Crystal Reports 2008
"Professional Reporting. Unbeatable Pricing. Unmatched Value".
Crystal Reports by Business Objects, an SAP Company, is known as the software when it comes to enterprise database reporting: creating flexible, feature-rich and dependable reports for the Web or various enterprise applications.
For anyone who may not yet have come in contact with this best-selling software, Crystal Reports 2008* is an intuitive and powerful software product for turning raw data into corporate decision-making information, all in a visually pleasing package. The makers of Crystal Reports, Business Objects, claim that it “brings excitement into reporting”, and even though we may not go that far (after all, it’s work we’re talking about, and you’re not supposed to enjoy work, right…?), we do agree that this software is a great tool, making reporting far more pleasurable than it otherwise would be.
Crystal Reports Features & Benefits
Crystal Reports 2008 gives you tons of time-saving tools for increased productivity and visualization flexibility. Here are some of the main benefits of this popular product:
- Advanced capabilities for information visualization.
- The end user viewing experience has been significantly improved.
- New flexible report deployment options - view reports online, offline, within application or on-demand on CrystalReports.com.
- Flexible application integration, e.g. with Xcelsius, Adobe Flash, and Adobe Flex.
- More streamlined and flexible report designer for increased productivity.
- Display reports in nearly any industry-standard format, including PDF and XML.
- New “what-if” functionality makes it possible to change report variables for hypothetical scenarios.
- Reports are now tied to more of a business process allowing you to make decisions and perform tasks directly from within the report, e.g. order more inventory!
Crystal Reports 2008 is Better Than Ever
Like with every new edition, Crystal Reports has gone through huge improvements for the 2008 version. One of the biggest steps forward is the integration with Crystal Xcelsius, which is another very popular piece of software from Business Objects and a companion product for creating rich, interactive charts and dashboards. Crystal Reports now also features Adobe Flash and Flex technologies, making it possible to embed Flash, Flex and Xcelsius applications directly in the software.
Other significant enhancements in Crystal Reports 2008 include a much improved end-user experience, for example through new visualization options, more robust Web services capabilities, on-report interactive parameters, and what-if scenario modeling.
*Unlike many other software developers, Business Objects doesn't generally release a new version of Crystal Reports every year; in fact, Crystal Reports 2008 is the first new version in the last three years.