Creating and Publishing Crystal Reports 

Purpose

You can use Crystal Report integration into SAP NetWeaver BI to create formatted reports (Crystal Reports) and make them available to your users.

Process Flow

The following overview shows you the process behind the creation and publishing of a Crystal Report:

       1.      You can use Crystal Reports Designer to create report definitions for Crystal Reports. Start Crystal Reports Designer. In the Open BEx dialog, choose a BI query to base the report on.

You can choose existing queries or call BEx Query Designer and create a new one there.

When designing a query that the report is based on, you should ensure that it does not contain more characteristics and key figures than are required in the Crystal Report. If the query that the Crystal Report is based on has more characteristics or key figures, performance problems can arise because the OLAP processor calculates the whole query.

       2.      Once you have selected the query, the system transfers the metadata to Crystal Reports Designer.

       3.      Crystal Reports Designer allows you to create reports with a layout accurate to the nearest pixel, and to create formula-based reports. After creating your report, you can use a preview function to display the BI query data in the Crystal Report.

You can find more information in the documentation for Crystal Reports Designer and in BusinessObjects XI Integration for SAP Solutions – User Guide, which you can find on the SAP Help Portal, under help.sap.com  → SAP BusinessObjects → All Products.

       4.      Save the Crystal Report, give it a technical name and meaningful description and assign it to a BI role.

The Crystal Reports are stored in the BI system and managed in the Data Warehousing Workbench. Crystal Reports can be transported with the BI transport system.

       5.      Once you have saved the Crystal Report in the BI system, it has to be published on the SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise Server before it can be made available to users. The Crystal Report is stored on the SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise server in rpt format.

If you want to use Crystal Reports from Business Content, you need to activate them, assign them to a BI role and publish them on the SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise server component. This also enables these reports to be accessed by users.

       6.      The Crystal Reports can be displayed with the Web browser or the portal. When the Crystal Report is started, the system checks user authorization for the report.

Result

You have created a Crystal Report and can make it available to your users using the Web browser or the portal.

You can precalculate data for Crystal Reports with BEx Broadcaster. More information: Filling the MDX Cache