Access 2007 Reporting Versus Crystal Reports

[Brad]

Recently the topic of Crystal Reports was brought up. We are a small firm
with a small IT budget.

Our data lives in SQL Server, Access 2007, Excel, and in a purchased
package’s Pervasive Database which we can access nicely via ODBC.

We currently do not have Crystal Reports, or any other report writer other
than the reporting features that are integrated into Access 2007.

I took a stand and said that I believe that Access 2007 will be able to
handle our reporting needs. We currently have very few reports and it
appears that our reporting needs are quite basic.

The bulk of our data lives in SQL Server, but we do not have SQL Server
Reporting Services available.

Are there issues that I should be aware of when starting to use Access 2007
Reporting against SQL Server? So far, our initial experiments have worked
nicely, but we have only started to scratch the surface.

If we are heading down the wrong path, I would like to know sooner rather
than later.

Thanks in advance for your advice and insights.

Brad

 

[Mark Andrews]

Do you need web-based reporting at some point would be the biggest question.
If so reporting services
would be a better alternative. Access and the Crystal report designer are
fairly similar in capabilities.

You can use linked tables or pass-thru queries in Access to do reporting off
SQL Server data. Pass-thru queries will
give better performance because the query is run on sql server and only the
result goes over the wire, however there
are a few things you can't do if you go this route (some sub-reports won't
work).

I would use Access 2007 over Crystal Reports any day of the week.

My two cents,

 

[Brad]

Mark,

Thanks for your help with this question.

Brad