The Crystal Reports Underground News - Volume 2005.05 (May 2005)
an independent source for Crystal Reports Information by Ken Hamady
Contents for May, 2005:
** Are independent training and consulting license violations?
** CDUGNA is no more
** My on-site training classes
** CrystalWizard was gone in v11, but is available again
** Enhanced ODBC export in Visual Cut
** My library of Crystal Reports materials:
Expert's Guide to Formulas
Expert's Guide to Subreports, Parameters and Alerts
Expert Techniques Volumes I and II
Quick Reference to Crystal Reports in Visual Basic
Quick Reference to Crystal Reports in VB.NET
** More complaints about v11 parameters
** Some tricks I learned from my students
** Read back issues at http://www.kenhamady.com/news.html
Are independent training and consulting license violations?
Business Objects thinks that the wording in the Crystal license gives them the right to control Crystal Reports training and consulting done by anyone. You may think that I exaggerate but Crystal is already sending letters to training organizations that offer public classes. This letter claims that they are not allowed to use the software to train people outside their organization, even if they buy a copy of Crystal for every person they train. When I told the manager of BO's Education Services that this was a pretty extreme and rare approach to licensing, she said that they don't mind being "pioneers" in this area. She told one of my readers that she had not received any negative feedback on the program from users. The goal of this article is to change that.
First, I decided to read the license again. The restriction is based on a phrase that says you can only use the software for your "internal business purposes". BO says that training someone outside your business is not an "internal business purpose". So where does that leave consulting? If I write a report for you, am I using the software for my internal business purposes? So I spoke with a sales manager at BO last week and asked them if my creating reports for a third party was considered using the software for "internal business purposes".
I was immediately told how much BO valued people like me, adding value to their product line. He said many nice things but he could NOT say that my consulting would be considered an "internal business purpose" by BO. He said he would get clarification and after about a week he is still trying, which I find very telling in itself. You might assume that BO would never want to stop independent consultants from serving their customers. But they are.
If you have Crystal Enterprise, open the license and scroll down to the restrictions. It says users may not use the software to provide:
"...training, outsourcing services, or consulting services, or any other commercial service related to the Software or to develop training materials;"
I fully expect this wording to be considered for the Crystal XII license next year, especially the part about training materials. BO is currently having a hard time convincing publishers that they need to pay a royalty to use screenshots in Crystal course books. BO claims that these screenshots are copyright violations, but copyright law allows fair use of a portion of a copyrighted work. That may be why BO has only convinced 2 courseware vendors to join their new "approved" courseware program and pay royalties. I have spoken to several other vendors that are either ignoring the new license program or actively challenging it. Based on the price increases of one "approved" vendor, I estimate that the screenshots fee adds $30 to $40 per book. My guess is that BO reserves the right to increase this fee down the road, once the hook is set.
So what should we do? If you have read this far it is probably because you appreciate an independent voice. But, do you think this newsletter would exist if I had to sign an agreement that says I will "reflect favorably" on Business Objects? My goal is to get several hundred people who agree with me to either call or Email their sales rep and either ask or complain about this new policy. Just asking them to explain it publicly on their web site would help. Here are some other thoughts and questions you might want to include, if you agree:
1) If the program to "approve" courseware is primarily to benefit the users by "setting quality standards", why didn't they announce this program to the users? Is it because users might not see the benefit in paying 50% more while being limited to 2 choices?
2) One of the strengths of Crystal Reports is that you can find truly independent specialists for both training and consulting. Why is BO trying to make it impossible to teach a public class while remaining independent of Business Objects? If they reduce the number of independent specialists (like me) with an incentive to support the product, they will reduce the value of the product.
3) Some organizations (maybe yours?) will be more hesitant to upgrade to v12 once they realize that the may not be able to find truly independent people who providing training, consulting or course materials.
If you don't have a sales rep to contact you can Email the Manager of Educational Services at:
boes@businessobjects.com
Let me know what responses you get. I can summarize them in the next issue and see if they really address the issues.
CDUGNA is no more:
I never went to one of the CDUGNA events but it was comforting to know that there was an independent organization to provide balance. Not anymore. The loss of CDUGNA is all the more reason to make sure that independent voices are not lost. The following is a condensed version of the board's farewell letter:
===============
After serving the Crystal user community for over ten years, CDUGNA (Crystal Decisions User Group of North America) will cease operations. Based on the effort to put on another conference, coupled with the level of support from current sponsors and vendors, we decided not to hold any more events. However, the CDUGNA web site at www.cdugna.org will be available until the end of June to allow users to download presentations from prior year's conferences.
Regional user groups are still a viable option for getting technical presentations and the ability to network with your fellow users. In addition, Business Objects puts on an annual conference every November. Although this conference is run directly by Business Objects (unlike the independently run CDUGNA annual meeting) there is still some good Crystal content available and the chance to network with a large number of users.
Expert on-site training:
My specialty is teaching Crystal Reports at your office, with your data. And I charge by day, not by student. So, if you have 4 or more students you may find the cost of an on-site class less than the cost of sending the same students to a public class. Even if you have fewer students you might find the benefits of working with your own data worth the extra cost.
Do I teach a good class? I have personally taught over 2000 satisfied students, including students at the National Institutes of Health, the Library of Congress and the Executive Office of the President. I am also the all-time, top ranked Crystal Reports expert at Tek-Tips.com. For more information you can call me at (540) 338-0194.
CrystalWizard was gone in v11, but is available again:
Some of you who used the Report Design Component in v9/v10 may have been disappointed when you upgraded to the RDC in version XI - especially if you use the Report Creation API calls. Version XI didn't come with the CrystalWizard.DLL which allows your users to create reports from your application using a wizard similar to that within Crystal Reports.
Thanks to the efforts of Randy McAtee from RBL Data Systems (and probably a few others) Business Objects decided to release both this DLL and its source code as an RDC sample application. You will find a link to this at the bottom of the LINKS page of my web site.
More good news in XI is that you no longer have to purchase the Advanced Developers Edition for each customer who uses the RCAPI calls. Now a regular Developer's Edition will allow your users to access these calls. There is no "Advanced" Developer in version XI.
Enhanced ODBC export in Visual Cut:
Crystal Reports allows you to export a report's output to any ODBC connection and create a new table in your database. But Crystal doesn't allow you to append records to an existing table or overwrite an existing table. Millet Software has just added these features to Visual Cut. And because Visual Cut can schedule reports, you can schedule one report to overwrite a table, and then schedule a 2nd report that reads that table. This allows you to get around some limitations of 2-pass reporting like sorting on a ratio formula that divides one subtotal by another. To read about this and other features of Visual Cut, see the LINKS page of my web site.
My library of Crystal Reports materials:
http:/www.kenhamady.com/tools.html
Expert's Guide to Formulas ($36)
Expert's Guide to Subreports, Parameters and Alerts ($28)
Expert Techniques Vol. I ($19)
Expert Techniques Vol. II ($19)
Quick Reference to Crystal Reports in Visual Basic ($16)
Quick Reference to Crystal Reports in .NET ($14)
More complaints about v11 parameters:
I just rewrote my advanced course material to cover the new dynamic parameters in XI. While they are an improvement in some areas, there are some serious limitations that you should understand. For instance dynamic parameters:
1) Are limited to 1000 values unless you add a registry key. See BO tech article c2017238.
2) Don't allow user entered values. Users have to pick a value from generated list.
3) Can't have a preset default like "ALL", without writing it into a SQL command.
Also note that the Edit Mask option in XI is much less helpful than it was in older versions. In v10 the fixed characters of the Edit Mask are visible in the entry box before the user enters their value. The user can only enter valid characters within the fixed characters so the format is easy to match. In XI the user sees the actual mask at the top of window. They are expected to type in all of the fixed characters, in the correct positions, but nothing stops them from doing it wrong. After they click OK it compares their entry against the mask and then complains if it is wrong.
A few tricks I learned from my students this month:
1) Context Help in the formula editor
Staring with v10 you can highlight any function in the list and hit the F1 key
to go directly to the help page for that function.
2) Auto-fill in the formula editor
Starting with v9 you can type part of a function name and then click Ctrl-Space to
bring up a list of all functions that start with the characters you typed.
3) Cancel a drag by hitting escape.
If you are dragging an object to move it and you want to cancel that move
and put the object back where it was, you can simply hit the escape key
before you release your mouse button. The object goes back to where it was.
Contact Information:
Ken Hamady, MS
525K East Market St.
PMB 299
Leesburg, VA 20176
(540) 338-0194
ken@kenhamady.com
http://www.kenhamady.com
Copyright 2005 by Ken Hamady
All rights reserved - Republishing this material requires written permission