Crystal Analysis 8.0
As is the case with most of the products we reviewed, Crystal Analysis is available in full-client and enterprise-server (thin-client) versions. The client/server configuration lets a power user build and deploy analytical applications and briefing books, and the thin-client solution, which is included in the Crystal Enterprise Edition, provides zero-footprint reporting capabilities.
Crystal Analysis 8.0 was the company's first-generation OLAP reporting tool. In January 2002, Crystal Decisions distributed a major maintenance release (MR1) for Crystal Analysis 8.0, and in July 2002, the company released Crystal Analysis Professional 8.5. Because we couldn't obtain Crystal Analysis 8.5 in time to review it, for this comparison, we used Crystal Analysis 8.0 MR1. According to the company, Crystal Analysis 8.5's new features include a rich Web-based client and an Excel add-in. Figure 2, page 36, shows a sample sales report in Crystal Analysis 8.0.
Suitability for Specific Roles
For the power analyst, Crystal Analysis is fair. The product has good dimension navigation but feels more like a report-development tool than an ad hoc analytical tool. The application contains many wizards for creating analytical reports, but the analytical tools themselves can be frustrating. For example, you can't rank members within a hierarchy.
For the data gatherer, Crystal Analysis is good. The report designer can customize the report in many ways. In particular, the designer can create transition elements that effectively control what happens when a user performs an action. However, you can't navigate from one cube to another within one briefing book. Slicing is easy, and the report designer can prevent report users from changing the slice for specific dimensions. The Web deployment—which effectively matches the client/server functionality—is easy to manage.
For the report user, Crystal Analysis is fair to good. On the one hand, the tool lacks an ability to create structured or static reports. Crystal Analysis's lack of standardized reporting support for an OLAP database seems particularly annoying when you compare that deficiency with the rich reporting capabilities that sister application Crystal Reports brings to the relational world. On the other hand, Crystal Analysis's strong Web-deployment capability, coupled with the ability to restrict interaction, could make this a good tool for supporting data gatherers.
Strengths and Weaknesses
On the positive side, Crystal Analysis is the only tool for which a nonprogrammer can create an application that lets a user proceed smoothly from one report to another or modify the current view while retaining the current slicer.
On the negative side, an application can't navigate smoothly to a report from a different cube because in Crystal Analysis, an entire briefing book is linked to one cube. You can create multiple views (pages) based on that cube, and you can create transitions from one view to another, but you can't navigate to a different cube or to a different book. This restriction prevents you from conducting analyses that compare values from two or more cubes. (You ultimately have to launch separate instances of Crystal Analysis.)
In general, Crystal Analysis 8.0 felt like a first release. The product worked very well for basic analysis, but the limitations were frustrating. Crystal Analysis 8.5, however, might already have added some of the significant functionality that Crystal Analysis needs to remain competitive in this maturing market.
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