Pros/Cons of using Crystal Reports or Power BI

Jessica Smith 2

We are site-hosted with Raiser's Edge 7. I need to make a decision as to whether I'll invest my time in learning Crystal Reports or Power BI so I can perform calculations and provide better overall data visualization and reporting. I'd like to create user-friendly reports on giving (revenue reports for leadership audiences), Prospect and Proposals, Actions, Membership, Events, etc.


Can anyone clarify the differences between Crystal Reports and Power BI? What do you think the pros/cons are of one application or the other? Thanks in advance!

Joshua Bekerman bCLO bCRE

Hi Jessica, I haven't worked with Power BI but one pro for Crystal Reports is that reports can be run by RE users in the Reports - Custom Reports module.  Having said that, I am also trying to decide between two reporting platforms (Crystal Reports and SSRS) and am looking forward to hearing what others have to say.

Daniel R. Snyder

Jessica, I am basically the opposite of Joshua in that I haven't really used Crystal, but have used and really like Power BI (we are hosted by Blackbaud). There are 25 standard visuals built into the Desktop version (which is free to download), but you also have access to custom visuals created by other Power BI users (I stopped counting at 50). In terms of calculations, I would presume that your ability to perform calculations is similar in both Power BI and Crystal. However, if you are like me and more familiar with Excel formulas and not so familiar with SQL, then Power BI will be much easier to learn as the DAX language used for custom calculations is very similar to Excel. 


Hopefully there is someone out there who was used both and can give you more direct comparisons.

Graham Getty

Jessica, I definitely recommend Power BI.

Go Power BI

Resources:


Download & Sign Up
https://powerbi.microsoft.com


Overview Video
https://youtu.be/1Bo1BrpR3AY


Free Training
http://aka.ms/pbicourse
https://guyinacube.com/
http://pragmaticworks.com/Training/Details/Digital-Storytelling-with-Power-BI

Lucien Piekut 2

Jessica Smith:

We are site-hosted with Raiser's Edge 7. I need to make a decision as to whether I'll invest my time in learning Crystal Reports or Power BI so I can perform calculations and provide better overall data visualization and reporting. I'd like to create user-friendly reports on giving (revenue reports for leadership audiences), Prospect and Proposals, Actions, Membership, Events, etc.


Can anyone clarify the differences between Crystal Reports and Power BI? What do you think the pros/cons are of one application or the other? Thanks in advance!

I use both for a number of years and yes they really both have their uses in an organization:

Crystal Reports

-Can be run from inside RE by your users

-Used for more formal reporting (think detail/row-based/summarizations)

-Can do dashboards in a pinch

-Charts are less powerful than PowerBI

-Tend to end up being used by a wider audience in an organization (from exec to frontline)

-Often delivered via Blackbaud .mdb format (think Access style refreshed reports), but can also punch into all database or file types

-Can export to other formats easily (Excel, etc.)

-Crystal syntax (comparable to let's say SSRS)

PowerBI

-Highly interactive

-Quick load times generally speaking

-Quick setup

-More visual

-Dashboard centric

-Few export options

-DAX style functions


I know PowerBI has more initial wow factor, particularly the ability for let's say an exec to slice/dice the data to their own content and therefor answer their own questions, so to answer this it usually comes down to knowing your audience and their needs (better than they know themselves, frankly!)


Personally, I provide Crystal Reports when I'm sending information to an audience that needs lists and basic summary charts or totals delivered on demand. Whereas PowerBI ends up being used for data-oriented execs or analytic projects like survey results.


I mentioned SSRS... if it's an option, it's sometimes a good go-between too.


 

Mergen Peries

Great question!  I haven't used much of Crystal or Power BI, mostly Export and Excel.


Good to know you can use PBI in hosted - I thought external SQL connections weren't allowed?  Will have to try it again.


Not sure if it applies to you Jessica, but NXT looks like it will have a pretty powerful BI tool soon.  Additional cost, with NXT, and probably tied to SKY API development (so not all field maybe available from the off).

Mergen Peries

Could anyone point me to some online resources to show how they connect PowerBI to RE hosted please?  I know someone has built an API connector for it, is that how everyone else is using it?

Cathleen Mai

How do you connect to RE if you are hosted locally? I do not see .mdb as a file type to connect. Do I have to export to Excel?

James Andrews

If you want to connect directly to RE, you need permissions on your SQL server. 

Cathleen Mai

Thank You. Would this work with Read only DB access?

James Andrews

If you have RODBA enabled, you'll see an ODBC connection in your computer's ODBC Data Source Administrator called REOpen7, which you can connect to if you're writing SQL statements in, for example, Crystal Reports.  

John Heizer

Mergen Peries:

Could anyone point me to some online resources to show how they connect PowerBI to RE hosted please?  I know someone has built an API connector for it, is that how everyone else is using it?

Check this thread:  https://community.blackbaud.com/forums/viewtopic/426/37786

Mergen Peries

Awesome, thanks John.  That's where I found out about it but couldn't find the post again!