Questions about Crystal Reports with Navision (all versions)

roland

Dear all,

From previous posts, I know some of you have succesfully used Crystal Reports with Navision for both native & MS-SQL databases.

I would appreciate feedbacks from everyone on the feasibility of it, like for example :-

What are the time savings of using Crystal vs Navision's Report Designer?

What are the other benefits of using Crystal Reports over Navision's Report Designer?

What to do in cases of flowfields? how to display them in Crystal Reports?

Hope to have some ideas and feedbacks, thanks in advance!


- Roland

Feldballe

Crystal Reports (CR) is basicly what Navision Report designer is not. And it would be obvious why!

You can:

- format multiple objects in CR
- use colours and graphs
- define your own groups and calculations regardless of the keys defined in the tables. Basic VB or CR programming skills are all it takes.
- distribute reports in a stand-alone report generator (in some of the older versions)
- and many more

But due to the naming of Navision tables on the SQL-server, it can be difficult to get the right tables in the CR-design guide - and you would need to know how the tables are interrelated in Navision too.
Furthermore you would also have to design your own userrights on the SQL-server in order to secure correct useraccess to the SQL-tables. You cannot use any userrights defined in Navision.

Savatage

(We use Navision Database Server) 3.10b / 3.6 executables

I can create a report in Crystal in five minutes that would take me at least an hour+ using Report Designer.

The codbc does not support left outter joins - i'm not sure if has been corrected in the newer versions >=3.7

I find the reports generated in Navision are faster to generate but it's not so much of a difference that is should matter.

Crystal allows you to export your data in many ways:

Acrobat Format (PDF)
HTML 3.2
HTML 4.0
MS Excel
MS Word
ODBC
Record Style (columns no spaces)
Record Style (columns with spaces)
Report Definition
Rich Text Format
Seperated Values (CSV)
Tab Separated Text
Text
XML

Creating Formila Fields, Parameter Field, Running totals, Grouping, sorting is all a snap in Crystal.

Also you can create as many reports as you wish. your not limited to 50000 to 50099.

Much less expensive that Jet Reports which is also a very good tool and should be looked at if you're looking for an outside Reporting program.

roland

Dear Feldballe and Savatage and everyone else,

Thanks for your comments. I've discussed with my management and we would like develop reports for our next client on Crystal Reports instead of Navision's reports.

However, I couldn't make much sense of Crystal's licensing policies. Can we deploy free runtime reports for the newer versions of Crystal? Any experiences in this? Thanks.


Regards,
Roland

roland

Hi guys,

I managed to get grubby lil' hands on an Eval copy of Crystal 10. When I try to connect to NAvision 2.6 native database via C/ODBC, it's fine, but when I open a table with boolean field, I get an "Out of Range" error. Have you encountered it before, and how did you solve it?

Hope you can help! Thanks.

Regards,
Roland

Feldballe

Hello Roland.

It seems that Crystal Reports v. 10 have some difficulties in connection with c/odbc.

It seems to me that they (Crystal solutions) really want us to use MS Reporting services instead. As long as this problem exists I'm certainly getting my gear in that direction.

OZapata

Hi Family!

I have the same problem: Database Connector Error: '22003:[Navision a/s][Navision Attain ODBD Driver]Out of range [Database Vendor Code:1011 ]' , Any idea? thanks in advance.

Savatage

anything strange about : Vendor Code:1011?

ccmin

Hv u try to integrate Navision 4.0 SP1 with Crystal Report 11? How u do that? Can u share ur experience with me, thanks...

Savatage

Integrate, how do you mean? Are you connected with n/odbc yet?

or are you talking about accessing the reports from within Navision.

This is what I did.....
http://www.geocities.com/navision_attai ... eports.pdf

4 pages

---

here's the other post - I'll link them
http://www.mibuso.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11723

ccmin

Hi Savatage,

Thanks on the suggestion u shared with me, I will try this and let the management to decide whether they accept this method. O:)

vyanku

hi,
Any body pleaes tell me where I can find the guide/PDF/link about how to crete/design crystal reports?

Savatage

http://www.crystalreports.com/?ExtCmp=null