Support Spotlight: Connecting to the SAP Business One 10.0, version for SAP HANA Database From Crystal Reports Designer With SAP HANA 2.0 multitenant database containers

[lubomir_jacisko]

In this blog we explain how to create a new SAP Crystal Reports Layouts/Reports database connection to be used later in SAP Business One 10.0, version for SAP HANA. You will find details on how to define a database connection to SAP HANA 2.0. From a SAP Crystal Reports perspective there is a noticeable difference in ODBC connection properties compared to SAP HANA 1.0. See the end of this blog for a brief background.

On the SAP Crystal Reports Start Page, choose Blank report. A tab for the new report with the Database Expert window appears.

In the Database Expert window, in the Available Data Sources pane on the left-hand side of the screen, choose Create New Connection → ODBC(RDO) → Make New Connection. The ODBC(RDO) Data Source Selection window appears.

Select the Enter Connection String radio button, and in the Connection String field, enter strings to use either the B1CRHPROXY32 or HDBODBC32 driver. See examples below, ensuring to replace any angle brackets <>  items(including the brackets) with your relevant system data.

SAP HANA 2.0

To use B1CRHPROXY32 as the connection driver, enter DRIVER={B1CRHPROXY32};SERVERNODE=<SAP HANA Database Server Name or Address>:<SAP HANA Database Instance Port>;DATABASENAME=<Tenant Database Name>;DATABASE=<Company Schema Name on the tenant database>;UID=<SAP HANA Database Server User Name>;PWD=<SAP HANA Database Server User Password>

To use HDBODBC32 as the connection driver, enter DRIVER={HDBODBC32};SERVERNODE=<SAP HANA Database Server Name or Address>:<SAP HANA Database Instance Port>;DATABASENAME=<Tenant Database Name>;CURRENTSCHEMA=<Company Schema Name on the tenant database>;UID=<SAP HANA Database Server User Name>;PWD=<SAP HANA Database Server User Password>

 

Summary

This concludes our blog post on how to create a new SAP Crystal Reports Layouts/Reports database connection to be used later in SAP Business One 10.0, version for SAP HANA. If you want to see some additional documentation, the difference between the two drivers or to know more about the background, continue reading below.

 

Additional documentation:

For more information, see the guide How to Set Up SAP Business One, version for SAP HANA Data Sources for Crystal Reports on https://help.sap.com/

SAP HANA 1.0

SAP Note 2900925 - You Can Only Use the B1CRHPROXY32 and HDBODBC32 Drivers When You Are Connecting t...

HDBODBC specific documentation:

https://help.sap.com/viewer/0eec0d68141541d1b07893a39944924e/1.0.12/en-US/66a4169b84b2466892e1af9781...

SAP HANA 2.0

SAP Note 2932941 - How To Connect to the Database From Crystal Reports Designer With HANA multitenan...

HDBODBC specific documentation:

https://help.sap.com/viewer/0eec0d68141541d1b07893a39944924e/2.0.02/en-US/66a4169b84b2466892e1af9781...

 

Additional background on the change from SAP HANA 1.0 to SAP HANA 2.0 with regards to SAP Business One, version for SAP HANA

Since version 10 of SAP Business One, version for SAP HANA, the SAP HANA 2.0 database engine was adopted. As a consequence, several changes were introduced from a technical / hierarchy standpoint, compared to the previous SAP HANA 1.0 database engine. Several great SAP blogs can be found detailing the changes (example: blog post https://blogs.sap.com/2019/12/07/sap-hana-2.0-and-1.0-whats-the-difference-sap-hana-2.0-an-introduct...) .

As stated previously, from a Crystal Reports perspective there is a noticeable difference in ODBC connection properties compared to SAP HANA 1.0.

This all comes down to the fact, that SAP HANA 2.0 is by default running in MDC (SAP HANA multitenant database containers) mode. After you upgrade to SAP HANA 2.0, the engine’s hierarchy changes:

(Blog post: https://blogs.sap.com/2017/04/12/multi-container-database-mode-is-the-new-default/)

 

You will have several entries in SAP HANA Studio for an SAP HANA 2.0 environment, one for SystemDB and one for every Tenant Database.

If you want to learn more about this mode from SAP HANA side, here are some resources:

Blog post: https://blogs.sap.com/2016/06/21/introduction-to-sap-hana-mdc-part-1/

SAP Note 2101244 - FAQ: SAP HANA Multitenant Database Containers (MDC)

Support Spotlight Series

We hope this read has been informative and beneficial. For more blogs and tips from the SAP Business One Support team, please visit our space on the communities: https://blogs.sap.com/tag/b1-support-spotlight/