I apologize if this issue is already out there, I looked around but could not find a answer.
I use Crystal Reports, my company is going to TRY and move me to Business Objects XI.
What am I going to loose? My company already discovered what happened when there is no universe manager - it’s why I am using Crystal Reports now but what else am I going to loose?
Thanks!
raymc0 (BOB member since 2009-11-16)
You’ll lose nothing and you’ll gain valuable skills in a world leading flexible and powerful product.
Damocles 
(BOB member since 2006-10-05)
Generally speaking, Crystal is for pixel perfect reporting and Webi is for structured ad-hoc type analysis. This is at a high level.
Generally speaking you are going up the chain and will allow users better control over the content when you move to Webi.
Downside? Once can argue simplicity of canned reports and pixel perfectness for better printing.
Other than these two, you can get everything else out of Webi as well. Does this come with a cost? Yes, a slight more overhead in processing. But, when we all moved from world of C and C++, same argument applied. More structured, more functional, a little most processing cost, but pays of in terms of maintainability and functionality.
One of the pitfalls to look out for us to mimic Crystal in Webi world. You could say try to skip Universe in Webi, go directly against DB etc. In that case, you may miss the point. Structured approach comes with upfront investment, but pays off in longer run.
Hope this helps
Rdadia (BOB member since 2009-05-18)
One thing to add if I may is that when you are using one tool you always wish you had the other for a specific purpose or usage. Crystal can do things that WebI just can’t and vice versa.
I hope that as you move to using WebI as your main reporting that you still keep Crystal around for those reports that really need that functionality.
They are complimentary tools and there is nothing wrong with having reports written in both of them in the same environment.
edurda 
(BOB member since 2005-09-08)