140 Crystal Reports migrated to Power BI in 20 weeks

Challenge

Ascension Health System relied on 140 operational reports built on SAP Crystal Reports, costing $1.1M per year in licenses. Complex reports took up to 4 hours to generate. The vendor announced the version they used was reaching end-of-life, forcing Ascension to choose between migrating to a modern BI platform or replacing the system entirely.

Approach

In week one, we reviewed all 140 reports, sorting them by complexity, usage, and importance. We moved them in four groups: starting with simple reports to set standards, then medium and high complexity, and finally the 12 mission-critical reports, which we validated alongside migration. Every report was rebuilt in Power BI Premium using optimized DAX and incremental refresh to improve performance.

Outcome

We migrated all 140 reports in 20 weeks, 10 weeks ahead of the original plan. Eliminating Crystal Reports cut licensing costs from $1.1M annually to zero. Report generation times fell from 4 hours to 8 minutes, and the migration finished on schedule without disrupting daily operations.

Before jumping into the migration, we cleaned up the catalogue first. It was a must.

In week one, we jumped right in and traced every report, where the data was coming from, what parameters were used, the calculated fields, and who was actually receiving the reports. Getting this sorted early saved us a bunch of headaches down the road, especially when we hit the tough reports around weeks 15 to 20.

How We Track Cohort Shifts to Catch Risks Before They Hit

We broke the report migration into four rounds, kicking off with the simple stuff before diving into the tricky parts. This approach helped us spot recurring issues early and handle surprises on the fly. Early on, we created some reusable DAX measures that ended up saving a bunch of time down the road. When it came to the 12 mission-critical reports, we wrapped them up in three weeks, less than half the eight weeks we originally expected.

How We Cut Report Load Times in Half Using Power BI Premium

Crystal Reports had become a real bottleneck, waiting four hours for reports was slowing the whole team down. And get this, it wasn’t even the data size slowing things down. It was the old, clunky architecture behind it. So, we made the call to switch everything over to Power BI Premium. Next, we set up incremental refresh and rewrote the DAX formulas to make things fly. The result? Report times dropped from hours to less than 10 minutes. The clinical finance team? No more overnight waiting. It was a meaningful shift.

Results

• $1.1M Annual licensing saved
• 4 hrs to 8 min Report generation time
• 140 Reports migrated
• 20 wks Delivered ahead of schedule