Context! can be deployed in just minutes and attaching all your data sources is fast, easy and can be accomplished so quickly and easily you may just let your business users do it for you. Context! gives your users a powerful enterprise-grade platform that lets them quickly and easily create thousands of reports without having to involve IT at any step of the process and without taxing your IT infrastructure. Delegate administrative controls and control access to any degree you need all without affecting the performance or user experience your business users demand.
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Business Intelligence Crystal
Software from business objects called crystal reports is also often described as business intelligence crystal. The business intelligence crystal software is designed to provide simple and intuitive reporting to corporate users. The goal behind business intelligence crystal is to allow managers and individual users to create reports for their own use. Through the use of crystal server, the server part of the business intelligence crystal offering, managers can also share reports across the enterprise.
Benefits of Business Intelligence Crystal
Business intelligence crystal provides a relatively easy to use, easy to learn platform for reporting. Through the use of cystal server, business intelligence crystal also provides an easy way for managers to share reports with other users in the organization. The benefits of business intelligence crystal are best viewed when compared to other reporting tools like Excel. In this vein, business intelligence crystal provides a flexible, easy to use, and powerful way of reporting that is far more robust than Excel.
Drawbacks of Business Intelligence Crystal
As a business intelligence platform, however, business intelligence crystal has a lot of problems. The biggest one is that like other legacy products it relies on a multiple product architecture. Crystal server, the server part of business intelligence crystal provides sharing capabilities, but business intelligence crystal itself must be installed on local user PCs in order to be of best use. In addition, business intelligence crystal cannot be used to create dashboards or to have a high degree of interactivity with the charts that have been created.
History of Business Intelligence Crystal
The business intelligence crystal product started life as a product from an independent company by the same name. Business Objects acquired the company and the technology as a way of increasing their portfolio of tools for business intelligence. Business intelligence crystal has grown in scope and in offerings under the ownership of business objects and quickly became a key aspect of the business objects offering. After the business objects acquisition by SAP the business intelligence crystal product line has seen a little development and has been focused on the low end of the market.
Alternatives to Business Intelligence Crystal
While business intelligence crystal is a product that stands in a fairly unique field, the alternatives to business intelligence crystal are readily available. Most of the alternatives to business intelligence crystal are full business intelligence suites, like the higher end ones offered by business objects, designed to provide similar capabilities to business intelligence crystal while also providing other features like dashboard creation, chart interactivity and an easier user management methodology than is available in business intelligence crystal.
