Crystal Reports is a business intelligence
application used to design and generate reports from a wide
range of data sources. Several other applications, such as
Microsoft Visual Studio, bundle an OEM version of Crystal
Reports as a general purpose reporting tool. Crystal Reports
became the defacto report writer when Microsoft released it
with Visual Basic.
Users install Crystal Reports on a computer and use it to
select specific rows and columns from a table of compatible
data (see "Supported data sources" below). Users can then
arrange the data on the report in the format needed.
Once
the report layout is complete it is saved as a file with the
extension RPT. A report can be rerun anytime by reopening
the RPT file and 'refreshing' the data. If the source data
has been updated then the refreshed report will reflect
those updates.
The report can then be previewed on the
screen, printed onto paper or exported to one of several
different file formats such as PDF, Excel, text or CSV.
Report formats can vary from a simple column of values to
layouts featuring pie charts, bar charts, cross-tab summary
tables and nested subreports. Crystal Reports is designed
for "presentation quality" reports so there are many options
for enhanced formatting.
The users who design the reports can run them as needed from
within the report designer. When running reports directly
within the report designer the user has the ability to
change any feature of the report. The user can also create
variations of the report by saving the modified RPT file
under another name.
It is also possible to run a Crystal Report without using
the full Crystal Reports designer software. These alternate
methods for running reports include locally installed
viewers, schedulers, and report distribution tools.
These
are typically third-party software programs (independent of
Business Objects) that allow you to open, refresh, preview,
print and export an RPT file. In 2007 Business Objects
released their own viewer, Crystal Reports Viewer XI, but
unlike the independent viewers it does not allow the user to
refresh the report, but only to view static data saved in
the RPT file.
Some of the independent viewers add other capabilities such
as allowing the user to schedule a report to run
automatically at certain times. Still others allow reports
to be burst and/or distributed via Email.
Crystal reports is bundled with a set of ActiveX controls
that, when embedded in a simple GUI, can provide an
alternative user interface. These same controls allow
reports to be deconstructed into their base objects. This,
in turn, allows the same reports to be generated at run
time, customizing them as necessary.
