Run Crystal Reports from a Command Line

[Former Member]

Hello,

I have searched through the forum and have come up with 2 different answers. Some people say it can be done others say the opposite. Can you please tell me if it is possible to run a crystal report from the command line. Basically, we have an external application that relies on the user to run. This can be done at any time, any day. Once this has run, we then want the application to autmoatically kick off the crystal report.. The crystal report has been set up so that it is emailed to a number of users, pdf format etc. Thanks in advance for your help.

Regards,

Prakash

[fritzfeltus · Accepted solution]

What do you mean with "running a report" from the command line?

You can open Crystal Reports and pass a report file as a parameter, e.g.

C:\"Business Objects"\"BusinessObjects Enterprise 12.0"\win32_x86\crw32.exe C:\report.rpt

Cheers,

Fritz

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. The application would not be on the same server as the machine. So if I used the command that you gave me would that actually run the report (ie refresh the data and then save the report ,as instructed in the settings, on to the network location). Or would it just open up the report. Also, how would I send parameters to the report, eg Dates or Status.

This is the scenario. At the moment a user would input data on to database via an external applicaion. After inputting all the data, they would then have to log into Crystal Infoview. Navigate to the report. They would then click on the Schedule hyperlink. They would change the parameters eg Start Date and End Date. And then press the Schedule button. The report would then refresh the data, and as specified in the Destination, it would write out to a network location.

So we want the external app to write a command line prompt, so that the user did not have to log onto Crystal at all. The application would send the relevant parameters and run the crystal report automatically without the user having to log into Crystal at all.

Regards,

Prakash

[fritzfeltus · Accepted solution]

>>Or would it just open up the report

Yes, it would just open the report.

If you want to write an external app which interfaces with Enterprise, you can use the SDK to create an application which logs on to Enterprise, sets scheduling information such as parameters, and sends the resulting Crystal Report to the user, or places it on a network share.

Developer Library (SDK documenation; tutorials; sample code):

http://devlibrary.businessobjects.com/BusinessObjectsXIR2/en/devsuite.htm

Samples:

https://boc.sdn.sap.com/developer/library#sample

If you run into issues with the SDK, we have dedicated forums for this: , .

[Former Member]

Thanks for the help and pointing me in the right direction.