Adding Crystal Reports support into LAMP product

Question

We have a newly documented feature request, from sales and support, to integrate Crystal Reports into our LAMP product. (It's more like LAPP, really, with Postgres and PHP.)

I have to admit, although I've heard about it from time to time, I've never even seen Crystal Reports in the wild. But the buzz is that it will help sales tremendously if we can support it.

So the question is about what we can do to satisfy the request. Are there APIs and SDKs, protocols and conventions we can use to get tight with Crystal Reports?

Answer 1

I'm not sure about the protocols and conventions, but there are indeed APIs and SDKs available for Crystal Reports, both for web app and windows app usage. I've been using Crystal Reports with my apps for a decade now, and generally it integrates pretty well.

http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/boc/crystalreports-sdk

You can get a free 30 trial of Crystal Reports 2008 here. If you want to deploy things, you may need the Developer Advantage licensing.