Can I use Crystal Reports with Epicor V10

The short answer is YES.

Unfortunately, for a while (don't know if this is still happening) Epicor Support was saying to people "Crystal Reports is no longer supported in version 10".

This is/was VERY misleading - because Crystal reports works just fine with Epicor 10 (and always has) - it's just that support will NOT help you with Crystal Reports issues on V10 anymore.

So - if you are thinking about upgrading, you CAN keep your Crystal reports.

Just a heads up - If you would like to use your existing Crystal Reports - they should be at LEAST on Epicor 8.xx or greater. You can migrate the V6 Crystal reports - however the DB part is COMPLETELY different and not worth upgrading.

Also, the Data Definitions and Crystal XML Schemas for some reports will have to be updated.

My experience has been that approx. 50% of the Crystal Reports upgraded from 8 or 9 to 10 will just work with no changes. 25% have to have new data definitions created, and 25% need to be redone from scratch.

Epicor has chosen the Microsoft SSRS platform for it's future reporting. It is very different from Crystal Reports, hence, there really is NO conversion. I have seen some companies that offer conversions - however, they can only handle simple layouts.

The SSRS reporting tool is not a bad choice - I get frustrated with some of the technical caveats, however, it is at the end of the day a very powerful and I have found that i can do almost everything I could do in Crystal Reports.

DaveO

dolender@olenderconsulting.com