Interesting, I'll look into this as well, although it sounds like it may be beyond my technical abilities at this point.

Honestly my limitations aren't with Crystal itself at this point -- I don't use it to anywhere near the extent of its capabilities -- but with how it interacts with RE.

I used and preferred Crystal from the backend of RE for years with good result. When the viewers came along that improved the experience for the end user and took some burden of my staff.

With SQL 2005 I started using SSRS but still preferred Crystal. Now I thinks its a tossup between the latest Crystal/Crystal Server and a SSRS setup with Report Manager (the web deployment for SSRS).

I suspect you can get into SSRS a lot cheaper than Crystal Server since you are already licensing SQL for the database.

But those server based solutions are the big step after you implement your Crystal reports with Crystal viewers.

Good luck.

I wish Blackbaud would offer advanced training in reporting off the back end of the DB. Kind of "ok, you know SQL to some extent, and you have access to the back end, now here is two or three days of training about how to get stuff out of the DB into your reporting software, including our various functions and objects and stuff."

Do you know what I mean? There seems to be a gap between basic training, and the assumption that you are a database expert -- a level of training for the advanced RE user but only intermediate database user who can't figure everything out on their own. For example, how do you pull a primary addressee from the back end? BB56757 tells you one way, but it notes that there was a solution for it that is no longer there, that I tried to use before and failed miserably (maybe that's why it was removed).

Anyway, that sort of thing is what I wish they offered. Am I wrong to want this?

Atually they used to offer this. I took a class several years ago called something like "RE:Open" that was all about the backend table structure.

I haven't looked at their offerings lately but we also had them send a trainer to our site (prior job) for a couple of days to train in Crystal and work on some custom reports for us.

Yes, you're wrong. Never question Blackbaud.


shh...



they're listening...

The problem is with the reporting model. Exporting to an Access database makes it easier for the new user to create simple Crystal Reports, but it also limits what the advanced user can do.

The canned reports use a completely different model, but that model requires writing VB code to supply the information to the reports. This model would allow much more freedom for the report writer, but there is a also great leap between writing reports off of a database versus writing reports off of VB record sets.

At CHOP, we did most of our complex reports in The Information Edge (which I believe is defunct). It allowed you to publish Crystal Reports directly off of the TIE database which was populated from the RE database.

Drew