Crystal Reports Replacement: A Better Alternative for Business Applications

Replacing Crystal Reports means rebuilding the reports your business depends on, such as invoices, purchase orders, labels and monthly summaries, in a tool that does not need a runtime installed on every PC and will run on current technology. The reports look the same or better, open in a browser, export to PDF and Excel, and stop being the part of the system everyone dreads touching.

Why companies want Crystal Reports gone

For a generation of business software, Crystal Reports was simply how reports got made. People have been complaining about it for most of that time. If any of this sounds familiar, you are in good company:

• The runtime. Crystal needs its own software installed on every PC or server that runs a report, in a version that matches the application. A new computer or a Windows update, and reports that worked yesterday throw an error today.
• The error messages. They rarely say what is wrong. Staff learn to close the window and try again.
• Every change needs a specialist. Moving a field or adding a column means the Crystal designer and someone who knows it. Those people are getting harder to find.
• It holds the rest of the system back. The Crystal Reports runtime for .NET works only with the older .NET Framework. An application cannot move to current .NET, or become a true web application, while its reports still depend on Crystal.
• It was built for the desktop. Reports that should be a link in a browser or a PDF in an email are stuck on the one PC where they work.

That fourth point is the one that forces the issue. Many companies find out about it in the middle of planning something else. See your older .NET application and turning a desktop application into a web application.

Signs it is time to replace Crystal Reports

• Reports fail on a new PC until someone installs the right runtime.
• Staff see Crystal error messages often enough to have a routine for them.
• Nobody on staff can change a report, and the person who could has gone.
• You have been told the application cannot be upgraded because of its reports.
• People export a report and retype or reformat it in Excel.
• Reports only work in the office, on certain machines.

Crystal Reports alternatives: the realistic options

There is no single replacement. The right alternative depends on what your reports are for.

Reports built into the application. The report is simply another screen in your system. It reads live data, filters and sorts in the browser, prints cleanly, and produces a PDF or an Excel file at the click of a button. Nothing is installed on anyone’s PC. For invoices, purchase orders, packing slips, certificates and the other documents a business prints every day, this is usually the best answer, and it is the one we use most.

Microsoft Power BI. Often the choice for a company-wide move. Power BI Report Builder produces precisely formatted, page-by-page reports, and the same platform provides interactive dashboards. Complex Crystal formulas have to be rewritten for it, so the move needs planning.

SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). Microsoft’s reporting platform, included with SQL Server. A practical choice for a company already on the Microsoft stack that wants a report server, scheduled delivery by email and staff who can adjust reports themselves.

Telerik Reporting. A reporting tool built for current .NET, with a designer and viewer that live inside an ASP.NET application. It includes an import wizard for existing Crystal Reports, which gives a head start when there are a great many formatted reports to move.

Many companies end up with a combination: everyday documents produced by the application, and dashboards for the people who steer by the numbers.

We have no product to sell here, so the recommendation follows your reports. For the wider picture, see web-based reporting and custom report development.

What a replacement project involves

Take an inventory. Most systems carry more report files than anyone uses. On one recent project, sixteen Crystal report files turned out to be nine reports that people still ran. Finding that out first saves rebuilding reports nobody will open.

Capture what each report really does. A Crystal report is more than a layout. Formulas, running totals, subreports and hidden conditions carry business rules that are often written down nowhere else. We read the report files and the database queries behind them and confirm the rules with the people who use the output.

Rebuild and compare. Each new report is run against the same data as the old one and checked line by line and total by total. A report is finished when its numbers match and the people who use it say it is right.

Improve while we are there. The awkward page break, the column nobody reads, the report that has to be re-keyed into Excel: this is the moment to fix them.

A recent example

We recently replaced Crystal Reports in an inventory and purchasing application that a company had run on desktop PCs for many years. The reports were the weakest part of the old system. They depended on an aging Crystal runtime, and the print and search buttons regularly failed with an error number and no explanation.

The application was rebuilt as a web application on current .NET. Its purchase orders and other printed documents are now generated as PDFs by the application itself, the lists people used to print are live screens with an Excel export, and there is no reporting software to install on any PC. The Crystal runtime, and the errors that came with it, are gone.

Do you have to rebuild the whole application?

No. There are two ways to do this, and we will tell you which fits.

Replace the reports and keep the application. If the system works well and only the reporting hurts, new reports can be built on top of the same database and reached from a browser. The application carries on as it is.

Replace the reports as part of modernizing the application. If the system is a VB6, Access or older .NET desktop application, the reports are usually one symptom among several, and it makes sense to deal with them together. See our legacy application modernization services and modernizing a VB6 application.

Either way, the old reports keep running until the new ones have been checked against them.

How Keene Systems replaces Crystal Reports

1. We list the reports and who uses them. The ones nobody runs are retired, not rebuilt.
2. We read each report closely. Layout, formulas, grouping and the queries behind it, so no business rule is lost.
3. We recommend the replacement. Built into the application, Power BI, SSRS or Telerik Reporting, with the reasons.
4. We rebuild and check against the old output. Same data in, same totals out, confirmed by the people who use the report.
5. We switch over report by report. The old reports stay available until the new ones are trusted.

The next step is a short, no-pressure conversation. Schedule a project exploration call or use the form on this page.