IFS Cloud Crystal Reports: Release Status and Migration

Short answer: IFS Cloud Crystal Reports is supported in 24R2, 25R1, 25R2 (from service update 3) and 26R1, and IFS plans to remove the Crystal integration in 26R2. The replacement for operational report layouts is Report Studio, and no standard IFS tool converts a Crystal layout into one.

Status checked on 2026-10-12 against the IFS Community thread Removal of Crystal Reports in 25R1 (posts from January 2025 to May 2026, including the IFS Cloud 24R2 deprecation log as revised on 20 February 2025 and statements by IFS employees) and the docs.ifs.com 25R2 landing page. The deprecation log and release notes pages themselves were not retrievable, so each row below names the post it comes from.

Key takeaways

• The deprecation log revised on 20 February 2025 replaced the first plan, removal with 25R1, with a staged one: deprecated in 24R2, no longer sold in 25R1 but supported for upgrading customers with existing licences, current integration unavailable in 25R2.
• In December 2025 an IFS employee announced that Crystal support is reinstated in 25R2 through a service update, stays in 26R1 and is removed in 26R2. In February 2026 the same employee named 25R2 SU3, scheduled for 19 February 2026.
• In May 2026 the IFS employee restated that the integration is still planned for removal in 26R2 and advised not to postpone the move off Crystal.
• The revised log counts Crystal Quick Reports in IFS Cloud as ad-hoc reporting and points to Lobbies and Power BI for them, while Report Studio is the tool named for operational report layouts.
• An IFS employee wrote in July 2026 that no standard tool converts Crystal .rpt files into Report Studio .rep layouts. The Report Studio Migration Tool handles Report Designer .rdl layouts only.

Is Crystal Reports supported in my IFS Cloud release?

IFS plans to remove the Crystal integration in 26R2, and in 25R2 availability depends on the service update level; support for an already released version follows that version's own lifecycle. IFS states this in the community thread through its deprecation log and through employee posts, and the table gives the source of each row.

The IFS employee who made the latest statement is Martin Olsson, listed in the thread as an IFS employee. His post of 27 May 2026 opens with:

The legacy Crystal Reports integration is still up for removal in 26R2.

In the same sentence the post adds, in a parenthesis, that this is what was communicated when the integration was temporarily reinstated from 25R2 SU3. The post also recommends transitioning now and says custom integration through the External Reports Gateway stays possible for customers who want to keep using Crystal after the removal. The statements above are IFS employee posts in a community thread, not release notes, so the wording in your own release documentation governs.

Earlier in the thread the status was less clear. The first post of January 2025 quoted a log entry planning removal of the integration entirely with 25R1, and the community account replaced that entry on 20 February 2025. The dates in the table are those of the revised log and the later employee posts. Related reading: Crystal Reports in IFS Cloud and Crystal Reports Integration in IFS Cloud.

Which Crystal-based features are affected?

The affected features are the report layouts authored in Crystal and the integration that renders them. Three groups matter for the inventory:

• Operational reports with a Crystal layout, such as purchase order, invoice or delivery documents that users print or send. The log's replacement guidance covers exactly these.
• Quick reports that carry a Crystal layout. Posts from January 2025 show customers relying on both quick and operational reports for purchase orders and invoices. The revised log counts Crystal Quick Reports as ad-hoc reporting and names Lobbies and Power BI as the options for them.
• The rendering integration: the Crystal component named CRYSTL in the core files, the report result sets that operational report RDFs write, and any print agent or server components in the landscape. The thread shows result sets being brought back for Crystal in 25R2 and their future under discussion for 26R2. No IFS source was found on print agent or server components per release.

What is IFS Report Studio and how does it differ?

IFS Report Studio is the layout designer that the deprecation log names as the tool of choice for operational report layouts in IFS Cloud, and it produces .rep layouts. The log names Lobbies and Power BI for ad-hoc reporting.

It is a different tool from Report Designer, which produces .rdl layouts. Customers and partners describe Report Studio limits in the thread: reports failing to load with custom fields enabled (February 2025), and tables that cannot be linked inside operational report data, which forces fields to be added to the underlying report data (replies dated November 2025 in a thread started in September 2024). These are customer and partner observations, not IFS documentation, so test them on your release.

How do I convert my Crystal reports?

There is no automatic route from a Crystal .rpt file to a Report Studio .rep layout. An IFS employee replied in July 2026 in this community thread that no standard tool does it because the two use different layout and data-handling designs. The Report Studio Migration Tool converts Report Designer .rdl layouts into .rep, and the same reply says manual adjustment and validation are typically needed.

A partner tool called CrystalClear from E-Analytics is mentioned in a reply dated November 2025 in the same community thread as the table-linking observation, where a user said it helps but leaves problems on 25R1. In May 2026 an IFS employee pointed to a third-party conversion tool for the migration. Budget for a rebuild and treat any conversion as a head start.

How do I inventory and triage existing Crystal reports?

Start by counting every report that renders through Crystal, because the number decides whether the project is a week or a quarter. Then work through four passes:

1. List. Export the report catalogue from your environment and add reports that sit in customer-specific layouts, scheduled jobs and e-mail or archive distributions.
2. Classify. Mark each as operational report, quick report with a Crystal layout, or customer-specific layout. Record the owner, the audience (internal or customer-facing) and the last time anyone ran it.
3. Measure use. Use run history where it exists. A report nobody has run in a year is a retire candidate, not a rebuild.
4. Decide. Rebuild when the report is customer-facing or legally required. Retire when unused or duplicated. Keep only until the removal planned for 26R2, with an end date on the calendar.

Rank the rebuild list by business risk: documents sent to customers and suppliers first, internal listings last. Before rebuilding a document, check whether your release ships a standard Report Studio layout for it; no source that lists them per release was found.

What rebuild patterns work in Report Studio?

• Flatten the data first. Multi-table Crystal invoices often join tables inside the report. Where Report Studio cannot link tables, bring the needed fields into the report data before drawing the layout.
• Replace sub-reports deliberately. Decide per sub-report whether it becomes a master-detail section or a separate document.
• Drop custom SQL in the layout. An IFS employee stated in February 2026 that custom SQL inside Crystal layouts bypasses data access control and is unsupported; the data belongs in the report data supplied by the RDF.
• Keep custom fields in view. Test every rebuilt layout with custom fields enabled, since customers report load failures there.
• Prove it with paired output. Print the same record from the old and new layout and compare totals, page breaks and barcodes before sign-off. 26R1 supports running both side by side.

Keep the rebuilds inside the supported layout tools and avoid database-side workarounds, in line with strategic IFS Cloud customization and the clean core. For the wider choices around tailoring, see the guide to IFS Cloud tailoring.

For the specification of each rebuilt layout, one document per report, the Configuration and Report Specification Template (IDK-12) covers quick and operational reports with test cases and an update-safety section, and the CRIM Log Template (IDK-10) keeps the register of reports, integrations and modifications in one place.

How does this fit into upgrade planning?

Treat the report migration as a workstream of the upgrade, not a side task. Add it to your upgrade readiness checklist, schedule it using the approach in strategies in ERP upgrade planning, and confirm business users are ready as described in prepared for an ERP upgrade. Rebuilt reports need user acceptance testing; the UAT test tracker template gives you a place to log each one, and the IFS Cloud ERP implementation guide covers the wider project frame. Check which permission sets give access to the rebuilt layouts, with permission sets and segregation of duties in mind.

Author: Dariusz Mysliwiec, independent IFS Cloud consultant with 18 years hands-on with IFS. IFS Certified Associate Consultant. PRINCE2® 7. Need an inventory of your Crystal reports and a rebuild plan? Book a 30-minute technical call.

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