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Crystal Reports

To use Crystal Reports in the Windows GUI, Web GUI or Indicium application tier, the Crystal Reports drivers must be installed on the client or web server. This concerns Crystal Reports Runtime 13 with service pack 21 up to 25 for the right OS. With both, the support for the ASP.NET Web components must be installed.

The latest Crystal Reports Runtime Engine (32/64 Bit) can be downloaded here by selecting the SAP Crystal Reports, version for Visual Studio software product or using these direct links to version 13.0.25:

note

Service pack 26 and above are currently incompatible with all Thinkwise products.

For the Web GUI, the Crystal Reports installation creates a new directory to IIS with the name aspnet_client. This directory contains the resources (HTML, JavaScript and CSS) which the Web GUI needs for the preview of reports. If the application is not deployed in the IIS default website, then the aspnet_client directory can be copied to the corresponding website.

If the browser in which the preview is opened cannot access the aspnet_client folder, then a blank preview dialogue will open. The unsuccessful request and what this refers to can be traced in the Network tab of the browsers Developer Tools (F12). The unsuccessful request is colored red and refers to /aspnet_client/...

Check on the web server why this request gives no result. The folder within aspnet_client\system_web possibly contains an incorrect version number and may have to be renamed.

TLS 1.2 encryption protocol​

Starting with Windows Server 2019, Microsoft has disabled the TLS 1.0 and 1.1 encryption protocols by default, It requires all connections to use TLS 1.2, for example, for SQL Server instances on Windows Server 2019. This can cause problems with Crystal Reports documents that use the default SQL Server drivers included with Crystal Reports, instead of the Microsoft OLE DB Driver.

To determine the connection that a report uses:

  1. Open the dialog box Set Datasource Location from the menu Database in the Crystal Reports designer.
  2. Open the node Properties.
  3. Check if the Provider is set to 'MSOLEDBSQL'.

If your provider is not set to 'MSOLEDBSQL', replace the drivers used by the report with the latest Microsoft OLE DB Driver for SQL Server, which be downloaded here.

To update the driver in the report file:

  1. Open the dialog box Set Datasource Location from the menu Database in the Crystal Reports designer.
  2. Select the connection to replace.
  3. Click Make New Connection to create a connection using the Microsoft OLE DB Driver for SQL Server, or select an existing MSOLEDBSQL connection. Do not use the Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server (SQLOLEDB).
  4. Select Update to replace the connection.

Repeat this for all Crystal Reports files.

note

An alternative, more future-proof solution is to migrate from Crystal Reports to DevExpress reporting, which does not require the installation of report or database drivers. The DevExpress report designer is part of the Thinkwise Platform and can be downloaded from TCP.

Previous versions​

Versions of the Thinkwise Windows and Web user interfaces before 2019.2.15, the Indicium application tier before 2019.2.5 and the Thinkwise Reporting service before 4.0 require service pack 20 of the Crystal Reports Runtime Engine, due to Crystal Reports compatibility issues.

Downloads are available for 32 Bit and 64 Bit.

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