Monday, October 13, 2014

PeopleTools 8.54 will be the last release to certify Crystal Reports

It was just a question of time. In July 2011, Oracle announced that newly acquired PeopleSoft applications would not include a Crystal Reports license. Some years before, in October 2007, Business Objects was acquired by SAP. You don't need to read Machiavelli's Il Principe to understand why the license was now not included.

In order to keep customer's investment on custom reports safe, Oracle kept updating Crystal Reports certifications for those customers who purchased PeopleSoft applications before that date. In parallel, BI Publisher was improved release after release, providing a viable replacement to Crystal Reports, and in many areas surpassing its features.

Now, as announced in My Oracle Support's document 1927865.1, PeopleTools 8.54 will be the last release for which Crystal Reports will be certified, and support for report issues will end together with the expiration of PeopleSoft 9.1 applications support.








PeopleTools 8.54 was just released a couple of months ago, so there is no need to panic, but PeopleSoft applications managers would do well if they start coming up with an strategy to convert their existing Crystal Reports into BI Publisher reports.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

any update strategy to converting crystal reports to BI publisher.

Unknown said...

There is no automatic converter between Crystal Reports and BI Publisher, so you may need some manual development work.

The good news is that unless the Crystal Reports is heavy on formulas, the needed adjustments are very similar from report to report, so it is an activity which can be become more productive with large volumes. Still, you will need to test every report and make sure they provide the same information and they deliver it in a similar or better format.

Prabhu said...

Hi, Though it is certified for 8.54 tools, will the crystal reports work with 9.2 applications? Thanks..

Unknown said...

Hi Prabhu

They will work, but the 9.2 applications do not include any delivered Crystal report. You can still use the existing custom ones from previous releases or build you own, but I wouldn't recommend it because sooner or later you will need to migrate to PeopleTools 8.55 and you will lose support for your existing reports.

If it's an existing report and you don't have the time or budget, you may wait. Otherwise, I would use XML Publisher.

Cheers!

Prabhu said...

Thanks a lot. This helps !

Anonymous said...

What about delivered Crystal Reports still in use from PeopleSoft but site not at 9.2 application but will be upgrading to PeopleTools 8.55........can those delivered Crystals still run with PT 8.55?....should they be disabled, re-written...Your insights are much appreciated.

Anonymous said...

Hi Javier, When does PeopleTools 8.54 go out of support?

Unknown said...

As of now, PeopleTools 8.54 will stop to be updated on December 4th 2017. It will still be supported, but any patch will be delivered in higher releases.

Thanks

Anonymous said...

Hi Javier,


How to convert the crystal reports with sub reports in it to BI Publisher ?
How to handle multiple data sets from Crystal to BI publisher?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,
Ram.

Unknown said...

Hi Ram

You can handle multiple data sets through Connected Queries, which allow you to link multiple queries into one data set. You can also manually generate the XML to be consumed by BI Publisher using PeopleCode.

I hope this help.
Thanks

Javier

Anonymous said...

Thanks Javier

-Ram