OpenText Magellan vs. SAP Crystal

It depends on extensibility, set-up, access & style. Actuate performs fairly well, but has performance issues because it sits on top of eclipse, which sits on top of Java. Extensibility usually comes at that price. Set-up is fairly straightforward and it can be secured.

Incentivized

Generation of templated reports is the strong suit of SAP Crystal. Allows users to change formats in templates bases on requirement with minimal effort. Automated report delivery requires the user to be aware of sql which cannot be expected from all users. Should support more document export formats and improve the UI for SAP B1 Users

Incentivized

• Ability to connect to different kinds of sources, including web services, and customize those queries to the extend needed
• Provide tools to customize the look & feel of the reports as much as needed, even being able to choose different appearances for different outputs
• Allowing scripting in the reports extends the functionality available
• Allowing to embed reports without further licensing and maintaining all the functionality

Incentivized

• Great visualization for static format & precise tasks: For presentation to senior management /ex-co/vendors where concise decisions need to be made, Crystal is a nice choice to slide data into presentable views.
• Diverse data source connect: We have used it to write reports using data from DB2, SQL, Progress, Excel spreadsheets, XML data, Access, and Lotus Notes databases. It can also be used to join different database types together in one report.
• It uses the "recurring bands" structure for page layout which is efficient and fungible for generating different types of reports. Crystal doesn't require that we set up a metadata layer before creating reports and provides direct access to tables and dimensions.

Incentivized

• Report rendering can take a long time for large reports (250,000+ pages) - we run these in batch over night
• The deployment of production code from development to test to production enviroments can be complex due to the number of components that must compile

Incentivized

• Crystal Reports charting engine is ok but compared to some other visualization products available it is behind the times.
• Crystal Reports uses a proprietary format for its data storage, using an open format (like XML) would be much better
• You cannot add add a structured table object to the page layout, you can only use lines and boxes

Incentivized

I am no longer working for the company that was using Actuate but I believe they would continue to use it because the stitching costs would be to high. It would require a complete rewrite of the reports and the never version of Actuate (BIRT) even required an almost complete report rewrite

Incentivized

We have been using this product for so many years and it has truly become a cornerstone to our business processes when it comes to developing and distributing information via reports. We currently have over 500 reports developed to date over about 30 systems and that will continue to grow as user needs change.

It is quite intuitive to use. It is fit specifically for doing sentiment, emotion, and intention analysis as well as text classification and text summarization. I would have given 10 if it is fit for the purpose of doing image processing and analysis as well. There is a huge market to analyze video and image data.

Incentivized

Being able to get up and running quickly is a key asset. There's plenty of advanced features to master that are surprisingly difficult in others tools (or just missing from other tools altogether). The UI can feel a bit dated at times but its usability isn't affected. Any issue you have can usually be resolved by searching in the user community

Incentivized

Always there on the front and backend for us and the client.

SAP Crystal report is very supportive in daily need of reports or any organization. Basic functionality of operational reports detailing the Sales Order details or PO in a manner which can be used very easily. A readily available solution for delivering any customized need in terms of pixelated reporting can be met easily with the tool

Trainer was patient and thorough in going through the basics and willing to answer questions by email after the initial training

Incentivized

Just like any other implementation: When designing the differing reports, get end users' input, make sure to design the reports so that they display the information that the company requires, in the best and clearest way possible.

Test, test, test, revise when needed, and, particularly, do sufficient training so users are comfortable using Crystal Reports!

Incentivized

It is vastly superior to these in many ways, for complex reporting it is a much more sophisticated solution. Visualizations are very good. Javascript extensibility is very powerful, others don't support this or as well. Pentaho and MS are both OLAP oriented. Pentaho is moving more toward big data, which was not our primary focus. Others are stuck in the Crystal Reports Band metaphor.

For standard pixel perfect reporting, our company still uses Crystal Reports. It allows us to continually provide standard reporting to our clients. For dashboards, we are moving towards Microsoft Power BI. Power BI allows similar collaboration, but generally has better features for dashboards. Power BI also allows us to publish multiple reports and dashboards into a single app for our end users.

Incentivized

• Actuate can handle 50 to 60 sub reports inside a report very well.
• Dynamically creating the datasource, chart, graph, reports are the main advantages. We can do any level of drilling, and can create a performance matrix dashboard efficiently.

• Time and cost savings achieved by automation of report creating across many data sources we maintain.
• The ability to drill down into granular details of the data leads to a better understanding of the business procedures.
• Well-presented reports are invaluable for getting new clients on board.

Incentivized