Crystal Decisions Crystal Analysis Professional Business Intelligence

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1 Alan Tiedrich Product Report 14 February 2003 Crystal Decisions Crystal Analysis Professional Business Intelligence Summary Crystal Analysis Professional, a graphical environment that report designers use to create guided interactive reports against OLAP servers for end users, can be used stand-alone or with Crystal Enterprise. Table of Contents Overview Analysis Pricing Competitors Strengths Limitations Recommended Gartner Research Insight List Of Tables Table 1: Overview Crystal Analysis Professional Table 2: System Requirements Table 4: Crystal Decisions Crystal Analysis: Price List List Of Figures Figure 1: Crystal Analysis Pro Graphical Design Environment Figure 2: Crystal Analysis Pro Integration with Excel Spreadsheets Figure 3: Crystal Analysis Pro Rich Client Figure 4: Crystal Analysis Pro Thin Client Figure 5: Calling a Crystal Report from Crystal Analysis Pro Gartner Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.

2 Corporate Headquarters Crystal Decisions Inc. 840 Cambie Street Vancouver, BC, Canada V6B 4J2 Tel: , Fax: Internet: Overview Table 1: Overview Crystal Analysis Professional Version 8.5. Product Type Graphical design environment to create and view interactive reports to analyze data from online analytical processing (OLAP) data sources. User Interface Windows: Windows desktop report designers. Windows desktop for viewing reports, if Crystal Analysis Pro (CA Pro) is installed. Web browser with Crystal Enterprise to view reports published to the Web. CA Pro Web Clients: ActiveX rich client is designed for use with Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers 4.0 and above. Dynamic Hypertext Markup Language (DHTML) zero-client user interface using Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. CA Pro Platforms Browsers: Internet Explorer 4.0 Service Pack 2 (SP2) and above. Netscape WebServers: A variety of Web servers, including Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS), Netscape Enterprise Server, Apache and other Common Gateway Interface (CGI)- based servers. The Web server can run under Windows NT, Windows 2000, Sun Solaris or Linux. Microsoft IIS 4+. Netscape Enterprise Server 3.51 (and the latest SP). Netscape FastTrack 3.01 (and the latest SP). Or a Web server that supports CGI. Note: Check Crystal Decisions Web site (Crystal Care Technical Support Knowledge Base) for updated information and for additional details: Not all CA Pro components are supported on all platforms. 14 February

3 Table 1: Overview Crystal Analysis Professional OLAP Servers and Microsoft SQL Server 7 OLAP Services (SP2, SP3), Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Data Warehouses Analysis Services (SP1, SP2). SAP Business Information Warehouse (BW) 2.0B and 3.0. Crystal Analysis Holos 8.0a and 8.5. Planned: Hyperion Essbase and Database 2 (DB2) OLAP. Firewall Support Crystal Enterprise supports firewalls that use IP filtering or Socks proxy servers (both versions 4 and 5). Languages English, French, German, Japanese. Supported Base Price $395. Date Delivered August Number of More than 14 million licenses shipped (all products Crystal Reports, Crystal Customers Analysis Pro, Crystal Enterprise, Crystal Analysis Holos, Seagate Info). Table 2: System Requirements Product System Software RAM Hard Disk Space Crystal Analysis Professional 8.5 Microsoft Windows ME, 2000 (Professional and Server), NT 4 SP5, 98 64MB memory minimum 128MB memory recommended 80MB free disk space (client) 60MB free disk space (server) Version 8.5 Enhancements Editions Features Overview Supports SAP Business Information Warehouse (BW) 2.0B and 3.0 and Crystal Analysis Holos 8.0a and 8.5. Microsoft Excel Add-In for integration with Excel. Rich Client Viewer for Intranet deployments of OLAP reporting. Currently, CA Pro 8.5 is available. Crystal Analysis Developer (planned) CA Pro functionality, with a programming interface for developing interactive OLAP reports to embed in applications. Report creation. Visualization objects. Interactive analysis over the Web: Guided analysis (or guided navigation) establishes navigation paths from one report part to another (group tree, drill down and search). Excel-style OLAP reports. Microsoft Excel integration. Control over data presentation. Zero-client DHTML Web delivery of OLAP data with all CA Pro analysis functionality. Rich client (ActiveX Viewer) for rapid (faster than thin client for inside firewall) intranet deployment of interactive viewing and analysis of OLAP data. Customizable Web desktop. Integrates with Crystal Enterprise for Web delivery. 14 February

4 Interactive Analysis via Web Guided Report Analysis Visualization Objects CA Pro Report Design Zero-client and rich-client reports are interactive, allowing Web users to: Swap dimensions and views. Sort and filter data. Add calculations in any dimension. Make modifications to reports and save them back to Crystal Enterprise. Analysis Buttons on reports allow users to navigate through various views of the data, which are different views on each page. Reports can use a variety of visualization objects. Chart and text commentary can be included. Exceptions can be highlighted (with conditional formatting). A CA Pro report is an interactive document consisting of one or more pages, which comprises a series of visual objects worksheets, charts and nonvisual objects that is, data connections. The CA Pro Application Designer is a graphical environment used for report design. The Application Designer can be used to create a single-page report or a briefing book that contains a number of pages that provide different views of the same data from a cube: Excel-like name tabs and navigation controls on each page allow the user to move backward and forward through the pages. Reports are created by dragging, dropping and sizing worksheets, charts, text, dimension explorers or groups on the screen: In each page, report designers can place Worksheet and Chart components to display OLAP data. All data components on a page share the same orientation and members of an OLAP data cube. Report components can be chosen from the toolbar or from the Insert menu. Functionality of each component can be tailored to users information and navigation needs. Report designers can drill down into and reorient the data using the controls on the Worksheet or by using navigation components that change the view of all components on the page. Report designers can give end users as much control over their view of the data cube as they want: Once report designers have set their initial views, they can provide controls and navigators to allow users to select members, reorient dimensions and drill down into data hierarchies. Analysis Buttons can be added to the pages to enable guided analysis through the report, supporting user interactivity. CA Pro provides Experts to help in building a range of business analysis reports. 14 February

5 CA Pro Design Objects Report Development Templates CA Pro utilizes Extensible Markup Language (XML), ActiveX Objects and Component Object Model (COM)-based technology to deploy OLAP objects. CA Pro design objects are OLAP-aware objects for navigating and displaying OLAP data: Worksheet Chart Page Dimension Navigator Slice Navigator Dimension Explorer Member Selector Analysis Button CA Pro components can be dropped into a COM container to build a basic report. Navigation controls enable users to control the view of the data in the report and navigate analysis paths between different views. CA Pro provides Page templates for 21 page styles to aid in creating common reports. CA Pro provides Experts and templates for common analysis requirements. CA Pro provides the following Experts to help a user build business analysis reports, using a data cube that contains the appropriate dimensions: Sales Analysis product, time, measures. Key Performance Indicator (KPI) Reporting KPI, time, versions. Financial Reporting time, account lines (which contain information about sales, costs, profits), measures. Web Log Reporting IP address, time, measures, page view. 14 February

6 Visual Components CA Pro visual components: Worksheet and Chart components provide a visual display of an OLAP data cube to which they are linked by means of the Connection Browser. Navigation components and Analysis Buttons allow users to change their view of the data to get answers to new questions: A navigation component allows end users to manipulate their data either when there is no Worksheet on the page or when controls have been removed from the Worksheet. The Dimension Explorer and Slice Navigator are navigation components that provide controls for end users to manipulate their data: Dimension Explorer provides Member Selectors for selecting members and a pivot control that allows users to reorient the dimensions. Slice Navigator allows users to explore slice dimensions and choose the members to be displayed in their Worksheet or Chart for a given dimension allows users to change the members selected in the slice dimensions using Member Selectors. Users can reorient dimensions based on a right-click menu. Analysis Buttons add interactivity to a report and implement guided analysis by moving between pages and changing the displayed data. By clicking Analysis Buttons, the following tasks can be carried out: Drilling down into selected members when users select a data member and click the Analysis Button, it will take them to another page, where related data for the selected member is displayed. Displaying selected (by user) members. Displaying specified (by report designer) members. Displaying a range of members on either side of a selected member to spot trends. Change the entire view. Guided navigation can be based on preset member selections as well as interactive user-based selections. The Text Box allows report designers to add text (for example, page headings, report commentary, usage instructions or component labels). Properties of visual components can be set to present data as desired and to control the degree of freedom with which users can manipulate it. 14 February

7 Worksheet and Charts Focusing on Key Data In addition to displaying data in tabular form, the Worksheet is the primary user interface for manipulating data through OLAP operations: A spreadsheet-like display of the data in the cube. Worksheet View is an arrangement of the rows, columns, slices and selected members. Users can interactively change their view not only of rows and columns, but also of other dimensions the cube may have, by dragging and dropping. Exception highlighting: See Focusing on Key Data. By default, exceptions are highlighted using green, yellow and red cell backgrounds. Dimensions not used as rows or columns are displayed at the bottom of the window and are known as slice dimensions. Using navigation controls on the Worksheet, users can reorient, swap dimensions and slice-and-dice the data: To see a different view of the data, the user can swap two dimensions by pivoting the Worksheet. Users can swap a row or column dimension with one of the slice dimensions or with another row or column. CA Pro has a 3-D charting facility to complement the Worksheet: Chart types include area charts, bar charts, bubble charts, column charts, histograms, line charts, pie charts, scatter charts and surface charts. There are a number of options that can be set, depending on the chart type, including data labels, numbers, look and display status. Charts will be displayed with a chart title that is automatically generated from the names of the row and column dimensions, which the user can edit it. Tools to enable users to focus on key data in a Worksheet: Sort on the rows and columns of the Worksheet. Filters (absolute value, comparison, calculation result, calculation, ranking top or bottom n members, contribution n percent based on contribution). Filters on absolute values can use the following conditions: equal to, not equal to, less than, less than or equal to, greater than, greater than or equal to, between two numbers, outside two numbers and missing. Highlighting exceptions (high or low absolute values, exceptions compared with other members or using the result of a calculation, variances from some other value, contributions to a total or subtotal). Calculated members (calculated based on contribution to a member, growth, variance between members; see Calculated Members). Hide irrelevant data. 14 February

8 Worksheet Controls The report designer can determine what user controls the Worksheet should have and the format of the data that it displays. The controls enabled depend on how much freedom the designer wants to give other users to manipulate their views of the data cube and whether or not the designer will be providing navigation components (such as the Dimension Explorer) in the report. The designer can set the following properties of a Worksheet at design time: Display Row Dimension Panel Display Column Dimension Panel Display Slice Dimension Panel Allow Context Menus (right-click menus providing access to a number of Worksheet features) Display a Border to the Worksheet Allow User Ordering (sorting) 14 February

9 CA Pro Clients Connecting to OLAP Data Source Thin Client using Crystal Enterprise enables a zero-client DHTML delivery of OLAP functionality: Does not require applets, plug-ins or controls to be installed or downloaded. Offers the same level of interactivity and analysis as the Thick Client, with the same user interface and dialogs (although does not allow for the designing of CA Pro Reports or the use of the Multidimensional Expressions [MDX] Editor). Does not connect directly to the data source; instead uses Crystal Enterprise to do this. Reports running in the Web Component Server (WCS) create XML output describing the data to be formatted for the report; at present, this is converted into DHTML by Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) stylesheets on the WCS. Rich Client: Uses the same ActiveX technology as the Thick Client. Requires a plug-in to be installed on the local machine. Downloads automatically from the Web server when the plug-in is first required. Unlike the Thin Client, which must go through the Crystal Enterprise (CE) Web Component Server, the Rich Client communicates directly with the data source and Crystal Enterprise, making processing faster and more suitable for intranet deployment than the Thin Client. Embedded Client using the objects of CA Pro embedded with an application or COM container (not available until CA Developer release). Windows Thick Client for a report designer/power user to use, build or deploy CA Pro reports and briefing books: Allows reports to be shared with other users who have CA Pro installed. Stand-alone as a stand-alone client connected to a local cube, CA Pro views can use Microsoft PivotTable Services with local.cub files as a data source, providing disconnected users full analytic functionality. Excel Add-In Users can: Either choose to create a connection to a data source, or data can be exported from the Thick Client or Rich Client and remain connected working within Excel. Data also can be viewed if connection to the data source is not available. Files are saved as.xls files so that they can be shared or exported to other formats using Excel s native export function to create text files or presentations or include figures in documents. The Application Designer connects to an OLAP data cube using the CA Pro Connection Browser: Visual components, such as a Worksheet and a Chart, are dropped onto the page to automatically display the data from the cube. CA Pro automatically links objects on a page to the chosen data source: Frequently used cubes can be saved in the Favorites folder in the Connection Browser to avoid having to browse for them each time. CA Pro can connect to any of the following: OLAP Servers (see OLAP Servers and Data Warehouses Supported by CA Pro). Local Cube file (.CUB) (a feature in SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services). icube (a feature in SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services). The Worksheet and Chart in a report are connected online to the data cube they represent. 14 February

10 Support for SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services Calculated Members Publishing and Distributing CA Pro Reports Some of the features supported include: Analysis Services Actions (right-click on CA Pro data, go to Action and call a Crystal Reports report) Drill-through Multiple hierarchies Ragged/unbalanced hierarchies MDX language calculations Role security CA Pro adds functionality: Advanced member selector options Filtering, favorites Exception highlighting MDX query functions the standard range of Functions can be added to an MDX Query in a calculation. MDX functions supported are: Array Functions Dimension Functions Hierarchy Functions Level Function Logical Functions Member Functions Numeric Functions Set Functions String Functions Tuple Functions Descriptions and information concerning the use of these Functions can be obtained from the Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services documentation. Users can add calculated members into the Worksheet in any dimension new members that are the result of calculations based on existing members: At its simplest, this could be a Variance member. At its most complex, this could involve Statistical Analysis or a Time Series Calculation using Functions. Calculations are defined in the MDX query language. Calculation members are not restricted to the measures dimension; they can be added to any dimension within the cube. CA Pro reports are saved as.car files, which are XML report definition files only and do not save any report data within them. To view desktop.car files, users will need the Application Designer. CA Pro reports can be published as.car files to Crystal Enterprise for Web distribution and viewed as DHTML in the Thin Client or the Rich Client. When a CA Pro report is ready for use, it is possible to prevent users from deleting components and changing their properties by locking the report. Data views generated by CA Pro can be exported from the Application Designer to a Microsoft Excel (Excel 97 or later) worksheet: CA Pro Windows Desktop and Rich Client can export dynamic views that can access live data, whereas the Thin Client exports static DHTML reports. 14 February

11 Viewing CA Pro Reports with Crystal Enterprise CE Standard (five free concurrent licenses provided with CA Pro Advanced Edition) offers a multithreaded architecture that can process multiple simultaneous jobs and large reports. CA Pro reports are listed and displayed in Crystal eportfolio (or one of the other sample Web environments provided with CE), but users can create their own custom CE desktop to display CA Pro reports. CA Pro reports are dynamically viewed with a default DHTML viewer and are not scheduled like Crystal Reports. CE applications, which are written as Crystal Server Pages (CSP), can have embedded CA Pro reports: Like Microsoft s Active Server Pages (ASPs), CSP is a server-side scripting environment in which developers can combine HTML pages, scripting languages and COM components to create interactive Web applications. Analysis In addition to Crystal Analysis Professional (CA Pro), Crystal Decision s Business Intelligence (BI) products also include CE, Crystal Reports (CR), Crystal Applications and Crystal Analysis Holos, which is an OLAP server. CR and CA Pro, which can be used stand-alone, also integrate with CE at the file level via the report files (.RPT or.car) that they create and publish to CE. CE provides an infrastructure for managing and delivering reports to Web users. When coupled with CR and CA Pro, which provide its content creation capabilities, CE is an enterprise business intelligence suite (EBIS). CA Pro enables report designers to graphically create interactive reports against OLAP data sources, including Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services/SQL Server 7 OLAP Services, SAP BW and Crystal Analysis Holos (support for other OLAP data sources is planned). (Crystal Decisions refers to CA Pro reports as analytic reports to signify that these are interactive reports that enable users to analyze data dynamically.) Figure 1: Crystal Analysis Pro Graphical Design Environment 14 February

12 Source: Crystal Decisions. CA Pro provides more OLAP functionality, especially user interactivity, for exploring and analyzing data than does CR, which only can produce static OLAP views. Reports can be distributed as desktop reports or published via a publishing wizard to CE for viewing by Web users. CA Pro also has an Excel add-in, with CA Pro residing in Excel as an alternative to Excel pivot tables. Figure 2: Crystal Analysis Pro Integration with Excel Spreadsheets 14 February

13 Source: Crystal Decisions. Planned for later release, CA Developer will be the software development kit for CA Pro, with an application programming interface (API) orientation for user interface (UI) development in any standard development environment. It will provide Web delivery for Holos a new way to create Holos applications. When distributed as desktop reports, CA Pro reports require the Application Designer for local viewing and manipulation in the Thick Client. A Rich Client with an ActiveX plug-in that must be downloaded provides the same viewing facilities as the Thick Client. The Rich Client also provides dynamic export to Excel (not in Thick Client, which a designing tool). Figure 3: Crystal Analysis Pro Rich Client 14 February

14 Source: Crystal Decisions. CA Pro also can provide DHTML reports with pre-defined OLAP capabilities that can be viewed and manipulated in a zero-client interface within CE (DHTML environment requiring no plug-ins or applets). These reports contain worksheets and charts, and each page can contain different cube views. Figure 4: Crystal Analysis Pro Thin Client Source: Crystal Decisions. 14 February

15 To support interactivity, CA Pro reports contain Analysis Buttons (placed there by the report designers) that guide users from view to view, so that users can interactively explore the underlying OLAP data without any technical expertise. (Analysis Buttons invoke slicing and dicing to explore underlying data.) Crystal Decisions calls this guided analysis. Scripting can be done on the server side to add capabilities. CA Pro users can call Crystal Reports from within a CA Pro report by using SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services Actions. Figure 5: Calling a Crystal Report from Crystal Analysis Pro Source: Crystal Decisions. Crystal Application Templates Crystal Decisions also offers a number of pre-built customizable templates for BI business applications. These are built using the Holos development environment and analytic server technologies and also use Crystal Reports. The templates include Budgeting & Forecasting, Customer Profiling, Balanced Scorecard and Telecom Analysis. Although these depend on Holos as a platform, Crystal Decisions states that they will become more open in time. They are packaged with consulting services from Crystal Services, which is a big part of this offering. Crystal Analysis Holos Analytic Server The Holos Analytic Server provides access to a set of analytic features, including data mining, complex OLAP analysis and predictive modeling. This server provides the back-end processing power for Crystal application templates. Holos is used to develop custom systems that cannot be purchased off the shelf. 14 February

16 Pricing Table 4: Crystal Decisions Crystal Analysis: Price List Product Description License Fee Named User-Based Licensing Crystal Analysis Professional 8.5 Crystal Enterprise GSA Pricing Yes. Competitors Includes a five-user Concurrent Access License for Crystal Enterprise Standard. Licenses can be purchased from Crystal Decisions in Named, Concurrent and Processor models, depending on the Crystal Reports edition purchased. $395 For Crystal Analysis Professional, primary competitors include Business Objects Reporter and Explorer, Cognos PowerPlay and Oracle Discoverer. Although CA Pro is not an ad hoc query tool, which Discoverer is, there are similarities in functionality, except that Discoverer doesn t access third-party OLAP servers. Other competitors include Information Builders WebFOCUS OLAP and Brio Technology Brio.Enterprise tools, including BriQuery Navigator and Explorer for query, reporting and analysis, and Brio.Insight, Brio.Quickview and Brio.Quickview for similar functionality via the Web. MicroStrategy 7i s MicroStrategy Agent and Web contain both reporting and OLAP analysis functionality. Strengths OLAP Server Support CA Pro is designed as an open product that supports several popular OLAP servers, including Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services and SQL Server 7 OLAP Services (access is provided by CE), SAP Business Information Warehouse (BW) 2.0B and 3.0, and Crystal Analysis Holos 8.0a and 8.5. Web Delivery CA Pro provides zero-client DHTML Web delivery of interactive reports of OLAP data. A Rich Client Viewer, which uses the same ActiveX technology as the Thick Client, supports greater functionality than the DHTML client, but requires a 16MB download and so is suitable only for intranet deployments. OLAP Analysis Zero-client CA Pro reports are interactive over the Web, allowing users to swap dimensions and views, sort and filter data, drill down into data hierarchies and add calculations in any dimension that they choose within their browser. CA Pro report designers can allocate as much or as little control over the view of the data as they want users to have. Interactive CA Pro reports can be delivered with different cube views on each page and Analysis Buttons placed by report designers to provide controlled pathways for users to explore their data by guiding users through various views of the data. 14 February

17 Report Paging A CA Pro report consists of one or more pages, each of which can have a different viewpoint that is, orientation and members. All data components (worksheets and charts) on a page share the same viewpoint of an OLAP data cube. MDX Query Designers can add the standard range of MDX Query Functions to an MDX Query in a calculation. Limitations Unix Support CA Pro 8.5 doesn t support Unix. Integration with Crystal Reports CA Pro is not directly integrated with CR 9, and CA Pro reports can t be formatted by using the capabilities of CR. Nor can Crystal Reports be used as a basis for CA Pro reports. There is technology integration, however, in that a CA Pro file can we viewed in Crystal Reports, because CA Pro viewing technology is included in CR 9. Also, a Crystal Reports report can be called from Crystal Analysis using SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services Actions. Crystal Decisions intends to further enhance integration between CA Pro and CR. CA Pro Data Sources CA Pro currently does not support Hyperion Essbase or IBM DB2 OLAP. Plans are to support these in a future version. Also, CA Pro does not access relational data sources. Business Intelligence Applications Development Although CA Pro develops OLAP reports today, these are limited to pre-defined drilling via Analysis Buttons and do not have a development language component for extending the graphical capabilities. Crystal Analysis Developer, planned for later release, will provide support for developing custom embedded BI applications. This will also provide support for developing fuller interactive analysis. Recommended Gartner Research BI Magic Quadrants: Excitement in a Flat Market, M Insight CA Pro is a relatively new product that specializes in providing viewing and manipulation of OLAP server data, but cannot directly access relational data sources. However, CA Pro can access CR reports (and thus relational data). CA Pro s report-writing capabilities are not equivalent to those of Crystal Reports in the sense of producing highly formatted reports. CA Pro s strength instead is in producing reports that end users can dynamically interact with to analyze OLAP data. Users working in Crystal Reports or CA Pro are using two different tools with limited integration between these tools (currently limited to accessing CR reports via SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services Actions, and by bringing.car files into CR, users can open a CA Pro file in CR). Thus, the designer or user must choose the tool that best fits their purpose, but would rather have all their capabilities in one product. Crystal Decisions plans to further enhance the integration. 14 February