Special Edition Using Business Objects Crystal Reports XI [Paperback]

Fitzgerald et al (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0789734176 | ISBN-13: 978-0789734174 | Publication Date: August 25, 2005 | Edition: Special

Special Edition Using Business Objects Crystal Reports XI is a reference guide designed to provide you with hands-on experience for the latest release of the Business Objects' product suite. The authors, all Business Objects insiders, bring unique and valuable real-world perspectives on implementations and uses of Crystal Reports, Crystal Reports Server, BusinessObjects Enterprise, WebIntelligence and OLAP Intelligence. Content, tutorials and samples for reporting within the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and J2EE development environments is also included. Advanced data-source coverage including SAP R3, SAP BW, Peoplesoft, Siebel, EJBs, .NET/COM objects and XML are also covered. Advanced content on report distribution and integration into the secured managed reporting solution, Business Objects Enterprise XI and the new Crystal Reports Server XI, is included along with coverage on the new Web Services SDK. If you are a Crystal Reports XI user, Special Edition Using Business Objects Crystal Reports XI will become your definitive users guide.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Neil FitzGerald is the Strategic Consulting Manager for Business Objects in the Eastern USA. He has filled a multitude of roles in his seven plus years at Business Objects and Crystal Decisions.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION

In this introduction

• Introduction to Information Delivery

• Spectrum of Product Usage

• Spectrum of BI Tool Users

• The Product Family from Business Objects

• What's in This Book

• Equipment Used for This Book

Introduction to Information Delivery

Organizations today of all sizes find themselves increasingly awash in data yet hungering for information to help them meet their business objectives. These corporations, from Main Street and Wall Street alike, have spent large amounts of time and money over the past 10 or so years implementing systems to help collect data on and streamline their operations. From monolithic Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems (SAP, PeopleSoft, Oracle, and so on) through Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems (Siebel, Pivotal, Salesforce.com, and so on) to Custom Data Warehousing projects, these firms are now looking for ways to extract value from that collective body of data to help them run their businesses more productively and competitively. These firms are looking for a strategic information delivery or business intelligence solution to help them become more productive and ultimately compete more effectively. The products covered in this book are geared toward meeting that challenge.

The information delivery products and solutions that are presented in this book are often categorized under the Business Intelligence (BI) banner. BI is the industry of value-added information delivery based on structured data sources—essentially providing meaningful, business-driven value and information to business end-users by connecting them to data with appropriate tools and products. Figure 0.1 highlights the conceptual divide of Information Delivery Solutions into the structured and unstructured world. Although evidence suggests an eventual blurring of the boundaries between these discrete industries over time, the Business Objects products covered in this book most aptly fit under the BI banner.

Figure 0.1
The information delivery industry is broadly divided into structured and unstructured information management.

Industry analysts in the information delivery area regularly highlight the impressive adoption rates of BI products in the last few years as testimony to their value. The dynamic double-digit percentage growth rates for industry leaders like Business Objects are especially impressive when the difficult macroeconomic operating environment of recent years is taken into account. Ironically, many suggest, it is this same poor economic environment that has largely driven the increased worldwide demand for BI functionality as firms work to increase their productivity and competitiveness by leveraging existing investments—and doing more with less. This BI industry driver along with a few other drivers are covered in the next section.

Spectrum of Business Objects Product Usage

BI products like those distributed by Business Objects (Crystal Reports, Crystal Reports Server, BusinessObjects Enterprise, OLAP Intelligence, and WebIntelligence) are deployed and used in about as many different ways as there are product implementations—and there are millions. However, as you become exposed to a broad swath of BI clients and their implementations, you can find definite themes to their deployments. Taking a step back, distinctive drivers to worldwide BI product adoption become evident and a few of the most common are discussed in the following sections.

Custom Information Delivery Applications

Despite the increasing functionality of turnkey software and Web applications available today, corporations of all sizes still regularly look to custom developed applications to provide them with unique competitive advantage and to meet their proprietary business requirements. These applications run the gamut in size from small business applications through large departmental applications to enterprise intranet and extranet applications. The key component of these custom projects is the integration of BI functionality, such as formatted reporting, ad hoc query, self-service Web reporting, and/or analytic capabilities, within an internally developed application. Table 0.1 highlights some typical examples of custom applications using Business Objects suite of products to help deliver custom applications.

Table 0.1 Sample Custom Information Delivery Applications

Application	Application Audience	Product Usage
Small retail chain's internal Java-based sales metrics application	Approximately 20 sales employees and managers	Using Crystal Reports Java Engine, the developer provides the sales team with Web access to on-demand metrics reports built into the intranet application.
Large portfolio management firm's client extranet application	10,000+ high value customers of firm	Using BusinessObjects Enterprise,the developer provides access to the scalable reporting infrastructure and facilitates those customers getting online Web access to their portfolio reports.
Asset management firm's report batch of institution scheduling application	50,000+ clients	Using the BusinessObjects RAS server and scheduling engine, the developer's application dynamically creates tens of thousands of customized reports daily and automatically emails them to the appropriate clients in PDF and XLS formats.

A key strength of the Business Objects suite of products is that they lend themselves readily to integration into custom applications. From the inclusion of basic formatted reports within your Java/J2EE or .NET applications through the inclusion of rich ad hoc query and self-service reporting functionality in proprietary information product applications to provision of large-scale enterprise BI analytics, scheduling, and security functionality in a globally deployed application, the Business Objects suite of products can meet your requirements. Table 0.2 provides a jump-point for those looking for each type of application integration covered in this book.

Table 0.2 Custom Application Chapters Overview

Development Environment	Functionality Required	Section and Chapters
Java/J2EE	Pre-built reports included in custom Java application	Part VI, Chapter 28
.NET	Pre-built reports included in custom .NET application	Part VI, Chapter 29
Java/J2EE/.NET	All of the above and self service or ad hoc report creation in custom application	Part VII, Chapters 33 and 34
Java/J2EE/.NET	All of the above and scheduling, alerting, scalability, enterprise security, analytics, and more in a custom application	Part VII, Chapters 30–32

Enterprise BI Initiatives

With the proliferation of BI tools and the acceleration of product adoption around the globe, there has been concurrent pressure for the involved companies to standardize on a single set of products and tools—effectively a BI infrastructure or platform. The main arguments for such standardization include the following:

• Reduced total cost of product ownership

• Creation of Enterprise centers of excellence

• Reduced vendor relationships

• Movement towards a BI infrastructure/platform

As BI products have matured from different areas of historical strength and their marketplace acceptance has grown, end-user organizations have found themselves with disparate and incompatible BI tools and products across or even within the same departments in their organization. To eliminate the costliness of managing such a broad set of tools, many firms are now moving to adopt a single BI platform like BusinessObjects Enterprise (or Crystal Reports Server for smaller businesses). The infrastructure of BusinessObjects Enterprise provides a single architecture to manage all the content and tools required to serve an organization's structured information delivery requirements. Figure 0.2 show...

Product Details

• Paperback: 936 pages
• Publisher: Que; Special edition (August 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789734176
• ISBN-13: 978-0789734174
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,055,052 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good series book has become better with XI version, September 23, 2005

By 

Vincent (NY, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Special Edition Using Business Objects Crystal Reports XI (Paperback)

I have acquired and am using the current version (XI) of the "Using Crystal Reports" series book and I am impressed. I am a seasoned business-savvy IT professional and this book has helped me create useful reports with some of the advanced product features like sub-reports, variables, formula manipulation, parameter passing, advanced formatting, etc.

The author team has evolved the chapters to stay abreast of new features and Business Objects APIs. They have also clearly spent a good deal of time editing this version as the chapters flow together better than the previous versions and the real-world samples are particularly improved (and useful).

The book is not perfect and is lacking detailed coverage of all of the Business Objects Enterprise, Crystal Reports Server or Crystal Reports RDC APIs but the existing coverage is very insightful and I'm not sure I could carry the book if it had many more pages.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Solid Reference - But Poorly Organized, June 14, 2006

By 

Clark B. Timmins "q-25" (West Jordan, UT USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Special Edition Using Business Objects Crystal Reports XI (Paperback)

This is a solid book and a worthwhile reference. Unfortunately, the content organization is somewhat confusing--and the sheer size of the book makes it fairly difficult to find what you're looking for.

The contents have so many hints and tips that every programmer will learn something. I've been using Crystal Reports for many years, and reading through the book I would frequently learn little tips or timesaving processes.

I might note, however, that several of the examples are specific to certain database platforms or certain report implementation methods. For example, I didn't have easy access to SQL Server while reading the book, so testing out some of the examples was nearly impossible.

Nevertheless, one of the best Crystal Reports XI references available on the market.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars my favorite reference, July 6, 2006

By 

Lance T. Premus (Wyoming) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Special Edition Using Business Objects Crystal Reports XI (Paperback)

I really like this book. it not only helps answer thing but makes suggestion and gives real world scenerios at end of a chapter. I use it mostly for a reference tool as chapters 1-11 pertain to CR XI report creation part, which is what I need refresh on the most. I do wish there was a good tool book that gave more on crystal syntax if anyone knows please email me, but this book helps get me thinking on the right track.