Crystal Reports Reviews & Pricing

by SAP, Inc. | Founded 1991, Weinheim, Germany

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What is Crystal Reports?

Industry Specialties: Serves all industries.

SAP Crystal Reports is a feature-rich reporting tool that gleans business-critical insights through data exploration, visualization and custom reporting. Users drill-down to a high level of granularity to interact with and display data via visually rich reports and dashboards, enabling greater understanding of the metrics that count.

Available as a SaaS model or hosted locally, it integrates with other SAP and third-party offerings, and third-party applications such as Microsoft Office to provide entry-level user access to data. Users leverage a universal semantic layer to query large data sets and to intuitively design ad-hoc and print-ready reports in a variety of export formats.

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User Sentiment

Based on 796 reviews:

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Crystal Reports Pricing

Based on our most recent analysis, Crystal Reports pricing starts at $1,400.

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Starting From: $1,400
Pricing Model: Still gathering data
Free Trial: Yes, Request for Free

Training Resources

Crystal Reports is supported with the following types of training:

Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars

Support

The following support services are available for Crystal Reports:

Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Help Desk
Knowledge Base
Tickets
Training
24/7 Live Support

Crystal Reports Benefits and Insights

Why use Crystal Reports?

Key differentiators & advantages of Crystal Reports

Data Exploration and Analysis: Pull data from a multitude of simple and complex data sources and leverage it to power custom visualizations. Integrates seamlessly with other SAP offerings to present data for exploration and analysis.
Better Decisions: Make data-driven decisions empowered by analysis of key business metrics. Drill down and explore the same data from disparate views. Use visually appealing dashboards to share actionable insights across the organization.
Speed: Access data faster and speed up report design via its semantic layer.
Export Options: Export insightful business data in a range of file formats, such as PDFs, documents and spreadsheets. Highlight specific data by choosing which pages to export from a full report.
Flexible Pricing Offers flexible pricing plans with role-based licenses, a plus for medium-sized businesses and enterprises.
Data Security: Secure data by restricting access via role-based permissions.

Industry Expertise

Crystal Reports address the reporting and data analytics needs of more than 1,000,000 users in over 100 countries. It serves a plethora of industries such as logistics, military and intelligence, transport, publishing, consulting, application developers, manufacturing, healthcare and sports, among others.

Crystal Reports Reviews

Average customer reviews & user sentiment summary for Crystal Reports:

796 reviews

82%

of users would recommend this product

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Based on an aggregate of Crystal Reports reviews taken from the sources above, the following pros & cons have been curated by a SelectHub Market Analyst.

Pros

Data Visualization: Mentioning its visualization capabilities, around 83% of users said that the platform offered a multitude of customizable data presentation options, such as graphs, funnel charts, scatter charts, bubble charts, cross-tab reports and OLAP reports, among others.
Data Connectivity: Approximately 83% of users who reviewed connectivity said that the solution pulled data efficiently from a plethora of data sources, including MySQL, HANA, MS-Access, and ODBC databases and more.
Data Management: Citing the ease of SQL querying and data modeling, around 73% of users said that the tool sorted, merged and organized large data sets efficiently.
Reporting: Of the users who discussed its reporting capabilities, around 68% said that they found it easy to create formulas and graphs, and share reports in a variety of export formats.
Functionality: Approximately 59% of users who reviewed its functionality said that it had a wide range of features and was highly customizable and scalable, with great third-party support to extend its out-of-the-box capabilities.

Cons

Learning Curve: Citing insufficient documentation on specific issues, around 76% of users who reviewed the tool for adoption said that there was a steep learning curve.
Speed: Around 61% of users who commented on speed said that the tool was slow when pulling large amounts of data, and they found it time- and effort-intensive to optimize it for performance.

Researcher's Summary:

SAP Crystal Reports is an integrated BI platform that helps users create reports that display KPIs and other business metrics in order to streamline decision making processes. Many users who mentioned its data visualization capabilities said that the platform, with its wide range of charts, tables, font styles and other formatting options, helped align complex and diverse data in a readable format. The solution integrated well with virtually all data sources, according to the majority of users who discussed its data connectivity capabilities, though some users said that during initial setup, it was difficult to establish data connections. Many users who mentioned reporting said that they found it easy to create complex reports and subreports to view the same data from different perspectives, though some users said that its report design and graphics options were rigid compared to other BI tools. Around 59% of users who commented on its features said that the platform was robust and scalable and, with drag-and-drop functionality to easily create custom reports, enabled them to monitor and analyze multiple business metrics. Many users who commented on ease of use said that, with its optimal layout and design, the platform was user friendly.

A majority of users who reviewed the resources available said that documentation was very generic and not at all issue-specific. Others said that error debugging was tedious, forcing them to look online for possible resolutions. A majority of users who reviewed its speed said that the platform was slow when processing large data sets. Quite a few users who reviewed its features said that chart types were dated and the platform seemed to have plateaued, with the vendor seemingly having shifted focus to upgrading the Enterprise version. Mentioning that technical assistance was necessary to establish data connections initially, some users said that SQL querying was difficult without developer support, unlike Tableau.

In summary, SAP Crystal Reports is a robust reporting tool that enables self-service creation of custom, pixel-perfect reports for data exploration and analysis.

Key Features

Data Source Connectivity: Connect to virtually any data source, including RDBMSs, XL data, OLAP cubes, spreadsheets and log files, among others.
Data Mashups: Create powerful data mashups with the advanced report designer. Leverage what-if data models and deep-dive insights to make business-critical decisions without leaving the reporting screen.
Pixel Perfect Reports: Create on-demand as well as print-ready custom formatted reports.
Report Sharing: Share custom reports with departments and teams in easily readable formats, ensuring data literacy across the organization. Schedule report distribution by setting event-based triggers and share targeted information via report bursting.
Integration With Microsoft Office: Access business-critical data intelligence within the applications used most. Share and display reports in Excel format.

Limitations

Some of the product limitations include:

Slow pace of development
Error debugging is difficult with lack of issue-specific documentation
Steep learning curve
Slow when accessing large datasets
Initial setup of data connections is tedious and time consuming

Suite Support

Before reaching out to support, go through the extensive online product documentation, knowledge base, user guides, tutorials and resources available for free on the SAP Support Portal. Individual technical support is mainly available through the SAP ONE Support Launchpad — find solution-specific answers, report incidents, request support from an expert and more. Interact with experts and peers through the active SAP online community forums.

For an additional fee, the vendor can provide more proactive support through its Enterprise Support and Preferred Success plans.

Email: Email [email protected] for non-technical assistance through the Customer Interaction Center. For technical queries, chat with an expert in real-time within the support portal.

Phone: To reach the Customer Interaction Center, call 1-800-677-7271. For technical support, schedule a one-on-one 30-minute call with an expert or manager through the SAP ONE Support Launchpad.

Training: Vendor offers a variety of instructor-led and self-paced online paid training courses for the platform. Access on-demand expert-led and social e-learning through the subscription-based SAP Learning Hub. Contact the vendor for training and adoption consulting services as well as customized training plan options.

Tickets: Report high or very-high priority incidents via the SAP ONE Support Launchpad.