Connecting Crystal Reports for Enterprise 4.1 to SAP HANA in Effortless Steps

Earlier we saw how to connect Crystal Reports (2011 or 2013) to SAP HANA. Now, it’s time for connecting Crystal Reports to SAP HANA via Enterprise version 4.1.

SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise

There are two types of SAP Crystal Reports; Crystal Reports 2011/2013 and Crystal Reports Enterprise. Both of these connect differently to SAP HANA as shown in the image below.

Crystal Reports 2011/13 is used when we want to fetch data from HANA’s stored procedures, create SAP HANA SQL expressions or use views directly. Whereas, Crystal Reports for Enterprise is used when you use the Universe as the data source instead of connecting directly to the HANA system.

Connecting Crystal Reports for Enterprise to SAP HANA

Let us learn connecting Crystal Reports for Enterprise platform to SAP HANA.

Creating a Direct Server Connection

Step 1. Open the SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise application. Go to Edit and select Server Connections.

Step 2. Select SAP HANA from the left panel and enter connection details in the right section in the fields Connection Display Name, HANA Server, HANA Server Installation and User Name.

Click on Ok.

Step 3. Log in to the server by going to File and then selecting Log On To Server option.

Step 4. In the next dialog box that appears, select the server name in Select a server column. Click on Ok.

Enter the User Name and Password to connect to the HANA Server.

You will receive a message prompt that will confirm your successful connection to the HANA server. You can now use the data from SAP HANA to create enterprise-level reports.

Creating a Relational Connection

Another way of connecting Crystal Reports is through creating a relational connection in SAP HANA which is an indirect mode of connecting.

Step 1. Selecting From Data Source option

Create a new document from the main page of SAP CRYSTAL REPORTS FOR ENTERPRISE and select the option From Data Source.

Step 2. Choose a data source type

You can either select a data source from an existing connection or click on Browse Repository option to find a HANA specific relational connection.

Enter the credentials (Select a connection, User Name, Password) to log into an SAP BusinessObjects.

Step 3.  Browse SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform Server “servername”

Select the Relational Connection option from the Data Source Type list. You can also select data source type as Universe and create reports using data from a Universe.

Next, select the connection that connects you to SAP HANA. There will be a list of different types of relational connections. Select an SAP HANA specific connection from that list and click Next.

Step 4. Select Tables for your Report

This window will show a list of Available Tables from HANA system. Select the table of your choice.

Expand the schema node and select the table of your choice by its name. The fields within the selected table will appear in the Selected Tables column. Click on Finish.

Step 5. Create the report

The contents of the table will be loaded automatically into the report editor. This indicates that a relational connection to SAP HANA has been successfully made as we can access the data from HANA.

You can create reports using the fields from the tables you imported in Crystal Reports for Enterprise from SAP HANA database. To start with creating a report, you can simply drag and drop fields or tables from the Data Explorer tab to the editing space on the right.

In the report editor, you will mainly get three tabs; Insert, Format, Data. Using the Insert tab, you can edit the text, create lines or boxes, group data, make selections and summations. Also, you can visually represent your data in the form of charts, cross-tables, and import informative pictures.

Summary

This was a tutorial on connecting SAP Crystal Reports for Enterprise to SAP HANA. We hope the explanation was helpful and clear. In case of any query or suggestion, drop your comments below.