When Crystal Report was released, it generated a lot of excitement in the market. It was hailed as THE tool for businessmen to extract data from databases. With it, entrepreneurs no longer have to rely on their IT team to extract the data needed for decision making. They can access databases previously only accessible by the company’s IT team. With Crystal Report, business users no longer have to wait days or weeks for that report for decision making. It even allows users to prepare reports that can be used for management reporting.
It also allows users to perform custom calculations by setting up formulas in the report. The application can perform the calculation based on the predefined formula and return only the results to the report. It also allows users to send the report template to other users. The report pulls the necessary data from the database only when users open the report. It also allows users to present the report at various levels, that is, organize and present data by subcategories. For example, data may be presented first by division, then by product group, product type, etc.
Crystal Report is very useful for large databases, particularly those that are stored on database servers. When it comes to small databases like MS Access, Dbase, and other desktop databases, using Crystal Report would be overkill. Crystal Report’s cost of ownership and maintenance is too high for smaller-scale applications and databases. For smaller databases, use a pivot table and MS Query. It works like crystal report. And this option is free if you have Microsoft Office. Many Excel users are not aware of this option because the MS Query installation has to be installed manually. And it doesn’t come with the standard MS Office installation.
MSQuery extracts data from databases. In fact, it can also be used to pull data from database servers, just like crystal reports. The only limitation in using MSQuery to extract data is memory. However, I haven’t really encountered any problems using MSQuery to pull data from SQL Server. Once the data is pulled from the database or database server, it can be sent to a pivot table. Once this is done, you can drag and drop the fields and present the database you want easily. You can also present the data in multiple dimensions like the crystal report. The functions and features provided by PivotTable are very similar to those offered by Crystal Report. Once you know how to use PivotTable with MS Query, you may never look at Crystal Report or other reporting tools again.
