2286450 - Report does not refresh in Crystal Reports Viewer

• Unable to refresh reports in Crystal Reports Viewer.
• When refreshing a report, it does not prompt for the parameters in Crystal Reports Viewer.
• Reports opened from the SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform in Crystal Reports Viewer, does not display new data when refreshed.
• When refreshing the same report in Crystal Reports designer, it prompts for the parameters and fetch new data, but not in Crystal Reports Viewer.
   
    
• Note: Images and data in this SAP Knowledge Base Article is from SAP internal systems, sample data, or demo systems. Any resemblance to real data is purely coincidental.

• SAP Crystal Reports Viewer 2013
• SAP Crystal Reports Viewer 2016
• SAP Crystal Reports Viewer 2020
          
• SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform 4.1
• SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform 4.2
• SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform 4.3

1. In Crystal Reports, create a report based on any data source.
2. Add at least one parameter to the report.
3. Save the report to the SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise Repository.
4. In the standalone application: Crystal Reports Viewer, connect to the SAP BusinessObjects BI platform, and open one report.
5. Refresh the report by clicking on the double arrows in the toolbar.
    
     
        
       
6. Notice it did not prompt for the parameter, and it did not fetch any new data.

• Crystal Reports Viewer does not have the functionality to refresh reports on it's own, and can only display reports with saved data. But reports opened from the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform can be refreshed, because the reports will be refreshed on the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform server, and not directly in Crystal Reports Viewer.
                       
• When a report is open from the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform, you can refresh the report with new data. The reason a report will not prompt for the parameters, and will not return new data in Crystal Reports Viewer, it's because the database connection failed when executed on the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform side due to one of the following reasons:
      
• The database client is not installed and / or configured on the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform server; 
      
• The database client installed on the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform server cannot connect to the data source due to incorrect configuration issue, or networking issue like firewall;
         
• The database user name and password have not been entered in the Central Management Console (CMC), and therefore the report cannot connect to the data source.

• To be able to refresh a report in Crystal Reports Viewer:
     
1. Save the report from Crystal Reports, to the SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise Repository.
        
2. Confirm you have installed and configure the database client the report used on the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform server.
        
3. If the report connect to the data source via an ODBC connection, ensure you have the ODBC DSN defined on the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform server. 
       
4. Ensure you have configured the report database connection in the Central Management Console (CMC) and added the user name and password to connect to the data source.
   4.1  Logon to the Central Management Console ( CMC )
   4.2  Select "Folders", and navigate to the report.
   4.3  Right click on the report, and select "Database Configuration"
   4.4  In the "Database Configuration" screen, 
          Set the option: "When viewing and scheduling report"
          To: "Use same database lohon as when report is run"
   4.5  Enter the user name and password for the database under "Use original database logon information for the report"
   4.6  At the bottom left corner, click on the button "Update" to accept the change.
           
5. Confirm the report can now successfully refresh in the Central Management Console ( CMC )
   5.1  Still in the CMC, right click on the report, and select "View" 
   5.2  When viewing the report with saved data, click on the refresh button in the toolbar.
            
   Once the report can successfully refresh on the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform server, it will then be able to successfully refresh in Crystal Reports Viewer, because Crystal Reports Viewer does not refresh a report from the local computer where it is installed, but uses the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform server to refresh the report. If the report cannot be refresh from the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence platform server, it then display the data saved with the report.

CRV, CR Viewer, CRViewer, standalone CR Viewer , KBA , BI-RA-CRV , SAP Crystal Reports Viewer , Problem

SAP Crystal Reports viewer 2013 ; SAP Crystal Reports viewer 2016 ; SAP Crystal Reports viewer 2020