SAP / Crystal Reports

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

Anyone any experience with either of these ?

Recommended self study texts/materials ?

Certs worth doing or not ?

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

I used to use Crystal Reports upto Crystal Reports XI , however, i am self taught.

I originally started using it with the free version that came with early versions of visual basic that was covered in many vb books. When i moved over to standalone i just learnt it my self using the help documentation. There is a lot of cross over over with software development, in fact most Crystal Reports gurus are software developers.

SAP - i think with SAP across over with business qualifications and knowing business processes may be of great help. I know a few SAP experts that hold MBA's

 

SAP is like saying Oracle, they have entire suites of software tageting different vertical parts of a corporations business systems. If you don't have SAP experience I'd leave well alone. They tend to break things down into 3 main job roles, functional consultants, developers and system administation.

Functional consultants are like business analysts or IT consultants. People tend to specialise in one product/module or another.

Here is a list of modules :-

Financials
Human Resources
Customer Relationship Management
Supplier Relationship Management
Product Lifecycle Management
Supply Chain Management
Business Intelligence

They also have a portal solution called Netweaver which can have modules integrated in .Net or Java.

The older SAP stuff is written in a language called ABAP.

http://www.thespot4sap.com/articles/sap_modules.asp

Crystal reports is just a report building tool, piece of piss to use if you know SQL and databases, less useful these days as MS SQL Server comes with its own report builder now.

MBA's are not required but it helps if you understand the business and the business processes if you are trying to implement a company's business systems or perform business process improvement.

 

There's the possibility of running some training courses at work for already certified SAP consultants - mainly getting them used to English rather than teaching them to suck eggs so I'd just need a broad overview.

 

ERP is probably the one that SAP is most well known for

 

Actually Crystal reports can be bit more than that with it valorous versions and modules. It can be a reporting server used in distributed and web app systems it can also be a component used it the software development process. Its has a large Java development following and of course now SAP. I have worked in a few software houses that used it in there software to add reporting functionality. Infact loads of people still use it.

It is easy though. I sort of went easy, complex and now easy again

 

Well it depends on the place, a lot places used to use it for FI module so I'd say thats the most well known.

More and more places seem to be using the HR module.

Manufacturing firms are likely to be more into the Supply Chain stuff etc.

Business Objects used to be quite well known for BI and got bought by SAP so I guess you could say they are well known.

Basically the sectors consolidating, Business Objects, Hyperion, BEA, JD Edwards, Crystal Reports, Siebel, Peoplesoft, all this stuffs getting bought up by likes of IBM, Oracle and SAP. Microsoft is trying to develop their Dynamics suite at same time.

Read around wikipedia for a quick potted history.

Yeah Crystal reports used to be bundled free with Visual Studio, worked few places that used to use it but never had to touch it much. Sure they have thrown in extra junk by now...

 

Yeah that how i started using it, however, the version included with VB was never the complete package that was only ever available separately.

 

So guys, any suggestions for boning up on this ?

 

Usual stuff really, websites, books on amazon, there are places specialising on SAP training and certification, think theres one in the thames valley area. Don't expect official courses to be cheap though, probably 1k+, I don't think you can take certification without attending the official courses for SAP, (but this seems to have changed.) Third party vendors seem to be offering various cut rate courses for 500 pound up as well as 'career access packages', not sure how legit these are.

SAP website includes info too, especially for certification.

Check here as I've not looked at their cert program for years :-

http://www.sap.com/uk/services/education/courses/certification/index.epx
http://www.sap-press.com/
http://www.sap.com/uk/services/education/courses/curriculum.epx?context=[[INT_SOL_UK]]|
http://www.simplysap.com/sap-training/#europe

Experience counts more than certs, experienced SAP consultants pull in six figures and travel worldwide.

Certs probably worth it if you are a SAP expert, otherwise probably no. I'd say without a development or BA background prob not worth it for most people.

Getting SAP experience without already working for a company that wants to implement it is gonna be hard, no one is going to want inexperienced people implementing SAP systems for them.

 

Cheers for the links

I'm not trying to get into SAP myself; I'll know more of what's required after a conference call on Thursday. It's a bit vague atm

 

Crystal Reports evaluation 30 day trial :- http://www.sap.com/solutions/sap-crystal-solutions/query-reporting-analysis/index.epx

Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2010 beta (bottom right):- http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/crystalreports-dotnet

 

Thanks

We're still waiting to hear about a training course but we won't have to know SAP

Apparently we'll need to teach SAP consultants about Change Management, Presentation Skills and stuff like that !

(but thanks again for the links !)