Best Reporting application

Question

Desinging web application and for reporting iam using crystal reports.sometimes the crystal reports gives runtimes error. What can i do to make my report faster. Retrieving around 1MB of data. It is the month end sales report. what is the best method to solve this issue.

Answer 1

You can use i-net Clear Reports (used to be i-net Crystal-Clear). It can read Crystal Reports report files. That way, you do not need to redesign your reports. A report of 1 MB is not a problem. We have reports with 100MB and more. It has also a txt output format.

Client-side reporting is also possible but of course this is a little more complicated.

Answer 2

1Mb sounds like far too much data for a report - I would try to filter it down more on the server

Answer 3

You haven't noted what DB platform you are on, but if it's MSSQL based you may want to try using the embedded SQL Reporting Services Reporting. We found functionality wise it can't do everything crystal can, but it was easy to use, free, and didn`t have some of the annoying bugs that we had with crystal.

Answer 4

I would be fascinated to hear exactly what you think CR can do that SSRS can't. Include only capabilities that cannot be trivially achieved by alternate strategies. Exclude "capabilities" that only work in carefully contrived vendor demos.

Answer 5

I'm not that knowledgeable at CR, so this is tough for me (I'm a SSRS fan). So you're basically asking me to attack the thing I would normally recommend. Maybe a tough order but here goes.

The feedback I've gotten from others (but who are much smarter than me :-) is that various formatting options/functions are better right now in crystal. One example that I've had to deal with myself in SSRS is manipulating dates - there are (i'm told) many more functions for manipulating dates in CR. Fixing this may be trivial for some, but not everybody and not me.

What else - export to word is, I believe, available in CR, not in SSRS. Also, I believe combining dataset results is at least somewhat easier in CR. These might be better in the newly released 2008 version/

Again, keep in mind this is based more on what I've been told when I complain occasionally about SSRS - I still really like it however.

Answer 6

The reason why i used crystal report is because i had to print the report into LG Matrix printer that is basically i had to export the report in text format. I really dont know how it is possible to do in SSRS but i find it easier in crystal reports. That is the main reason i have to switch back to crystal. If anyone can suggest me the alternative option then i may try that for my application. I want to do client side reporting more than sever side.

Answer 7

First thing I would do is make sure your queries are running out side of your reporting tool correctly and quickly. I would also look at the indexes on your tables and tune the query, maybe create a view to contain the data or some of it to help speed up the process

Answer 8

You didn't provide any specifics but How to Turbo Charge your Report Speed has a number of general suggestions to improve your speed. (Disclaimer - I wrote the blog entry.)