From Info to Enterprise

Implementation Case Study: SBC Corporation

Presented to the Crystal Decisions Regional Users Group for the Bay Area on July 24, 2002

Chris Christian -- CRC Business Solutions, Inc.

(c) 2002 CRC Business Solutions, Inc. Page 2

SBC has integrated Seagate Info with its SAP HR application in order to:• Securely publish any standard or custom R/3 ABAP

report to the Seagate Info Desktop• Automate reporting on outbound ERP interface files• Automatically export Seagate Info reports to an

external enterprise report archive system for long term retention

• Automate replication of SAP R/3 users and security groups to the Seagate Info reporting environment

• Administer Seagate Info for a large web accessed implementation with remote administration, usage measures, and group security verification

(c) 2002 CRC Business Solutions, Inc. Page 3

SBC is migrating from Seagate Info 7.5 to Crystal Enterprise 8.5 in order to:• Preserve their investment and functionality from Info• Preserve the Info Desktop folders, report objects, and over 32,000

report instances• Seamlessly integrate with corporate web portals• Introduce Web-based, on-demand Crystal Reporting within a new

WebSphere custom application • Support report requests through an Interactive Voice Response

(IVR) tele-access system• Monitor and administer Crystal Enterprise utilities through secured,

web based access• Expand the user base from 10,000 to 50,000 users• Replicate security from three distinct source systems into a unified

security system

(c) 2002 CRC Business Solutions, Inc. Page 4

From Info to Enterprise

Attendees will learn:• How Crystal Enterprise differs from Seagate

Info in a complex implementation • How Crystal Enterprise expands the scope,

flexibility, and integration opportunities of enterprise reporting

• How using Crystal Enterprise requires a different way of thinking about enterprise reporting systems

(c) 2002 CRC Business Solutions, Inc. Page 5

Crystal Enterprise IntegrationContext Diagram

CrystalEnterprise

SAP R/3

SAP BW

OtherEnterpriseSystems

Archive Reports(CE Archive Gateway)

PublishSAP Reports

(CE Spooler)

ReplicateSAP Security

(CE Security)

Monitor SAP Security Impact(CE GroupDesktop)

ReportInterface Files

(CE Data Gateway)

EnterpriseReport

Archive

InterfaceFile Reports

SAP BWIntegrated Reports

SAP R/3ABAP Reports

SAP SecurityGroup Data

Security Group Desktop Views

Long TermReports for Archive

InterfaceData Files Interface

DataFiles

ArchivedReports

SAP Reports

Report Requests(CE Request Server)

ReportRequests

ReportRequests

(c) 2002 CRC Business Solutions, Inc. Page 6

Presentation Overview• Reasons to Switch• Features Comparison• Subtleties • System Management• Migration Plan• SBC CE 8.5 Installation Sequence• Migration Experience• Developer Experience• Integration Approaches• Integration Case Study: Help Desk Password Reset• Integration Case Study: Spooler Utility Status• Perspective

(c) 2002 CRC Business Solutions, Inc. Page 7

Reasons to Switch• View on Demand reports

– Real-time data access

– No report instances are saved

– High performance reporting (Page Server) vs. scheduled reporting (Job Server)

• Web integration– Links in and out

– Run within a frame

– Custom application integration through a web application server

– Separate user interface from reporting infrastructure

• LDAP Security • Customization• Performance and scalability

(c) 2002 CRC Business Solutions, Inc. Page 8

Reasons to Switch (cont.)• Report alerts• Guest account for preview and training • Crystal Reports Designer is de-coupled from the

Enterprise system– Standard 8.5 software– Standard training– Standard skill set for hiring or contractors– Crystal Reports 8.0 vs. Crystal Reports 8.5 functionality

and performance• Crystal Reports Designer is integrated with the

Enterprise system– Open reports from the Crystal Enterprise desktop– Save reports to the Crystal Enterprise desktop

(c) 2002 CRC Business Solutions, Inc. Page 9

Features Comparison• Crystal Reports 8.0 vs. Crystal Reports 8.5

– In general: performance, performance, performance

– For specifics: Ask Crystal Decisions

• Features Not Ported in CE 8.5– Queries– E-mail notification– NT events– Info cubes– Push to channel– Administrative reports– Schedule an Instance

(c) 2002 CRC Business Solutions, Inc. Page 10

Features Comparison (cont.)• Equivalents, work-arounds, opportunities

– Queries: Process queries externally, then report on the query file

– E-mail notification: Integrate CSP with MAPI objects

– NT events: Integrate CSP with NT Objects– Info Cubes: Report from cube sources

(SAP BW, EssBase, SQL-Server)– Push to channel: Use FTP site report destination– Administrative reports: Use COM Driver to perform APS queries– Schedule an Instance: Create additional report objects

(c) 2002 CRC Business Solutions, Inc. Page 11

Subtleties• It’s all web -- or is it?

• Where is the “Update” button?

• User Groups can be organized in a hierarchy

• Object security can ignore inherited security

• Licensing– Info Users are all “Named Users” or all “Concurrent Users”

– Enterprise Users can be a mix of “Named Users” and “Concurrent Users”, and processor licensing is available

• User connections can be monitored

• User activity is recorded in a log file– Report on the WCS log file with the “web-log” driver

(c) 2002 CRC Business Solutions, Inc. Page 12

Subtleties (cont.)• The APS Database is extensible through user-defined

Properties

• The APS Database is queried using an SQL-like query language

• Reports and instances are stored for faster access by using managed subdirectories

• The file repository “points back” to the system object IDs in the APS Database

• Scheduling to a destination creates a file in addition to the FRS storage

• The File Repository Server (FRS) uses a private IP protocol, so it is secured from web hacking

(c) 2002 CRC Business Solutions, Inc. Page 13

Subtleties (cont.)• E-mail supports multiple accounts and servers• Multiple Job/Page servers per machine - individually

configured• Every APS is “clustered”, at least with itself• The development SDK comes with every Crystal

Enterprise license• Crystal Enterprise Standard comes with every

Crystal Reports Pro/Developer– Fixed “Administrator” and “Guest” account– All services must run on the same machine– Limited number of concurrent users– Full service features for development

(only difference is the license key)

(c) 2002 CRC Business Solutions, Inc. Page 14

System Management• Seagate Info 7.5

– APS Administration is through the Info Administrator (Windows client)

– Services are managed through the Services Control Panel

– Remote machine administration is through PC Anywhere

• Crystal Enterprise 8.5– APS Administration is through the Crystal Management Console

(Web browser)– Services are managed through the Crystal Configuration Manager

(Windows application)– The CCM can manage services on remote machines– The CCM can also manage Seagate Info 7.5 services– Remote machine administration is through Windows Terminal Server– Remote system administration is partially available through the Crystal

Management Console

(c) 2002 CRC Business Solutions, Inc. Page 15

Migration Plan• Installing Crystal Enterprise 8.5

– Install Crystal Enterprise on a “new” machine

– Use Windows 2000 for optimum performance (threads and processors)

– Install a Web Server on the APS machine

• Info APS Database Migration to CE 8.5– Users and Groups all migrate– Folders and Report Objects all migrate– Report Instances will migrate soon– Queries do not migrate– Program Objects do not migrate

(c) 2002 CRC Business Solutions, Inc. Page 16

Crystal Enterprise 8.5SBC Installation Sequence

• Partition the hard disk for two volumes(if the machine does not have two physical disks)

• Install Windows 2000 Server• Install Oracle Client 8.1.6• Install iPlanet 6.0 SP2 Web Server• Install SAP GUI 4.x• Install Crystal Enterprise 8.5 GA (per detailed instructions)• (optional) Install Crystal Reports 8.5• (if installed CR 8.5 above) Install Crystal Reports Update for

CE 8.5 (on the CE 8.5 GA disk, start "Updates\Crystal Reports\setup.exe")

• Install CE Drivers Update Patch• Install CE mySAP Driver V2

(c) 2002 CRC Business Solutions, Inc. Page 17

Migration Experience• Web-based APS administration is quite different

• Crystal Enterprise has many more parts to configure and manage than Seagate Info

• Actually, the Seagate Info parts are more exposed and manageable

• The web application server (Web Component Server) is entirely new to Enterprise

• Crystal Server Pages are more like Active Server Pages than anyone let you believe

• Install-on-demand can be problematic is some circumstances or for some configurations

• A single system setup is fast and easyA distributed system is more complex than imagined

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Developer Experience• Each developer must have their own APS and web server• The Enterprise Framework API is cleaner, more complete,

easier to code, less likely to leak memory than the Seagate Info SDK

• The Crystal Enterprise Framework is an Object Hierarchy, so it is accessible to more development systems

• Code ports to Visual Basic/MS Access, VBScript, CSP• The Query Builder is your friend (like SQL*Plus)

Develop your APS queries there, then paste them into code• Crystal Server Pages integrate with Active Data Objects,

MAPI, and other NT object models• Use COM Drivers to work around CE 8.5 limitations

(c) 2002 CRC Business Solutions, Inc. Page 19

Integration Approaches(when to use which)

• Crystal Server Pages (CSP)– Use for web integration and customization– Crystal Server Pages are text files using JavaScript or VBScript– Just-in-time compiler from source code for performance

• VBScript using Windows Scripting Host– Admin tasks that work on any server - only need the APS running– VBScript files are text files and can be run and modified on any server– A server can run CSP-like tasks in batch mode or as scheduled tasks

• Visual Basic– Server based “back end” utilities and integration– Compiled code for fastest performance– “Early binding” to the object model for fewer errors

and faster development– Requires building an Installer Package to deploy– Modifications must be made on the developer’s workstation

(c) 2002 CRC Business Solutions, Inc. Page 20

Integration Approaches (cont.)(when to use which)

• MS Access– Data intensive utilities– Visual Basic packaged with database capabilities– Fewer deployment hassles (no package installer required)

• Other application development systems(Java, Java Server Pages, Cold Fusion, WebSphere)– Use these to integrate Crystal Enterprise as a back-end reporting

infrastructure– Use application security through menus– Link to Crystal Enterprise CSP pages through web linkages– Use forms for security to prevent history hacking the query parameters

• COM Drivers– Any programmed procedure that can return a Recordset is a candidate

for a COM driver, allowing Crystal Reports on any structured information

(c) 2002 CRC Business Solutions, Inc. Page 21

Integration Case Study:Help Desk Password Reset

• Problem: The Help Desk must be able to reset a user’s password in real time

• Seagate Info Solution– A Visual Basic utility is installed as a Windows Client on each Help

Desk workstation– The utility authenticates Help Desk staff using an Access database– The utility communicates to Seagate Info via the Sentinel

and the SDK DLL– When ported to the CE interface the utility was too complex to deploy

• Crystal Enterprise Solution– A web-based Crystal Server Page performs the password reset– Each Help Desk staff member must be a member of the “Can Reset

Passwords” group on the APS– Users do not need to be Administrators -- the CSP authenticates them

using Enterprise, checks their group membership, then performs a server-side, silent logon as an administrator

(c) 2002 CRC Business Solutions, Inc. Page 22

Integration Case Study:Spooler Utility Status

• Problem: The Help Desk must be able to monitor the Spooler utility’s performance in the Data Center

• Seagate Info Solution– An administrator logs onto the Data Center server using PC Anywhere– The administrator checks running tasks, scheduled tasks, and the input

directory work queue– The function cannot be performed by the Help Desk staff because

Administrator rights are required

• Crystal Enterprise Solution– A web-based Crystal Server Page presents the Spooler status– The CSP reads the MS Access Server State table for the Spooler, the

Process Log table for recent files processed, and the work queue on the Data Center server where the Spooler executes

– Help Desk staff do not need to be Administrators -- the CSP authenticates them using Enterprise, checks their group membership, then allows them to access the Spooler Status page

(c) 2002 CRC Business Solutions, Inc. Page 23

Crystal Enterprise Integration

CrystalEnterprise

Archive Reports(CE Archive Gateway)

PublishSAP Reports

(CE Spooler)

ReplicateSAP Security

(CE Security)

Monitor SAP Security Impact(CE GroupDesktop)

ReportInterface Files

(CE Data Gateway)InterfaceFile Reports

SAP SecurityGroup Data

Security Group Desktop Views

Long TermReports for Archive

SAP Reports

Report Requests(CE Request Server)

ReportRequests

(c) 2002 CRC Business Solutions, Inc. Page 24

Perspective

• Info is a web-savvy Windows client

• Enterprise is a distributed, cross-platform, TCP/IP based reporting infrastructure

• The reasons you selected Info may be the reasons others in your organization didn’t

• The reasons others would select Enterprise are reasons you can live with and support

Discussion

(c) 2002 CRC Business Solutions, Inc. Page 26

Demonstrations• Administrator Scripts

– ShowLogons– ShowServices– ShowFileStorePath

• COM Reports– CE Environment– CE Users– Run Program

• CSP Integration– ShowSpoolerStatus

• Query Builder– Sample Queries

For further information contact: Chris Christian510/569-2721chris@crcsolutions.com