Re: OT: Decent GUI-based reportwriter for Linux?

I work in the IT department at Crystal, so I might be able to shed some
light, but I don't speak for the company.

You could get away with running scheduled reports on a Windows machine and
exporting them to HTML. These HTML files could then be copied to a Linux
box for serving. This doesn't allow for any kind of parameterized report,
unless you are willing to run static reports for every single permutation of
inputs.

I looked at this for a project of my own outside of work, and ended up
resigning myself to running a Windows Crystal report server.

A couple of questions: What value is the customer going to get out of
Postgres over the current Oracle solution? Just asking because it sounds
like the migration is likely to cause significant disruption for them.

Also, have you heard about Crystal Enterprise? It's the packaging of a web
based report scheduler/server, plus some olap cube stuff as well. Not sure
if cubes can be built off of Postgres dbs, but maybe? Anyway, it has to run
off IIS, but this would be a different box than the DB server, so it might
fit your needs.

Chris Dircks
Sr Applications Developer
Crystal Decisions
chris(dot)dircks(at)crystaldecisions(dot)com

-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-admin-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org
[mailto:pgsql-admin-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org]On Behalf Of Bradley Kieser
Sent: Monday, January 28, 2002 3:49 AM
To: Pablo Prieto
Cc: pgsql-admin(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: [ADMIN] OT: Decent GUI-based reportwriter for Linux?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Original Message <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

On 1/28/02, 12:19:38 PM, "Pablo Prieto" <pablo(dot)prieto(at)dulcesol(dot)es> wrote
regarding Re: [ADMIN] OT: Decent GUI-based reportwriter for Linux?:

> >The only problem is that the company is already using reportwriter
tools
> like Crystal Reports...

> Hello.
> Crystal Reports via ODBC should work, doesn't it?.

It would, except that I missed out and important bit of info, sorry, your
posintg just made it clear now:
The reports will be delivered via the web.

I.e. They want to DESIGN the reports (and sure, can use ODBC to do this),
but then they need to be able to plublish the completed reports on the
web, using the Linux server. Most reporting tools (I am told) now support
writing reports in the report writing tool, then generating an HTML
options page (to configure runtime options for the report) and then
running the thing (on windows) upon activation via a browser (presumably
by clicking the "submit" button on the options HTML page generated by the
report writer).

The user then gets the report either as PDF or in an HTML page (there are
usually quite few output options).

It's the "running on the Linux machine from the web" part that I need to
sort. SO far the only contender is to try and run it via WINE, but that
isn't really an option as it seems to be far too integrated in the
WINdows OS.

Anative Linux solution (even if it is a tool that will import crystal
reports and convert to Perl or something) is much more preferable.

Thanks,

Brad

> Pablo.

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