Upgrading Crystal Reports from 2016 to 2020

[jason-whiting]

We are looking to upgrade our current Crystal Reports server to the latest release. One of my coworkers has tried looking into this process in the past and apparently did not have much success. I am picking this up after the fact to see if I can get any further information.

Is upgrading servers from Crystal Reports 2016 to 2020 something we can do in-house, or does it require additional assistance from SAP technicians? I am not sure what all might be involved in a process such as this.

The version of SAP Crystal Reports I currently use is "SAP Crystal Reports 2016 Support Pack 7", version 14.2.7.3039, if that matters at all. Probably more importantly, the version of our SAP BusinessObjects Central Management Console is "SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform 4.2 Support Pack 7", version 14.2.7.3069.

Just looking to see if there is any sort of step by step guide or list of best practices, even basic upgrade considerations for handling this. Thank you.

[ido_millet]

Crystal 2016 is 32-bit and Crystal 2020 is 64-bit.
So you must change data connections to 64-bit.
Similarly, if your reports use UFLs (User Function Libraries), you need to switch to 64-bit versions of these UFLs.

[JWiseman]

Hi Jason, if you go to the main help.sap.com page for BOBJ, there is a link to an Upgrade Guide. The Guide does seem fairly comprehensive. From the "Performing Upgrades" section of the Guide:

"Upgrading to BI platform 4.2 involves installing a new deployment and copying your content and system data from an existing deployment.

You can install the new deployment independently or side-by-side with an existing deployment. The two deployments can work at the same time. When you no longer need your old deployment, you can uninstall it."

[DellSC]

And if you install side-by-side, you need to make sure that the two systems are NOT using the same database schema for the CMS and Audit databases!

-Dell