"Tom van Stiphout" <to*****@no.spam.cox.net> wrote in message
news:1m********************************@4ax.com...
On Fri, 6 Feb 2004 10:35:06 +0000 (UTC), "Fletcher Arnold"
<fl****@home.com> wrote:
Btrieve is a bit special though, because it's not a database manager
but a record manager. However last time I checked Pervasive was
selling an ODBC driver.
-Tom.
"Gheaci Maschl" <g.******@gmx.net> wrote in message
news:47**************************@posting.google. com... Hi all!
I would like to have your opinion about my problem and my proposal how
to solve it:
Ingredients:
- BTriev database
- Crystal Reports
- maybe MS Access
- Liinos6 (small ERP software)
The problem: I would like to create reports. This Liinos6 has some
reports, but the input forms cannot be modified and Liinos6 has no API
to modify their input forms without having their sources.
So I have to query my data directly from the BTriev database. My idea
is to create an input form in MS Access, querying the required data
somehow, writing the data to (maybe another) temporary database,
launching Crystal Reports and generating a nice report with this
temporary table.
Is this a good idea or did I describe the most complicated solution?
Since I am not so much familiar with Crystal Reports, I have no clue
about if everything would be possible with Crystal Reports only. But
as far I figured out until now, it is not.
Thank you in advance,
Gheaci
Do you know about creating linked tables in Access? You should be able
todo all of your reporting in Access without any need for temporary tables
orCrystal Reports. Although I haven't used a Btrieve data source directly,
normally it is just a case of having the right ODBC drivers which can
usually be downloaded if you don't. From within Access you can simply
select File>Get External Data>Link Tables and connect to these tables.
Youthen create reports based on your linked tables.
Fletcher
1. You should be able to use Crystal Reports directly as long as each PC
trying to run the reports have the Pervasive Client software loaded.
There's no need to run it through ODBC unless you just want to. I use
Crystal in my daily work to create reports, but I think the Access Report
Writer is MUCH better.
2. There IS a learning curve in Crystal, but if you've used Access Report
Writer before, you'll get the hang of it pretty quick. You can also
generate input screens. Takes a bit of work, they're not fancy, but they
get the job done. Crystal also gives you a choice of it's own script
syntax, or lets you use MS VB script to have programmatic control over the
report(Crystal calls these routines formulas).
3. If you want to use Access with Pervasive(Btrieve), you will have to have
an ODBC driver from Pervasive. Normally this comes on the install disk and
is loaded during the installation process. Check in Control Panel to see if
you already have the Pervasive ODBC Engine interface already loaded. Then
you can create a DSN, link the Btrieve database, and use it within Access.
4. Pervasive comes with both the old Btrieve file formats, but it also
conforms to the SQL-92 standard . You could run SQL against the Pervasive
DB using MS-Access Pass thru queries. Pervasive can be used as a client
server database, or as a single user desktop database.
5. Pervasive has a very low TOC(Total Cost of Ownership). Haven't lost any
data, had any data corruption, it's self tuning, etc., etc. We've been
running it on Novell 6.0 for 3 years now, and haven't had any downtime. If
it sounds like I'm sold on it, Yeah, pretty much. It does have it's warts
though(what software doesn't!).
6. One more thing, Crystal has a MS-Access Add-in so you can call Crystal
directly from MS-Access. I DON'T recall if that's provided in the Crystal
setup or is a separate product. :-)
For further information see
http://www.pervasive.com
HTH
Ruben
