Accessing crystal report

[Former Member]

We are trying to access Crystal server 2011 enterprise reports from Java based COTS application. I would like to know the process of implementing this, what needs to be done on the Java application side and the crystal server 2011 side in order to access the Crystal reports from the Java application.

Thanks in advance

[Former Member]

There are multiple ways to achieve this, however I would say the best approach would be to use Open Document Url reporting technique.

You can construct Open Document Urls to your reports and embed them in your java application.

Refer to the below link for more details around open document url's

http://help.sap.com/businessobject/product_guides/boexir4/en/xi4_opendocument_en.pdf

You can then create logon token/serialized session and can bypass the BO login from your application while viewing the reports from application.

Thanks,

Prithvi

[Former Member]

Hi Prithvi,

Thanks for your response, if i go with open doc still I need to create logon token/serialized session?

Is there any other simple way to achieve this, the vendor for the COTS application wants a simple solution to access the report, there are 100's of report. Please advise are the other solutions simple to implement?

Thanks in advance

[Former Member]

I am not sure how your COTS application is designed, however as far as I know this is the simplest solution of all with minimum coding required. If you do not want to generate logon token or serialized session, then the users need to provide their login credentials to access the reports when they click on the report links.

Thanks,

Prithvi

[Former Member]

Thanks Prithvi. Do you know if we can call the Crystal reports from the Java based COTS application stored in the shared drive directory?

[Former Member]

Open Document url reporting is making http calls to the OpenDocument application with in BOE. If your application supports http, I dont see any issue.

Thanks,

Prithvi

[Former Member]

Prthivi,

Thanks for your reply, what i meant to ask is, instead of BOE, if the reports are placed on a network shared drive eg. "d:\reports" and they are mapped to the server. How do we call and invoke the report with the given path from the Java application? Is it possible?

[Former Member]

If the reports are on a drive, you would need to open the reports using the Crystal Reports for Eclipse SDKs.

You can only open managed reports (Reports which are published to Crystal Server) using Open document. For unmanaged reports(Reports outside Crystal Server Enterprise), you would need to use CR for Ecllipse SDKs.

You can get the run time libraries from

http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-29757

Sample available at

All samples

http://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/BOBJ/Crystal+Reports+Java++SDK+Samples

Thanks,

Prithvi