Converting Third-Party Reports to DevExpress Reports

• Aug 01, 2019
• 4 minutes to read

This document describes the conversion of Microsoft Access reports, Crystal Reports and Active Reports to DevExpress Reports:

• Bulk-Convert Third-Party Reports
• Import a Specific Third-Party Report
• Requirements and Limitations

Note

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Bulk-Convert Third-Party Reports

You can use our conversion tool to convert third-party reports:

• After running this tool, use the following command line to convert multiple reports at a time:

  Command Line

  FOR /R Reports %R IN (*.rpt) DO ReportsImport "/in:%R" "/out:%R.repx"
  

• The following command starts converting a specific report:

  Command Line

  ReportsImport /in:c:\0\crystal\file.rpt /out c:\0\converted\testreport.repx
  

Note

This tool is written in C# and does not contain third-party libraries. You need to add the required assemblies to compile a converter application.

Import a Specific Third-Party Report

The Visual Studio Report Designer enables you to import a Microsoft Access, Crystal Reports or Active Reports report.

Tip

This way, you can only convert one report at a time. Use the converter tool to convert multiple reports at once.

Do the following to import a third-party report:

1. Open your reporting application and click the report’s smart tag. Choose the Open/Import… command from the actions list that is invoked.

   

2. In the invoked dialog, locate the file containing a required report (it should have the RPX extension for Active Reports and RPT for Crystal Reports) or containing a database with multiple reports (MDB or MDE file).

   

3. The conversion process starts automatically if you are importing reports from Crystal Reports or Active Reports.

   When importing Microsoft Access reports, you are prompted to choose a report to import:

   

   You also need to choose whether to bind a report to a data source that already exists in your application, or create a new typed dataset with the specified name:

   

   This is not required during the import from Crystal Reports or Active Reports, because it is assumed that you already have a data source in your .NET application.

Tip

When the resulting report does not completely match the imported report’s original structure, you may need to manually customize the created report.

Please consider the requirements and limitations applied to the import of third-party reports.

Requirements and Limitations

As a result of differences between DevExpress Reports and other reporting tools, the extent to which your converted report will match the original one depends on the layout of the initial report.

Please consider the following when importing reports from third-party vendors:

Vendor	Requirements	Limitations
Crystal Reports	The Crystal Reports version 13.0+ should be installed on the machine that will be used to import the reports. The following assemblies must be present in the Global Assembly Cache: CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Engine.dll CrystalDecisions.ReportAppServer.ReportDefModel.dll CrystalDecisions.ReportSource.dll CrystalDecisions.Shared.dll	The first SqlDataSource in the collection will be assigned as a report’s data source, and the first SqlQuery in the collection will be assigned as the report’s data member. User credentials used to access data sources will be imported without the specifyed password. Stored procedures are not supported. Parameters with static lists of values will have no description. Parameters with dynamic lists of values will have no DisplayMember assigned. Data source tables from different databases will not be joined. Calculated fields are inserted as stubs (i.e., without expressions assigned). Picture boxes are inserted as stubs (i.e., without image content). Subreports are inserted as stubs (i.e., as empty controls of the corresponding size without source reports assigned to them). Charts are inserted as stubs (i.e., as empty controls of the corresponding size). Pivot grids are inserted as stubs (i.e., as empty controls of the corresponding size).
GrapeCity ActiveReports	The ActiveReports version 11.0 should be installed on the machine that will be used to import reports. The following assemblies should be present in the Global Assembly Cache: GrapeCity.ActiveReports.v11.dll GrapeCity.ActiveReports.Document.v11.dll	Subreports and expressions will not be imported.
Microsoft Access	Microsoft Access 2000 or higher should be installed on the machine that will be used to import the reports.	Subreports and expressions will not be imported.