We have an old Crystal Report that someone wrote for us that to interface with Caseware Time. Somehow that functionality no longer exists. Instead we are greeted with an ODBC requestor, asking us for a DSN name, etc.
Has anyone ever set up Crystal reports to pull data from Caseware Time? Which ODBC drivers should we use? etc...
TIA Luke
What changes have you made?
Something has to have changed for this to not work anymore.
Luke,
ODBC links between the database in your software and crystal reports are probably only good until the next update to your software. Updates and changes to your software database fields will break the connections to crystal reports. Each link between the data fields and crystal reports is based on the properties of the data field at the time of the linking. So, let's say that a data field is changed from 30 characters to 40 characters to accommodate maybe a longer driver's license number, that link is thereby broken and the report is dysfunctional until it is reformatted. It's ugly.
At A-Systems, we built an ODBC driver into our accounting software at the request of our users. It turned out to be a curse on them. We put out three updates per year, each with a long list of new features and enhancements requested by our users, some of which were enhancements to data fields. Every change made crystal report links dysfunctional. We discontinued the ODBC link, made the use of crystal reports superfluous, and built in a custom report generator that automatically updated data fields when the software was updated. Problem solved.
Good luck,
Arnold
xrees wrote:
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