Crystal Reports Ninja

Forked from Tengyongs Crystal Reports Ninja. https://github.com/rainforestnet/CrystalReportsNinja

Crystal Reports Ninja is an open source Windows application. The application loads and executes Crystal Report files exporting the results to a directoy or sending via email.

The Crystal Reports Ninja application can be invoked using Windows PowerShell or Windows Command Prompt.

Supported File Formats for Export

File type	Descriptions
txt	Plain text file
pdf	Adobe Portable Document format (pdf)
doc	Microsoft Word
xlsx	Microsoft Excel
xls	Microsoft Excel
xlsdata	Microsoft Excel with Data Only
rtf	Rich Text format
ertf	Editable Rich Text format
tab	Tab delimited text file
csv	Comma delimited text file
csv	Comma delimited text file
xml	xml file
htm	HTML file
rpt	Crystal Reports file
print	Print Crystal Report to a printer

Directory structure

• Source (Source Code)
• Deployment
  • 32-bit Contains executable and files for 32-bit (x86) systems.
  • 64-bit Contains executable and files for 64-bit (x64) systems.

PreRequisites

• .NET Framework 4.5
• Crystal Reports Runtime 13.0.24 (or later).
  • If using the 64-bit Crystal Reports Ninja you must have the 64-bit Crystal Reports Runtime installed.
  • If using the 32-bit Crystal Reports Ninja you must have the 32-bit Crystal Reports Runtime installed.
  • Crystal Reports Runtime installation files can be downloaded from SAP using one of the following link.
    http://www.crystalreports.com/crystal-reports-visual-studio/ https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/BOBJ/Crystal+Reports%2C+Developer+for+Visual+Studio+Downloads https://origin.softwaredownloads.sap.com/public/site/index.html
  • It is suggested that you uninstall any previous versions of Crystal Reports Runtime before installing the latest version.

Installation

• Copy all the files from either the 64-bit or 32-bit Deployment directories to a new local directory.

How to use with Windows PowerShell (NEW FEATURE IN 1.4.0.0)

• Start by creating a new PowerShell script. Using the PowerShell ISE to create the script is prefered, but any text editor will do. There are a few examples of PowerShell scripts located in the Scripts directory.

• Below I have included the basic steps that need to be coded into the PowerShell script to be able to run Crystal Reports Ninja.

  • 1 Reference the Crystal Reports Ninja executable.
  • 2 Create a new instance of the ReportProcessor object.
  • 3 Set appropriate arguments for desired results. The only argument that is required to be set is the ReportPath argument.
  • 4 Set any parameters required by the Crystal Report.
  • 5 Use the Report Processors Run method to have Crystal Reports Ninja begin its execution.

• Example 1. Export results to Excel file using Report with Integrated Security.

[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFile("C:\Program Files\CrystalReportsNinja\CrystalReportsNinja.exe")
$ReportProcessor = New-Object CrystalReportsNinja.ReportProcessor
$ReportProcessor.ReportArguments.EnableLogToConsole = $true
$ReportProcessor.ReportArguments.OutputFormat = "xlsx"
$ReportProcessor.ReportArguments.OutputPath = "c:\tmp\Test1"
$ReportProcessor.ReportArguments.ParameterCollection.Add("@DaysToConsider:90")
$ReportProcessor.ReportArguments.ParameterCollection.Add("@MaximumVariance:1")
$ReportProcessor.ReportArguments.ReportPath = "C:\CrystalReports\CrystalReport1.rpt"
$ReportProcessor.Run()

How to use with Windows Command Prompt

Locate the folder of CrystalReportsNinja.exe and run CrystalReportsNinja -? The only mandatory argument is "-F", in which is for user to specify a Crystal Reports file.

List of arguments

• -------------- DB and Report Config --------------");
• -U database login username. (Optional, If not set IntegratedSecurity is used");
• -P database login password. (Optional, If not set IntegratedSecurity is used");
• -F Crystal reports path and filename. (Mandatory)");
• -S Database Server Name. (instance name)");
• -D Database Name.");
• ------------------ Output Config -----------------");
• -O Output path and filename.");
• -E Export file type. (pdf,doc,xls,xlsx,rtf,htm,rpt,txt,csv...) If print to printer simply specify "print"");
• -a Parameter value.");
• -N Printer Name. (Network printer : \\PrintServer\Printername or Local printer : printername)");
• -C Number of copy to be printed.");
• ----------------- Logging Config -----------------");
• -L To write a log file. filename ninja-yyyyMMddHHmmss.log");
• -LC To write log output to console");
• ------------------ Email Config ------------------");
• -M Email Report Output. (Enable Email Support)");
• -MF Email Address to be SENT FROM. (Optional, Default: [email protected])");
• -MT Email Address to SEND to. (Mandatory)");
• -MC Email Address to be CC'd. (Optional)");
• -MB Email Address to be BCC'd. (Optional)");
• -MS Email Subject Line of the Email. (Optional, Default: Crystal Reports)");
• -MZ SMTP server address. (Mandatory, if SSL enabled FQDN is required)");
• -MP SMTP server port. (Optional, Default: 25)");
• -ME SMTP server Enable SSL. (Optional, Default: False");
• -MA SMTP Auth - Use Current User Credentials, (Optional, Default: False ");
• -MUN SMTP server Username. (Optional) "domain\username"");
• -MPW SMTP server Password. (Optional) "password"");

-F, Crystal Reports source file

This is the only mandatory (must specify) argument, it allows your to specify the Crystal Reports filename to be exported.

-O, Crystal Reports output file

If -O is not specified, Crystal Reports Exporter will just export the Crystal Reports into the same directory when Crystal Reports source file is resided.

The filename of the exported file is the same as Crystal Report source file and ending with timestamp (yyyyMMddHHmmss).

-E, Crystal Reports Export File Type

Use -E to specify desired file format. There are 13 file formats that you can export a Crystal Reports file. If -E argument is not supplied, CrystalReportsNinja will look into the output file extension. If output file is report1.pdf, it will then set to be Adobe PDF format. If file extension cannot be mapped into supported file format, CrystalReportsNinja will export your Crystal Reports into plain text file.

-S, Server name or Data Source name

Most of the time, you need not specify the server name or data source name of your Crystal Reports file as every Crystal Reports file saves data source information during design time.

Therefore, you only specify a server name when you want Crystal Reports to retrieve data from another data source that is different from what it is saved in Crystal Reports file during design time.

If your crystal Reports data source is one of the ODBC DSN (regardless of User DSN or System DSN), the DSN will be your Server Name (-S).

-D, Database name

Similarly to Server Name. Database Name is completely optional. You only specify a Database Name when you intend to retrieve data from another database that is different from default database name that is saved in Crystal Reports file.

-U and - P, Username and Password to login to Data source

If you are using database like Microsoft SQL server, MySQL or Oracle, you are most likely required to supply a username and password to login to database.

If you are using trusted connection to your SQL server, you wouldn't need to supply username and password when you run CrystalReportsNinja.

If you are using a password protected Microsoft Access database, you need only to specify password and not username.

-M Email Report

-MF From Email Address

The email address that the email will appear to be from. Defaults to [email protected].

-MT To Email Address

The email address that the email will be sent to. Mandatory for Email Report.

-MS Subject

The text that will appear in the subject line of the email. Defaults to Crystal Reports Ninja.

-MZ SMTP Server

SMTP server address. Mandatory for Email Report.

-a Passing in Parameters of Crystal Reports

We can have as many Parameters as we want in one Crystal Reports file. When we refresh a report, it prompts user to input the value of parameter in runtime in order to produce the result that user wants.

You can pass parameter value to CrystalReportsNinja.exe when it is executed.

###Example 1 Let's take an example of a Crystal Reports file test.rpt located in C: root directory. The Crystal Reports file has two parameters, namely Supplier and Date Range.

c:\>CrystalReportsNinja -U user1 -P mypass -S server1 -D Demo 
-F c:\test.rpt -O d:\test.pdf -E pdf -a "Supplier:Active Outdoors" 
-a "Date Range:(12-01-2001,12-04-2002)"

Rule to pass parameters Use double quote (") to enclose the parameter string (parameter name and parameter value) A colon (:) must be placed between parameter name and parameter value. Use comma (,) to separate start value and end value of a Range parameter. Use pipe (|) to pass multiple values into the same parameter. Parameter name is case sensitive

###Example 2 The following crystal Reports "testTraining.rpt" has 5 discrete parameters and 2 range parameters. Discrete parameters are:

• company
• customer
• branch

Range parameters are:

• Daterange
• Product

Example of Single value parameters :

c:\>CrystalReportsNinja -U user1 -P secret -F C:\Creport\Statement.rpt 
-O D:\Output\Statement.pdf -E pdf -S"AnySystem DB" 
-a "company:The One Computer,Inc" -a "customer:"MyBooks Store" 
-a "branch:Malaysia" -a "daterange:(12-01-2001,12-04-2002)"
-a "product:(AFD001,AFD005)"

Example of Multiple values parameters :

c:\>CrystalReportsNinja -F testreport.rpt -O testOutput.xls 
-E xlsdata -S order.mdb -a "date:(01-01-2001,28-02-2001)|(02-01-2002,31-10-2002)|(02-08-2002,31-12-2002)"
-a "Client:(Ace Soft Inc,Best Computer Inc)|(Xtreme Bike Inc,Zebra Design Inc)"

Example to print Crystal Reports output to printer

c:\>CrystalReportsNinja -F report101.rpt -E print -N "HP LaserJet 1200" -C 3

Email Report Example -F Z:\CrystalReportsNinja\CrystalReports\ConsignaStoreInventoryValue.rpt -E pdf -O Z:\CrystalReportsNinja\Output\Test.pdf -a "@CustomerId:12345" -a "@Warehouse:987" -M -MF "[email protected]" -MT "[email protected]" -MS "Testing Ninja" -MZ "mail.company.com"

Troublshooting

Check the ensure that the version of Ninja (64bit\32bit) you are using matches the version of the ODBC Driver (64bit\32bit) you are using. FYI, as of Oct 2019 the Crystal Reports Developer application is still 32bit.

Make sure that the option to save data in the Crystal Report is not enabled. Users have reported issues when this option is enabled.

License

MIT License