Assuming the Obvious - Connectivity to SAP Data

[cbethune]

Recently I installed Crystal Reports Server 2013 as a Proof of concept for a customer.  The goal was to publish a popular operational report and use the Publications feature to burst it out to the user community.

Never for a second thought I wouldn't be able to connect up to a SAP data source.  Imagine my surprise when I went to look for SAP Authentication and it wasn't there.  I had assumed that its a SAP product, of course it will connect to a SAP data source.  I even encountered people within SAP that made the same assumption.  Many of us were unsure of whether or not this is supported.

Finding technical documentation to validate support for this proved fairly difficult as well.  After much searching I eventually found information in some sales materials on SAP PartnerEdge and eventually had it pointed out to me in a Crystal Server doc.  I also eventually got a copy of the licensing details.

Sure enough, unless you are running Crystal Reports for SAP Business One, this capability is not supported.

If you need an entry level platform to use for Publications of a report against SAP data sources and are not running Business One then SAP BI Edge is your entry level solution.

Lesson learned, its a very deep ecosystem and just because most of a particular product suite supports a particular functionality don't assume all variations of the product support it.

Hopefully my little blog post here will save you the painful lesson I learned.