SQL Reporting Services vs. Crystal/BusinessObjects ??

[techfuzz]

At the company I work for, we have a custom MS Access database solution for running reports against our Oracle database. We're interested in possibly moving to a web-based solution. SQL Reporting Services and Crystal/BusinessObjects came to mind.

Has anyone done a comparison of these solutions or can offer some insight into a solution you might have implemented?

Thanks,

techfuzz

 

[MrChad]

Business Objects is industry standard. I haven't worked with SQL Reporting Services at all.

 

[KB]

I haven't used Business Objects, but I have used Crystal Reports and SQL Server Reporting Services. Being accustomed to MS Access and SQL Server I am a bit biased towards SQL Reporting Services. For one thing it is free (with a SQL Server license). Second the Report Builder is similar to Access. Because of this I found it 5 times easier to use than Crystal Reports. In addition users can set up subscriptions so that reports can be emailed to them on a daily/hourly/monthly basis. It also supports exporting to PDF, TIFF, Excel, HTML formats.

In all the projects I have done we have used SQL Reporting.

 

[WannaFly]

Originally posted by: KB
I haven't used Business Objects, but I have used Crystal Reports and SQL Server Reporting Services. Being accustomed to MS Access and SQL Server I am a bit biased towards SQL Reporting Services. For one thing it is free (with a SQL Server license). Second the Report Builder is similar to Access. Because of this I found it 5 times easier to use than Crystal Reports. In addition users can set up subscriptions so that reports can be emailed to them on a daily/hourly/monthly basis. It also supports exporting to PDF, TIFF, Excel, HTML formats.

In all the projects I have done we have used SQL Reporting.

As a complete opposite, everything i've done has been in Crystal Reports. It's very nice - has a ton of flexability and control over the reports, i've made some pretty complicated accounting reports in it. I have ZERO experience with SQLRS, but i do know that it is free - unlike CR, which runs pretty expensive and need to be careful with distrbution licenses (if doing windows forms). I've taken numerous CR classes, and have looked into getting my certification for it - why not (good resume filler!). It all depends on your projects and budget.

 

[techfuzz]

SQL Reporting Services is only free if you own the SQL CAL's or buy per-cpu licenses. We own CAL's, but only SQL 2000 ones so we'd have to buy new ones if we were to use SRS 2005. Unfortunately both SRS and CR are quite expensive. This project is going to be strictly web-based so no need to worry about distribution licenses, just access licenses.

techfuzz

 

[Markbnj]

Just a quick note to point out that while those are probably the two biggest choices, there are about 2 zillion other options out there for web-based reporting, some more capable than others, and some more expensive than others. If you want to whack something out on a budget there are some pretty good alternatives. I'm not a reporting guy, so I can't make a direct comparison, but I recall finding a lot of alternatives when we did a little shopping last year.

 

[techfuzz]

I played around with both solutions over the last few days. Here's my take on the two:
SRS - Clunky report editor and feels less powerful than the one built into MS Access. I don't like that the report server is built onto Sharepoint Services. What's worse is you HAVE to use the report server WSS site if you want to print reports; otherwise, you're SOL unless you export them to PDF first. Web report viewer is ok, minus the whole printing issue.
CR - Better report writer than SRS, but not by much. Web integration can be a bit troublesome at times and took some researching to find solutions to a couple problems. Not nearly as easy to setup as SRS was.

Both have their pro's and con's. Neither is a clear winner at this point, but I'd have to pick CR as having a slight lead just for having a bit more useful report writer. Overall though, both had really bad web-integration.

techfuzz

 

[Gunslinger08]

Nice thing about SQL Reporting Services? C# code-behind. Very handy if you actually need to do complex stuff with your reports.