From Crystal Reports 2008 to SAP Crystal Reports 2020 or SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise

This article explains the differences between SAP Crystal Reports 2020 and SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise.

Overview of upgrade and conversion process

Upgrade from XI3.1 to BI4.x (From Crystal Reports 2008 to SAP Crystal Reports 2020)

If your reports are in the BI platform, all Crystal Reports 2008 are automatically upgraded to SAP Crystal Reports 2020 format when you use the BI4.x Upgrade Manager Tool (UMT).
If your reports are saved locally on your PC, you can use SAP Crystal Reports 2020 (Designer) to upgrade a report to SAP Crystal Reports 2020 format.

Conversion within BI4.x (From SAP Crystal Reports 2020 to SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise)

Once reports are in SAP Crystal Reports 2020 format , you should evaluate if you should convert your reports into SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise format.
There is no need to convert all reports into SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise format.
You may also find out that there are certain reports that should stay in SAP Crystal Reports 2020 format (i.e. report based on Business View, etc).
Please refer to "Choosing between Crystal Reports 2020 and Crystal Reports for Enterprise" section for more detail.

Within BI4.x, you have flexible report development options, based on your requirements:

• Maintain & develop reports using SAP Crystal Reports 2020 (= no conversion)
• Maintain existing reports in SAP Crystal Reports 2020, while developing new reports using SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise (=no conversion)
• Convert porting of reports into SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise in order to take advantage of connectivity optionssuch as BICS (= conversion)

When opening a report in SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise 4.1 and above, that was created in SAP Crystal Reports 2020 or below, a conversion wizard appears to help you change the database connection to a:

• Universe (unx); or
•  BICS (SAP BW BEx Query connectivity); or
• Direct data source connectivity

The wizard will also detect any features that are in the report that are not supported in Crystal Reports for Enterprise. These missing features are listed later in this article.
Once you save this report, the format conversion is completed.

It is possible to convert from SAP Crystal Reports 2020 (format) into SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise (format). 
It is not possible to convert back form  SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise (format) into SAP Crystal Reports 2020 (format).
Please make sure that you take backup copies before conversion.

Overview of the two Crystal Reports versions

Crystal Reports 2020 is an incremental update will have all the features that are familiar to Crystal Reports 2008/2011/2013/2016 users.

Crystal Reports for Enterprise focuses on the BI platform and connecting to data from SAP BW. Crystal Reports for Enterprise does not include some features that are present in Crystal Reports 2020.  Crystal Reports for Enterprise will not have all the functionality from Crystal Reports 2020.

We will continue to support the Crystal Reports 2016/2020 line of products as well as the Crystal Reports for Enterprise line of products. The rest of the article will explain the two product lines in detail so you can determine when to utilize SAP Crystal Reports 2016/2020 or SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise.

Choosing between Crystal Reports 2020 and Crystal Reports for Enterprise

In general if you are currently using Crystal Reports 2020 and you want to use the BI semantic layer and BI4.x platform then choose SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise. If you require report creation API, SAP ERP direct table access then SAP Crystal Reports 2020 is the version of choice.

SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise is the foundation for future versions. In BI 4.x you can choose to use both versions depending on features and data connectivity needed.

SAP Crystal Reports 2020 and SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise can run side by side on the same desktop client.

The following table summarizes general recommendations on which version to use based on the data access required:

SAP Crystal Reports 2020 vs. SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise

Data connectivity

User interface

BI 4.x platform

Servers can be run side by side on the same server. SAP BusinessObjects BI4.x server install package installs both set of servers by default. Reports created in SAP Crystal Reports 2020 will processed on the 32 bit servers, reports created in Crystal Reports for Enterprise will be processed by the 64 servers.

NetWeaver integration

SAP Crystal Reports 2020

SAP Crystal Reports 2020 is an updated version of SAP Crystal Reports 2008 with additional features such as

• Read-Only Report Format
• Export to XSLX from the report designer and viewer
• Integration with Visual Studio 2010/2012/2013/2015.  This is provided by a seperate product download.  See the following link:

     http://scn.sap.com/community/crystal-reports-for-visual-studio

SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise

SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise is the newly designed version of the Crystal Reports designer. This version is focused on streamlined report design, reporting against the BI 4.x semantic layer and SAP BW data.

New features in Crystal Reports for Enterprise

• Redesigned user interface allows for easier report creation
• Improved semantic layer support. With SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise you can create reports against the BI 4.x common semantic layer.
• Direction connection from Crystal Reports for Enterprise to a SAP BEx query using SAP BICS connectivity.
• Native 64-bit processing servers in BI 4.x are supported.
• All text-based elements are translatable, and all translations can be managed and scheduled at the platform level with the Translation Management tool.
• Users can self-manage alert subscriptions; the BI platform alerting framework can make use of alerts created in SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise.

What is not available yet and when should you expect it in SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise?

Functional Area	BI 4.0	BI 4.1	BI 4.2	BI 4.3
Create reports on top of unmodeled data (i.e., direct to data)	Directly access data sources including simplified connection authoring, deployment and administration	Additional data sources added for direct access	Additional data sources added for direct access	Additional data sources added
Crystal Reports specific APIs for report creation and consumption *	REST and AJAX APIs offering report navigation, Odata service, export functionality and report embedding. Review of existing application workflows is recommended to insure support through these APIs	APIs and service to embed Crystal Reports into HANA	Improvements to the REST API	Improvements to the REST API
Expose and interact with reports from Live Office
Locate documents via platform search	Supported	Supported	Supported	Supported
View time filtering (formerly provided by Business Views)			Supported from 4.2 SP06, via Common Semantic Layer	Supported via Common Semantic Layer
Dynamic data connections (e.g., via Business Views)
Scheduled LOVs
User Function Libraries (UFL)			Supported from 4.2 SP06	Supported
Custom Functions	Available within a report (not shared through the BI repository)	Available within a report (not shared through the BI repository)	Available within a report (not shared through the BI repository)	Available within a report (not shared through the BI repository)
OLAP Grid / OLAP Cube Report	Only possible through the Common Semantic layer	Only possible through the Common Semantic layer	Only possible through the Common Semantic layer	Only possible through the Common Semantic layer
Label Creation Wizard
Geographical Maps	Possible via Dashboard Design Integration	Possible via Dashboard Design Integration	Possible via Dashboard Design Integration	Currently not planned
Barcodes & QRcode			Supported	Supported
SAP ERP data access	Available via the Common Semantic Layer.  Direct table access from ECC is still not possible	Available via the Common Semantic Layer. Support for optional parameters with no default values	Available via the Common Semantic Layer. Support for optional parameters with no default values	Available via the Common Semantic Layer. Support for optional parameters with no default values
Oracle, Sieble, JD Edwards and PeopleSoft integration kits				Currently not planned
Saving Crystal Reports functions, images and text objects to the BI repository
Read-Only Report Format (RPTR)			Supported from 4.2 SP06	Supported
Designer Hyperlinking Wizard
Designer Performance Information Dialogue
Save export options in Crystal Reports Designer	Supported	Supported	Supported	Supported
CR 2016 Dynamic Cascading Prompts	Automatically converted to static prompt (can be converted to semantic layer prompt)	Automatically converted to static prompt (can be converted to semantic layer prompt)	Automatically converted to static prompt (can be converted to semantic layer prompt)	Automatically converted to static prompt (can be converted to semantic layer prompt)
Database synonyms				Currently not planned
Report template		Supported	Supported	Supported
SQL commands (freehand SQL)		Supported	Supported	Supported
Verify database options		Supported	Supported	Supported
Right to left HTML viewer		Supported	Supported	Supported
Add subreports based on any supported datasource		Supported	Supported	Supported
OpenDoc Post method		Supported	Supported	Supported
SQL expressions				Currently not planned
OLE objects				Currently not planned

Submit enhancement requests for SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise here