SAP BI 2025: What’s New in Crystal Reports

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This blog post provides a comprehensive overview of key SAP Crystal Reports (CR) new features and changes in BI 2025 release, including:

• New "SAP BW (DSL)" driver in Crystal Reports
• Crystal Reports Designer start page short cuts to Unx / BW DSL drivers
• BI Launchpad tile to launch CR Classic Designer
• Crystal Reports Query Panel: Database Sorting and Ranking
• Crystal Reports Query Panel: Copy / Paste of JSON query spec (in patch 5+)
• "Graphic Location" supports HTTPS (in patch 7+)
• Crystal Reports for Enterprise (CR4E) no longer supported since BI2025
• Crystal Reports 2025 Desktop Viewer
• Security and platform updates
• Further Reading

New "SAP BW (DSL)" driver in Crystal Reports

A new “SAP BW (DSL)” driver is available in Crystal Reports 2025 (CR2025), you can start by selecting a managed BW OLAP connection stored in BI Platform, choose an SAP query, then build a report on top of it. See Reporting on Universes and managed connections | SAP Help Portal for detail.

New SAP BW DSL driver

Compared to existing "SAP BW MDX Query" (crdb_bwmdx) driver, this new "SAP BW (DSL)" driver better aligns with Crystal Reports for Enterprise (CR4E) and Web Intelligence behaviors. 

Thus it also allows easier migration of CR4E BW reports to CR2025. For details, please check Moving from Crystal Reports for Enterprise to Crystal Reports | SAP Blogs

Crystal Reports Designer start page short cuts to Unx / BW DSL drivers

Two new options were added in CR Classic (e.g., CR 2025) start page, users could now quickly “START A NEW REPORT” on the new "Universe (Unx)" or "SAP BW (DSL)" driver.

New shortcuts in CR Start Page
They will help more users notice and start to use the 2 new DSL based drivers in CR Classic.
It also helps speed up daily report creation.

BI Launchpad tile to launch CR Classic Designer

A “Crystal Reports” tile is available in Application section of BI Launchpad home page. This tile replaces the “Crystal Reports for Enterprise” tile in BI 4.3.

Crystal Reports Application tile in BILP home page
Users could click it to launch CR Classic Designer (installed on current machine).

Open the downloaded LaunchCRDesigner*.bclp file, CR Classic Designer will launch and automatically connect to your BOE.

LaunchCRDesigner.bclp

Crystal Reports Query Panel: Database Sorting and Ranking

Database Sorting can now be defined in Crystal Reports query panel (if supported by the data source). 

Database Sorting in CR Query Panel

Database Ranking can also be defined in Crystal Reports query panel (if supported by the data source).

Database Ranking in CR Query Panel

Database Sorting and Ranking will be delegated to the underlying database, e.g., Unx Universe. You can use them to fine tune your report performance.

Crystal Reports Query Panel: Copy / Paste of JSON query spec (in patch 5+)

Starting Crystal Reports 2020 SP05 and Crystal Reports 2025 patch 5, you can copy / paste query spec (JSON format) within CR 202x query panel. It could save you plenty of time creating reports with similar query spec. Manually creating same or similar queries again and again from scratch is no longer necessary.

It could also help you save time migrating CR4E to CR202x. If several CR4E reports have similar query spec, you just need to recreate the query manually in CR202x once, then it can be copied and used as a template during migration of similar reports. Just please note, for now XML query spec copied from CR4E query panel cannot be pasted into CR202x query panel, we are investigating the possibility in CR2027.

"Graphic Location" supports HTTPS (in patch 7+)

"Graphic Location" can be used to display external images in your reports. Previously, only HTTP URLs to images can be used there. In Crystal Reports 2020 SP05 patch 3+ and 2025 patch 7+, HTTPS URLs can also be used.

Crystal Reports for Enterprise (CR4E) no longer supported since BI2025

CR4E designer and CR4E services in BOE are removed in BI2025.
Your CR4E documents and instances would stay after upgrade (e.g., BI4.3 -> BI2025). In BI Launchpad and CMC, CR4E reports will display with “(unsupported)” postfix in Type column, they can no longer be viewed, refreshed, or scheduled in BI2025.

CR4E no longer supported
Users could open CR4E reports in CR202x Designer and migrate to a supported data source there,
majority of report formatting and calculations will be kept after migration.
See following blog for details: Moving from Crystal Reports for Enterprise to Crystal Reports | SAP Blogs

Crystal Reports 2025 Desktop Viewer

The free Crystal Reports 2025 Desktop Viewer allows you open and explore your local report (rpt) files. You can access all data, interactivities, charts, and layouts inside your report, even when disconnected​.

CR Desktop Viewer 2025
Crystal Reports 2025 Desktop Viewer uses the same report engine as Crystal Reports 2025 Designer. Which is faster than the previous version of desktop viewer, and also better supports Crystal Reports 2025 documents.

Security and platform updates

Various security updates have been applied, including third party and open-source component updates.

New Platforms versions and Data source versions have been certified, check out the BI 4.3 Product Availability Matrix for more information.

Please install SAP Business Objects BI Platform 2025 and SAP Crystal Reports 2025, and try these new features.

Further Reading:

• Moving from Crystal Reports for Enterprise to Crystal Reports | SAP Blogs
• SAP BI 4.3 SP4: What’s New in Crystal Reports - SAP Community