Mastering Crystal Reports 9

Overview

The Internet has matured over the last few years to where we are starting to use it for more than simple web browsing. The Internet is beginning to be used for business-to-business communications, where one company’s system communicates with another company’s system across the Internet to exchange information. Crystal Reports provides a web service that allows your company to provide reports to other companies’ applications across the Internet.

Business Question: I want my customers to be able to use my Crystal Reports in their applications over the Internet or an intranet. How can I do that?

Covered in this chapter:

• What web services are

• Technology standards for web services

• Building a Crystal report as a web service

• Displaying a Crystal report from a web service