Crystal Enterprise Framework

Crystal Enterprise provides a framework for information delivery across the enterprise. The information can be in any form and from any place on the intranet or Internet, which could potentially cause problems with compatibility since the different forms that information takes vary greatly from one installation to the next. The Crystal Enterprise Framework has an open architecture that supports any kind of information. It does so by treating each entity (representing some piece of information) exactly as it does every other entity. This entity is referred to as the InfoObject.

Each InfoObject is stored in the APS InfoStore. Once it has been retrieved from the APS, you can define its specific behavior through one of the Crystal Enterprise Plugins, which are customized COM DLLs. To access the properties and methods that will define a particular object, you must use the Plugin interface that is provided by each plugin.

The following diagram illustrates how the different Crystal Enterprise components communicate with each other within the Crystal Enterprise Framework:

For information on each of these components, see "Crystal Enterprise Architecture" in the Crystal Enterprise Administrator's Guide.

Next: InfoObject.