<p>Is it possible to query the Crystal CMS database and get meaningful data back?  The data appears to be encrypted.</p>

<p>I am running Business Objects Crystal Report Server version 11.5</p>

[{'answer_id': 69656, 'author': 'Community', 'author_id': -1, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/-1', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>I had a similar problem on my workstation at the office.  It sounds like you need to reinstall (that's what worked for me). This is a known bug according BussinessObjects (I had to call them and use our maintenance support).  Hopefully you can find more information by searching for, 'Crystal Business query corruption' instead of calling them if the reinstall doesn't work for you.</p>\n\n<p>They told me the data is not encrypted, but occasionally components don't install correctly and the queries come back in a binary form that is all garbled.</p>\n\n<p>Good luck!</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 80178, 'author': 'Mike Farmer', 'author_id': 4082, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/4082', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>My experience is that the data is not encrypted but that it is not really readable.  Your best option is to use the Auditor Universes to build you some reports.  You can also check out the SQL that the auditor Universes are uses as a baseline for constructing additional reporting.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 80326, 'author': 'evan w', 'author_id': 11019, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/11019', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Actually what I discovered I needed to do was use the administration tools available from the Administration Launchpad.  I was not responsible for installing Crystal and did not even realise this existed.  The query builder and also the "Report Datasources" feature that were available from here was exactly what I needed.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 1698729, 'author': 'craig', 'author_id': 134367, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/134367', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Use the Query Builder tool to query the CMS: <a href="http://[server]/businessobjects/enterprise115/WebTools/websamples/query/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://[server]/businessobjects/enterprise115/WebTools/websamples/query/</a>.  For more information about the query language, see <a href="http://devlibrary.businessobjects.com/businessobjectsxi/en/en/BOE_SDK/boesdk_dotNet_doc/doc/boesdk_net_doc/html/QueryLanguageReference.html#2146566" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://devlibrary.businessobjects.com/businessobjectsxi/en/en/BOE_SDK/boesdk_dotNet_doc/doc/boesdk_net_doc/html/QueryLanguageReference.html#2146566</a>.</p>\n\n<p>The properties that are returned by this query are store in a serialized state (I\'m guessing binary and encrypted) in the Properties field in the infoobject database table (I can\'t remember the actual name of the table).</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 2523521, 'author': 'Atul', 'author_id': 302544, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/302544', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>There are also several third party solutions out there that naturally layer "on top of" the CMS or Central Management Server to abstract the proprietary storage format into human-readable form.  We develop a native database driver to the CMS which can be found at <a href="http://www.infolytik.com/products" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.infolytik.com/products</a>.</p>\n\n<p>full disclosure: I\'m the main developer and founder of Infolytik.</p>\n'}]
['https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/69309', 'https://Stackoverflow.com', 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/11019/']