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(For recent updates read my BLOG, The Crystal Reports Underground )

The Crystal Reports Underground News - Volume 2004.04 (April 2004)
an independent source for Crystal Reports Information by Ken Hamady
Contents for April, 2004:
** Lose your Repository when you 'upgrade' to CRv10
** Running Crystal Enterprise and Crystal Reports in Linux
** Public Intro and Advanced classes in Frederick, MD
** Getting CR and CE Certifications from BO for $450
** Crystal v11 to be released in late 2004?
** My Library of Crystal Reports Materials:
   Expert's Guide to Formulas
   Expert Techniques Volumes I and II
   Quick Reference to Crystal Reports in Visual Basic
   Quick Reference to Crystal Reports in VB.NET
** CRv9 and CRv10 report files are already 'zipped'
** Shutting of Smart Linking in CRv10
** CRv9 and CRv10 can't use SQL Server native client
** CRV9 Service Pack 3 released
** Read back issues at http://www.kenhamady.com/news.html


Lose your Repository when you 'upgrade' to CRv10:
I can't believe that I missed this when I reviewed the release of CRv10 a few months ago.  A customer recently called me to report that they owned 50 - 100 licenses of CRv9 and had paid extra for 'maintenance'.  When you pay extra for maintenance you get the next 'integer' upgrade for free.  So, earlier this year the user received a free copy of the CRv10.  When they installed the upgrade they realized that they could no longer use the repository that they had created in v9.  Starting with v10 the repository is limited to users of Crystal Enterprise.  So they installed the free copy of Enterprise that came with the upgrade.  This only allows them to have 5 named users access the repository.  For the other users to keep using the repository, they would have to put all of the users into Crystal Enterprise, a fairly expensive proposition.

If you read my review of v10 then you know that the 'hundreds' of enhancements that were added in v10 were mostly bugs in v9 that were fixed.  I only found a half dozen noticeable new features in CRv10, and I only found a few of those to be useful.  In my opinion v10 should really have been called v9.5.  Now it appears that this 'upgrade' is really a downgrade for many customers.  It removes one of the key selling points of CRv9.

And here is the slick part.  If this customer had waited and purchased a true upgrade, they could have decided that they didn't want the upgrade and asked for a refund.  But you pay for maintenance months before you see what the upgrade looks like.  By the time you get the upgrade you are no longer eligible for a refund.  So CD/BO sells you maintenance with a promised "upgrade".  Then they decides to take a package of bug fixes, remove an important feature, and call that your upgrade.  Those of you considering purchasing maintenance might want to take this new risk into account.  


Crystal Reports v10 and Crystal Enterprise v10 on Linux:
Those of you who are Linux fans might find it encouraging to know that Crystal Enterprise has a Linux version in Beta.  My unofficial sources said that the commercial release could be in May.  The more official word I received when I called Business Objects is that both CRv10 and CEv10 will have a Linux compatible release some time before the end of Summer.  Here are a few more tidbits that I have heard unofficially on the CE Linux product:

1) It currently supports only Red Hat Enterprise 3.0 (ES or AS).
2) Minimum processor is 700mhz p4 class (or athlon) single CPU with 1GB RAM.
3) You must provide a database space for CE to configure itself in a supported format. (Oracle, DB2 and Sybase - possibly more down the road).
4) It doesn't support the ad hoc report designer ad-on for CE.  This will only be available as an option for Windows servers.


Public Intro and Advanced classes in Frederick, MD - May 10 - 13:
My specialty is teaching at your office, with your data, but not everyone has the 3 or 4 students to make this cost effective.  If you want to take one of my classes and don't have enough people for an on-site class, come to Frederick, MD and take my public class in mid-May.  The classes are always small and informal with lots of room for discussion.  For dates see:

   http://www.kenhamady.com/public.html

Is it worth the trip?  I have personally taught over 1600 satisfied students. And, I am still the all-time, top ranked Crystal Reports expert at Tek-Tips.com.  For more information, or to schedule an on-site class, call me at (540) 338-0194.


Getting a Crystal Certification from BO for $450:
A few months back I reported on the new certification process for the Crystal v10 product line.  I mentioned that the tests are now proctored and that you can take the courses on-line or in a normal classroom setting.  I failed to mention the 3rd other option.  You can sit for all of the exams without ever taking any training.  There are 3 tests for Crystal Reports and another 3 for Crystal Enterprise.  Each test costs $150.  If you don't pass an exam, you can retake it at least once (and probably more than once) for another $150.  I know at least one colleague who plans to try this option.

The Business Objects representative that I talked with said that they don't recommend this option because some of the content is so new.  I won't be bothering with the exams, but if you have taken the exams and have some feedback, I would love to hear from you.


Crystal v11 may be released in late 2004:
I was surprised to hear from one of my customers that Business Objects plans to release Crystal v11 before the end of 2004.  The reason this surprises me is that this is less than a year from the last "upgrade". 

It is also surprising in light of the fact that 75% of the classes that I have taught this year are for customers who are still using CRv8.5, with the other 25% using v9.  The customer was told that Business Objects is trying to synchronize the upgrade cycles of their product lines.  But seeing how little value was added with the last upgrade, it is hard to imagine another upgrade so soon that would be worthwhile.


My Library of Crystal Reports Materials:
Expert's Guide to Formulas  ($36)
   http://www.kenhamady.com/form00.html

Expert Techniques Vol. I ($19) and Vol. II ($19)
   http://www.kenhamady.com/expert.html

Quick Reference to Crystal Reports in Visual Basic ($16)
   http://www.kenhamady.com/vbref.html

Quick Reference to Crystal Reports in .NET ($14)
   http://www.kenhamady.com/ntref.html


CRv9 or CRv10 report files are already zipped:
Those of you who have to frequently Email report files might find this interesting.  It appears that the RPT format in versions 9 and 10 include internal file compression.  Reports from version 8.5 that are opened and saved in either v9 or v10 format will lose one third to one half of their size.  Normally the older RPT files can be "zipped" down to 50% or less of their original size.  But if you try to zip a v9 or v10 file you may only gain another 5 - 15%.  This makes me think that some type of compression has already happened within the file


Turn Off "Smart Linking" in v10:
Anyone who has taken my class has heard my opinion of the "Smart Linking" feature that is activated in Crystal Reports by default.  One of the first things we do in my Intro class is turn this feature off so that I can show the students how to make their own links.  When v9 came out there was no longer an option to shut this feature off.  You have to let Crystal do the Smart Linking whenever you add a table, and then clear the links you don't want.  In some cases adding a single new table can generate dozens of useless links.  You are forced to either clear the new links one by one, or clear ALL of the links in the entire report and start over from scratch.

I just learned that BO has given us the ability to disable this feature in v10.  But instead of putting this switch back where it was (File - Options), they have hidden it in the registry.  You would think that once you have taken the time to code the feature into the program, you could also take the time to add a check box on an options screen.  Surprisingly there are several other hidden program options that show up only in the registry.  If you know how to tinker in your registry the key is named "DoAutoSmartLinking" and it is in the registry under:

   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\
   Crystal Decisions\10.0\
   Crystal Reports\DatabaseOptions

If you aren't familiar with changing your registry (something you do very carefully) you can read the full article on the BO web site:

http://support.businessobjects.com/library/kbase/articles/c2014792.asp


CRv9 and CRv10 can't use SQL Server Native Client:
I discovered this while teaching a class and thought the customer had a configuration problem.  Now I have found an article confirming this is a known issue.  Apparently you can only connect to SQL Server using ODBC or OLE DB.  This is because CRv9 is Unicode compliant and the SQL Server native driver (Ntwdblib.dll) is not Unicode compliant.  According to BO, this driver hasn't been updated since SQL Server 6.5 which did not support Unicode.  So, if you have existing reports and you upgrade to v9 you will probably have to convert them to ODBC or OLEDB.  The article I read specifically mentioned only v9, but I don't see native SQL Server in the connection list for v10, either.


Crystal Reports 9 Service Pack 3:
Crystal has just released SP3 for CRv9.  As always, I am not sure I would install an SP unless you have a specific problem that it addresses.  Service packs have not had a "full QA regression test cycle" which means use at your own risk.  You can download a 100 page PDF that describes all of the things fixed by this update.  Many of these items affect only a very small percentage of users, but you might find something that affects your reports.  Use the following link to get the PDF or the update:

http://support.businessobjects.com/fix/hot/si75/


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Contact Information:
Ken Hamady, MS
525K East Market St. 
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(540) 338-0194
ken@kenhamady.com
http://www.kenhamady.com

Copyright 2004 by Ken Hamady
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