General

What is crystalreports.com?
crystalreports.com is a web-based report-sharing service that enables companies, regardless of size or IT resources, to instantly share business-critical information with the right people in a simple and secure manner. Often, Crystal Reports users distribute reports in either PDF or Excel via email or hard copy - a manual process which is time consuming and difficult to manage. With crystalreports.com, customers can further leverage their investment in Crystal Reports by instantly sharing and storing their reports on the web with no additional hardware, software or IT resource requirement. We host the service on your behalf.

What is Business Intelligence OnDemand (BIOD) for crystalreports.com?
BIOD for crystalreports.com is an option for enterprises or companies with large datasets that are looking for more in-depth BI tools that provide advanced reporting, real-time dashboards, and powerful ad-hoc analysis tools for maximizing the value of your corporate data. The key difference between standard crystalreports.com and BIOD is that crystalreports.com is based on hosting live report and dashboard files within the Business Objects OnDemand platform, and BIOD is based on hosting a copy of the actual data sources within our OnDemand platform.

What is a crystalreports.com account Administrator?
The account Administrator creates and manages a crystalreports.com account - a collection of folders and reports hosted on crystalreports.com. The Administrator defines the folder hierarchy of a crystalreports.com account and uploads individual reports and dashboards. The Administrator does not need to be a report author - in many cases they publish reports generated by a designated report author. The Administrator is also responsible for adding users to the crystalreports.com account and setting user permissions for viewing and accessing files that are hosted on crystalreports.com.

What is a crystalreports.com Viewer?
A Viewer is added to a crystalreports.com account by the Administrator and is able to view specific reports and dashboards they are authorized to access. A Viewer is not able to publish reports. A Viewer is only allowed to view the reports uploaded by the Administrator.

Note: Viewers are separated into two categories: Members and Guests. Adding Members is the standard recommended way of sharing reports and other documents with new users. Members can only view a single crystalreports.com account and can be promoted to Administrator status. Guests are a limited user-type distinction used in special cases where a new user does not need to follow standard account membership rules. Guests have the option of viewing multiple crystalreports.com accounts, but cannot be promoted to Administrator status by an account Administrator.

What is the difference between Starter Edition and Professional Edition?
Starter Edition is a free edition of crystalreports.com that is limited to 3 users and 10 reports. It allows companies to experience the value of crystalreports.com and to try out all of the features provided in Professional Edition.

Professional Edition is a subscription service available to all Crystal Reports customers. Professional Edition includes 5 GB of disk storage space. Licenses are $29.95 USD per user, per month.

Can I host my Crystal Reports files created in older versions of Crystal Reports?
Yes. Starter Edition and Professional Edition support Crystal Reports XI and all previous Crystal Reports file types. Publishers are not required to migrate reports forward to XI or other future versions of Crystal Reports.

Is crystalreports.com compatible with Crystal Reports 2008?
Reports built with Crystal Reports 2008 are compatible with crystalreports.com with the exception of some new features added to Crystal Reports 2008 such as the embedding of Flash (.swf) files and the viewing of reports with advanced filtering and sorting controls. We currently recommend using Crystal Reports XI Release 2 with crystalreports.com.

Does crystalreports.com support parameterized reports?
This feature is only available for customers that have deployed one of our data connectivity solutions such as the Salesforce.com driver or the crystalreports.com Open Data Connector. Reports based on saved data do not support parameters.

What is Desktop Publisher?
Desktop Publisher is available as a download for crystalreports.com Administrators and provides the ability to schedule automatic updates of saved data reports, dashboards, or other file types. Desktop Publisher can also be used to upload your crystalreports.com folder hierarchy. To use this feature, create a folder hierarchy locally, and then click New Folder within Desktop Publisher.

What is Crystal Reports Viewer?
Crystal Reports Viewer is a desktop client application that allows a crystalreports.com user to view Crystal Reports files while disconnected or offline. To view a report file offline, use the export button while viewing a report on crystalreports.com, and then save the .rpt file locally. The report can then be accessed by opening Crystal Reports Viewer and selecting the report.

Are there any Crystal Reports features that are not supported by crystalreports.com?
The following Crystal Reports features are not supported by crystalreports.com:

How can I change my password?
To change your password, go to the login page and click "I forgot my password." You'll be asked to answer your security question, and a new, temporary password will be sent to your email address. If you don't remember the answer to your security question, ask your crystalreports.com account administrator to reset your password instead. If you aren't currently a member of an existing crystalreports.com account, please contact crystalreports.com support to have your password reset.

I have more than 1,000 documents in a folder. Why can't I see all of them?
crystalreports.com currently limits the documents that it shows in a single folder to the first 1,000. To work around this limit, you can create subfolders and put documents into the subfolders.

Starter Edition

What do I get with crystalreports.com Starter Edition?
Starter Edition provides all of the functionality supported in Professional Edition but is limited to 3 users and 10 reports.

How do I set up crystalreports.com Starter Edition?
Go to www.crystalreports.com and click Try It Free. You will be directed to a registration form that will prompt you for your email address (which becomes your login ID), password, and contact information. Once you accept the Terms of Use, you will receive a confirmation email to verify your email address and activate a crystalreports.com account. As the person setting up the account, you become the Administrator for your report space.

Is it possible to configure my report space so that only certain users see certain reports?
Yes, folder-level security is available in both Starter Edition and Professional Edition. The crystalreports.com Administrator has the ability to create user groups and then assign access privileges to specific folders.

What if I require more than 3 users or additional report storage capacity?
Starter Edition is free and provides 3 user licenses and the ability to share up to 10 reports or consume up to 50 MB of storage space. If you wish to set up a crystalreports.com account that exceeds these limitations, you can sign up for Professional Edition or upgrade your existing Starter account to a Professional account.

Professional Edition

What do I get with crystalreports.com Professional Edition?
Professional Edition includes 5 GB of disk storage space. Licenses are $29.95 USD per user, per month. Professional Edition also includes advanced capabilities such as the Open Data Connector and the crystalreports.com API.

How do I set up crystalreports.com Professional Edition?
Select Buy Now at www.crystalreports.com. You will be directed to a registration form that will prompt you for your email address (which becomes your login ID), password, contact information, the number of users, the term (months), and credit card details. Once you accept the Terms of Use, you will receive a confirmation email to verify your email address and activate a crystalreports.com account. You can also set up a Professional Edition account by entering a promo code provided by Business Objects. The promo code provides full use of a Professional Edition account for a limited time.

What are the subscription licensing terms for crystalreports.com Professional Edition?
Subscription licensing costs are based on two factors:

How do I use a Professional Edition promo code?
A Professional Edition promo code can be submitted during the Professional Edition registration process. Select Promo Code from the Payment Method drop down list. After you submit the initial registration page, a field will appear for entering your promo code.

Administration

How do I add a report to crystalreports.com?

  1. Select the Report tab
  2. Hover over the name of the report space and click the drop-down arrow
  3. Select Add Folder
  4. Name the new folder
  5. Hover over the name of the folder and click the drop-down arrow
  6. Select Add Report
  7. Click Browse to choose your report
  8. Give the report a name
  9. Click Upload

How do I add additional Administrators to a crystalreports.com account?

Scenario 1: New user - If the user does not currently exist within your crystalreports.com account, you can add the new Administrator by clicking the Administrator user group on the Users tab and then clicking Add User.

Scenario 2: Existing user added before December 15, 2007 - If the user is already in your crystalreports.com account and was added before December 15, 2007, contact crystalreports.com support and tell us the user's email address. Support will notify you when the user is ready to be upgraded to Administrator status. Once you receive approval, you can then add the user to the Administrator user group on the Users tab.

Scenario 3: Existing user added after December 15, 2007 - If the user is already in your crystalreports.com account and was added after December 15, 2007, as a Member, you can add the new Administrator by clicking on the Administrator user group on the Users tab and then clicking Add User. If the user was added after Dec. 15, 2007 as a Guest, you must follow the instruction in Scenario 2. After completing any of the three scenarios above, the new Administrator user will now have full rights to add users, upload or publish reports, and manage your crystalreports.com account.

How do I add a Viewer to crystalreports.com?

  1. Select the Users tab
  2. Hover over the Users folder and click on the drop-down arrow
  3. Select Add User
  4. Select Member or Guest as the user type
  5. Add the email address, first name and last name of the Report Viewer
  6. Click Save & Send Notification

If you have additional questions or need help, please click Support on crystalreports.com or go to www.ondemand.com/support.

What is an Account Space Name?
An Account Space Name is a descriptive name for your account. It is used in crystalreports.com to describe the account you are currently acessing.

What is an Account Id?
An Account Id is a unique code used to identify your account in Desktop Publisher, Crystal Reports, Crystal Reports Viewer, and other external applications. By default, the Account Id is the email address of the owner.

Can I change the owner of an account to another person?
Yes, beginning April 12, 2008, you can change the owner of an account to another person. To do so, please contact crystalreports.com support.