The Plenary the other day didn’t get too deep into new features of 9.4, but I was lucky enough to learn more about report creation in the ArcGIS 9.4 release:
1. There is no Crystal Report Wizard in ArcGIS, the only means for creating a report is based on our new reporting engine. 2. The Wizard is entirely new and includes options for the layout (default positioning of groups, summary stats, records, header, footer) and style of the report. 3. Styles (templates as you call them) are new at 9.4, and you have the ability to create custom styles. Much easier to create a professional looking report. 4. There is a Report Designer, where you can easily and interactively design the look and feel of the report layout; easily place graphics and other elements on the report. 5. You can export the report out to more formats, including html, xls, pdf to name a few. 6. The new reporting tools are a complete upgrade in terms of performance and usability. They are simply easy to work with; as one would expect. 7. The biggest improvement in functionality is the ability to load/run a report. At 9.3.1 every report you created was static, you could not open it up to edit it or generate the same report with updated attributes or selections. At 9.4, you can load or run an existing report to make changes or see the changes within your data without having to start from scratch.
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Re #7, so it sounds like the reports are live linked to the data?
ESRI – Why pay license fees to Crystal Reports when we can do the same thing perfectly well ourselves.
ESRI user community – but all my business process links built off the Crystal engine will break!
ESRI – our way is better.
Crystal Reports – Sigh.
Not to be a sourpuss, but isn’t this like a car maker hawking the cup holders on their new model vehicle? How about the engine? The brakes? The new safety features?
Re atanas: a lots happening under the hood and on the chrome- check http://www.tedrick.org/blog/2009/07/desktop-road-ahead.html . Less happeining on server, geodb (need to go to geoproc tomorrow), but still a steady stream of improvements if you can wait 10 mos. (or trust your work to a beta).
I can’t seem to find any references there to 64bit? What are ESRI’s plans to port their desktop GIS over to 64bit? That would be a pretty profound under the hood change that they will have to do at some not too distant point in the future!
It might happen sooner if Microsoft would stick to their guns and make the next desktop OS 64-bit only.
Hello James,
Do you know if this new reporting engine will allow direct access to report domain field descriptions instead of domain internal codes?
Thank you.
ActiveReports for .NET is the report engine that is being used.
@Scott: Are you confident that it is going to be ActiveReports? (Is this documented anywhere, or did you witness this during a demo?)
I know some people may have legacy CrystalReport templates and processes that may need updating if ESRI makes this switch.
it better not be, Activereports is HORRIBLE. I curently have to use it for Geocortex Essentials.
JW: Do you need a vacation? I sense anger in your comment.
Well ESRI had to do something. Ever since SAP bought whatever was left of Crystal Reports and “killed it” they needed a new engine. I can’t imagine ESRI using ActiveReports though but that is more personal opinion than anything.
@JW and @James
What do you have against ActiveReports. I was so glad to get off of that Crystal Reports nightmare when I found ActiveReports, plus with their upgrader I was able to convert many of my MS Access reports over to .NET reports. though it didn’t bring over the funciton calls, it kept the layout. Sweet
.
Generally speaking I prefer MS Access report designer more than cryst
Crystal reports to me always seemed like a cobbled dll hell mess. Everytime I needed to install it would conflict with some one elses Crystal Reports install or would have to get some stupid dll from their install becuase the run-time didn’t package it. That was just my experience though and I stopped using Crystal reports like 5-10 years ago.
I do believe ActiveReports has a crystal reports converter, but haven’t really used it so can’t speak for its merits.
FYI, that JW is not this JW.
@JW
I work on the Geocortex Essentials team and was involved in the decision to use Active Reports for our reporting engine. We’ve had almost entirely positive feedback on Active Reports and have found that it performs well, is simple and lightweight, and has a small product footprint. I was surprised by your comment and would definitely encourage you to contact us if you have specific concerns or reporting issues.
As for ESRI’s use of Active Reports, I see it as a sensible choice and am excited to see how we can take Geocortex Essentials reports and reuse them in the ArcGIS environment.
I’m not talking about reports being run by Geocortex, I’m talking about the ActiveReports designer used to make them. It is awful. Geocortex runs the reports just fine.
JW,
Could you describe a little bit more on what issues you are facing using the ActiveReports designer?
Are there specific features that you are looking for that the designer doesnt support? Is the API not easy or suitable enough? Are you designing the reports in Visual Studio or using the End User designer control to build your reports?
Please let me know and I would be glad to help you out. If your requirements seem feasible, we might be able to implement them in a future hotfix/sp release of ActiveReports.
We are currently in RC for ActiveReports 6, next version release of ActiveReports for .Net. We should be ready to release in a week time frame. I would suggest that if you have not played with it yet, please feel free to try and see if the new version serves your needs/requirements better. You can download the RC build here(http://downloads.datadynamics.com/ar6_601797.zip)
thanks
@Tad: The information about ActiveReports is from the ESRI staff member by the 9.4 booth at the conference; I don’t think that it is documented anywhere. He was nice guy and knew what he was talking about.
Thanks for the tip.
Dear James Fee: This letter is to congratulate him on his opinion piece and the time to make a query which I get no answer in the pages of specialist gis. How can i do a query type left join (Transact SQL) on 3 features in a feature class filegeodatabase?. What are the alternatives: Crystal Reports, programmin, filters?. Thanks for your support. Greetings from Venezuela. FEATURE CLASS 1, FEATURE CLASS 2, FEATURE CLASS 3. FEATURE CLASS1: FIELD: A,B,C,D. FEATURE CLASS2: FIELDS: E,F,G FEATURE CLASS3: FIELDS: H,I,J
My report should be a list: b,f,g,i,j Carmina. carmina_ha@hotmail.com
Hi James,
There is no “direct exchange” between CR and ArcMap at 9.4 – but did they mention whether users will be allowed to continue running CR at 9.4?
That is, will your Crystal Reports license (which was supplied on the 9.3 DVDs) still be valid? Can you continue to run CR stand-alone?
Thanks, Steve
Stephen,
From the ESRI web-help, it seems that your license will be independant of ArcGIS desktop since your license comes directly from Business Objects.
HTH,
Bob
http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/9.3/index.cfm?id=501&pid=492&topicname=Using_Crystal_Reports
Starting at 9.3, the full Crystal Reports™ product from Business Objects, which provides an advanced report authoring application, is no longer included with ArcGIS Desktop.
ArcGIS Desktop 9.1 and 9.2 included Crystal Reports XI Release 1. If you are upgrading to ArcGIS Desktop 9.3 from 9.1 or 9.2, you can continue to use your Crystal Reports XI software with 9.3. In order to enable the Tools > Reports > Crystal Reports Wizard in ArcMap 9.3, you need to install the Crystal Reports XI Release 2 runtime. This install is included on the Desktop 9.3 release media: on the ArcGIS Desktop Install DVD menu, it’s the choice called ArcGIS Crystal Reports Wizard. The Desktop Setup no longer prompts you to install Crystal Reports. (You don’t need to install the Crystal Reports XI Release 2 runtime to enable the Crystal Reports Wizard if you upgraded your Crystal Reports XI software to release 2).
Business Objects has released a new version of Crystal Reports: Crystal Reports 2008. If you have Crystal Reports XI, you can upgrade to Crystal Reports 2008 directly from Business Objects. See this page on the Business Objects Web site to upgrade: http://businessobjects.auc.com/ESRI2008/cd/index.html (Some international ESRI distributors may also be Business Objects resellers). Technical support for Crystal Reports 2008 is provided by Business Objects and may require an additional fee.
If you are new user of ArcGIS Desktop and you wish to use Crystal Reports 2008, you can buy it directly from Business Objects at the Web page mentioned above. To enable the Crystal Reports Wizard in ArcMap 9.3 to work with Crystal Reports 2008, you’ll need to install the Crystal Reports XI Release 2 runtime mentioned above.
If you don’t have any version of Crystal Reports installed, you can still enable the Crystal Reports Wizard in ArcMap 9.3 by installing the Crystal Reports XI Release 2 runtime mentioned above. This lets you to create, export, and print basic reports, and also open existing reports with the Crystal Reports wizard. However, you won’t be able to perform the advanced formatting and authoring available with the full Crystal Reports product.
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