, 501–1,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source
Source: SoftwareAdvice

Good tool

5.0 7 years ago

Pros:

You can connect to any data source: ODBC, Access, Excel, etc Price is relatively inexpensive compared to other tools on the market Create complicated reports with the ability to adjust display and format to the level of detail I’ve never seen in a report writer The ability to schedule reports

Cons:

Not intuitive – takes a skilled developer to write a complex report Sharing reports with others Exporting to excel takes a lot of trial and error sometimes to format correctly