Business objects CRYSTAL REPORTS XI User Manual

Crystal Reports XI Release 2 User's Guide

Crystal Reports XI Release 2

Patents

Business Objects owns the following U.S. patents, which may cover products that are offered and sold by Business Objects: 5,555,403, 6,247,008 B1, 6,578,027 B2, 6,490,593 and 6,289,352.

Trademarks

Third-party contributors

Business Objects, the Business Objects logo, Crystal Reports, and Crystal Enterprise are trademarks or registered trademarks of Business Objects SA or its affiliated companies in the United States and other countries. All other names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Business Objects products in this release may contain redistributions of software licensed from third-party contributors. Some of these individual components may also be available under alternative licenses. A partial listing of third-party contributors that have requested or permitted acknowledgments, as well as required notices, can be found at:

http://www.businessobjects.com/thirdparty

Chapter 1 Introduction to Crystal Reports XI R2 23

About Crystal Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

About this guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Online help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Business Objects information resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Chapter 2 What’s New in Crystal Reports XI R2 27

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Crystal Reports XI R2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Crosstabs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Enterprise connectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Exporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Formatting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

General report functionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

HTML Preview tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Repository Explorer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Workbench . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Application development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Report Application Server (RAS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Java Reporting Component (JRC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Crystal Reports .NET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Future deprecation notices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

General description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Crystal Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Report Application Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

COM SDKs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

OLAP Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 3

Contents

Data Integrator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

BusinessObjects Enterprise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Chapter 3 Installing Crystal Reports XI R2 37

Installing Crystal Reports XI R2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Installation requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Installing Crystal Reports on a local machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Creating an installation point and installing from a network server . . . . . . . 40

Creating an installation point for Crystal Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Installing Crystal Reports from a network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Customizing your installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Running a silent installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Upgrading Crystal Reports components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Chapter 4 Quick Start 49

Learning how to use Crystal Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Sample data - Xtreme.mdb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Report Creation Wizards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Standard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Cross-Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Mailing Label . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

OLAP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Quick start for new users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Before you begin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Creating the report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Record Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64

Grouping and sorting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Completing the report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Quick start for advanced users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Chapter 5 Report Design Concepts 77

Basic report design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Deciding on the content of the report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Stating the purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

4 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Contents

Determining the layout of the report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Finding the data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Manipulating the data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Determining printing area characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Developing a prototype on paper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Chapter 6 Introduction to Reporting 85

Report creation options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Report Creation Wizards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Another report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

New report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Choosing data sources and database fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

The Database Expert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

The Field Explorer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

About the report design environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Design tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Preview tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

HTML Preview tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Creating a new report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Selecting the data source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Adding tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Linking multiple tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Placing data on the report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Formatting data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Record selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Grouping, sorting, and summarizing data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Using the drill-down option on summarized data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Using the zoom feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Inserting page headers and footers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Adding a title page to the report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Adding summary information to the report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Exploring reports and working with multiple reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

The Report Explorer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 5

Contents

The Workbench . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .115

The Dependency Checker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Opening and docking explorers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Beyond basic reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Chapter 7 BusinessObjects Enterprise Repository 121

What is the BusinessObjects Enterprise Repository? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

Work flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

Accessing the BusinessObjects Enterprise Repository . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Enterprise content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Adding subfolders and subcategories

to the repository . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

Adding items to the repository . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Adding a text object or bitmap image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .127

Adding a custom function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .128

Adding a command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Using repository objects in reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Adding a text object or a bitmap image to a report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

Adding a custom function to a report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

Adding a command to a report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

Adding a list of values to a parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Modifying objects in the repository . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Updating connected repository objects

in reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

Deleting items from the repository . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Using Undo in the repository . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Chapter 8 Designing Optimized Web Reports 135

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

Scale with BusinessObjects Enterprise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

Evaluation times for date functions in BusinessObjects Enterprise . . 138

Making the right design choices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Using faster report formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

6 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Contents

Choosing between live and saved data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

Designing summary reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Using subreports carefully . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

Using other design elements effectively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

Designing reports to maximize data sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

Streamlining your reporting environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Selecting the fastest database and connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Using table indexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Improving table-linking choices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Using thread-safe database drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

Using stored procedures for faster processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

Using enhanced record selection formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

Pushing down record selection—an example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Record selection performance tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Strategies for writing efficient record selection formulas . . . . . . . . . . 150

Incorporating parameter fields into record selection formulas . . . . . 152

Using SQL expressions where appropriate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

Improving grouping, sorting, and totaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

Performing grouping on server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

Benefits of grouping on server—an example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

Using SQL Expressions for groups, sorts, and totals . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Using SQL Expressions for Case Logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Inserting summary and running total fields where possible . . . . . . . . 158

Chapter 9 Record Selection 159

Selecting records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

Using the Select Expert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Using formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

Interaction of the Select Expert and the Formula Editor . . . . . . . . . . 163

Using formula templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

Record selection formula templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

Pushing down record selection to the database server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

Troubleshooting record selection formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 7

Contents

Correcting selections that do not generate data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Chapter 10 Sorting, Grouping, and Totaling 171

Sorting data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

Understanding sort options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

Sorting single and multiple fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Grouping data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Creating custom groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Sorting groups conditionally . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Sorting records within groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Group selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

Grouping data in intervals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Grouping by the first letter of a company name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Grouping data hierarchically . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Editing groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Summarizing grouped data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Ordering groups by summarized values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

Selecting top or bottom N groups or percentages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Selecting top or bottom groups or percentages conditionally . . . . . . . 197

Subtotaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

Subtotaling data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

Extending prices and subtotaling the extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

Percentages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Calculating a percentage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Group headers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

Creating group headers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

Suppressing group headers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Drilling-down on group headers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

Chapter 11 Running Totals 207

Understanding running totals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

How running totals work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .208

Creating running totals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

8 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Contents

Creating running totals in a list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Creating running totals for a group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

Creating conditional running totals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

Creating running totals in a one-to-many linking relationship . . . . . . 213

Creating running totals using a formula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Chapter 12 Multiple Section Reports 217

About sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

Working with sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

Inserting a section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

Deleting a section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

Moving a section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

Merging two related sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

Splitting and resizing sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Splitting a section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Resizing a section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Using multiple sections in reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

Keeping variable length objects from overwriting each other . . . . . . 223

Eliminating blank lines when fields are empty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

Adding blank lines conditionally . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

Form letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

Working with text objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

Creating a form letter using a text object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Printing conditional messages in form letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

Chapter 13 Formatting 235

Formatting concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236

Using a template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236

Applying a template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236

Removing an applied template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

Reapplying the last template selected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238

Using Template Field Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238

Using the Report Design Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 9

Contents

Design solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .239

Section characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

Making an object underlay a following section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Pre-printed forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

Multiple columns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Hiding report sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Hiding report objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244

Placing text-based objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

Placing multi-line, text-based objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248

Importing text-based objects from a file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Spacing between text-based objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Overflow Field Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .255

Selecting multiple objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

Vertical placement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

Inserting character and line spacing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

Setting fractional font sizes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

TrueType fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

Page margins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Default printer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Printer drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260

Formatting properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

Working with absolute formatting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

Adding borders, color, and shading to a field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .262

Making a report, section, area, or object read-only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

Locking an object’s size and position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Changing your default field formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Adding and editing lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

Adding and editing boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .266

Adding shapes to a report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Scaling, cropping, and sizing objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Using conventional accounting formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268

Repeating report objects on horizontal pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

Using white space between rows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .271

10 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Contents

Working with conditional formatting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

Conditional on or off properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

Conditional attribute properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274

Changing fonts conditionally . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

Changing X position conditionally . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276

Creating footers after the first page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

Using the Highlighting Expert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

Undo/Redo activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

Using the Format Painter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282

Chapter 14 Charting 283

Charting concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

Charting overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

Chart layouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

Chart types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

Where to place a chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288

Drill-down with charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288

Drill-down with legends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

Creating charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

Charting on details or formula fields (Advanced layout) . . . . . . . . . . 289

Charting on summary or subtotal fields (Group layout) . . . . . . . . . . 291

Charting on Cross-Tab summaries (Cross-Tab layout) . . . . . . . . . . 292

Charting on an OLAP cube (OLAP layout) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

Working with charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

Editing charts using the Chart Expert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

Editing charts using the Chart Options menu items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

Editing charts using other menu items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296

Using the zooming features with bar and line charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

Auto-arranging charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

Formatting charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

Using the underlay feature with charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 11

Contents

Chapter 15 Mapping 301

Mapping concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

Mapping overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

Map layouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .302

Map types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303

Where to place a map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

Drill-down with maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

Creating maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

Mapping on details fields (Advanced layout) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

Mapping on group fields (Group layout) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

Mapping on Cross-Tab summaries (Cross-Tab layout) . . . . . . . . . . . 310

Mapping on an OLAP cube (OLAP layout) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

Working with maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

Editing maps using the Map Expert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

Changing the map title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

Changing the map type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

Changing map layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314

Resolving data mismatches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

Changing the geographic map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316

Zooming in and out on a map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316

Panning a map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Centering a map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Hiding and showing the Map Navigator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Formatting Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

Using the underlay feature with maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .318

Chapter 16 OLE 319

OLE overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320

OLE terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320

Types of OLE objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .321

General OLE considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

Inserting OLE objects into reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322

How OLE objects are represented in a report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

12 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Contents

Editing OLE objects in reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

In-place editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

Dynamic OLE menu commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324

OLE and the Insert Picture command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324

Working with static OLE objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324

Working with embedded vs. linked objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327

Embedded objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327

Linked objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328

Chapter 17 Cross-Tab Objects 331

What is a Cross-Tab object? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332

Cross-Tab example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333

Report of order data—no sorting/grouping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333

Report of order data—grouped by region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334

Report of order data—grouped by product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335

Report of order data—grouped by region and product . . . . . . . . . . . 336

Order data in a Cross-Tab object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336

Creating a Cross-Tab report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337

Working with Cross-Tabs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344

Showing values as percentages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344

Abbreviating large summarized fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344

Customizing row/column labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346

Using running totals in Cross-Tabs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346

Printing Cross-Tabs that span multiple pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347

Formatting Cross-Tabs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348

Changing width, height, and alignment of Cross-Tab cells . . . . . . . . 348

Formatting background color of entire rows/columns . . . . . . . . . . . . 348

Formatting fields individually . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

Formatting several fields at one time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

Suppressing Cross-Tab data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

Displaying summarized fields horizontally . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 13

Contents

Chapter 18 Building Queries 353

Connecting to a universe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354

Defining the data selection for a query . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354

Quick reference to objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356

Editing an existing query . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357

Viewing the SQL behind a query . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357

Query filters and prompts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358

Creating query filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358

Building prompts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

Combining query filters and prompts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360

Using And or Or to combine query filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

Quick reference to query filter operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .361

Editing and removing query filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .363

Filtering data using subqueries and database ranking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363

What is a subquery? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363

Building a subquery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364

What is a database ranking? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366

Creating a database ranking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366

Chapter 19 Creating and Updating OLAP Reports 369

OLAP reporting with Crystal Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370

OLAP grid objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370

Creating an OLAP report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

Specifying the data source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .371

Defining the structure of the grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372

Setting sliced dimensions and specifying the number of grids . . . . . . 373

Applying a predefined style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374

Inserting a chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375

Updating an OLAP report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376

Formatting data in an OLAP grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .377

Changing the background color of a dimension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .378

Creating an alias for a dimension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

Formatting grid lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

14 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Contents

Labelling dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

Changing the view of OLAP data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380

Sorting and filtering OLAP grid data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382

Sorting data in an OLAP grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382

Filtering data in an OLAP grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384

Adding calculations to OLAP grids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384

Chapter 20 Printing, Exporting, and Viewing Reports 385

Distributing reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386

Printing a report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386

Faxing a report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386

Exporting a report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

Working with Web folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396

Working with Enterprise folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397

Viewing reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399

What are Report Parts? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399

What is navigation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

The Report Part Drilldown option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402

The Another Report Object option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405

Hyperlinks displayed in the viewers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410

Using smart tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411

Chapter 21 Report Alerts 413

About Report Alerts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414

Working with Report Alerts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414

Creating Report Alerts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414

Editing Report Alerts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416

Deleting Report Alerts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417

Viewing Report Alerts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417

Referring to Report Alerts in formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418

Chapter 22 Using Formulas 419

Formulas overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420

Typical uses for formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 15

Contents

Formula components and syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421

Formula components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421

Formula syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422

User Function Libraries in formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

Specifying formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

Working with the Formula Workshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425

Working with the Formula Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426

Creating and modifying formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428

Creating a formula and inserting it into a report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428

Creating a formula in the Formula Expert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428

Editing formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430

Searching for formula text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430

Copying formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431

Deleting formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

Removing the working formula from your report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

Deleting the formula specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434

Debugging formulas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434

Debugging evaluation time errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434

Debugging tutorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435

Chapter 23 Parameter Fields and Prompts 441

Parameter and prompt overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442

Parameter field considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442

Prompt considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443

Understanding dynamic prompts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444

Understanding lists of values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446

List-of-values types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447

Determining which list-of-values type to use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449

Lists of values and prompt groups contrasted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450

Creating a parameter with a static prompt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450

Creating a parameter with a dynamic prompt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453

Creating a parameter with a cascading

list of values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455

16 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Contents

Working with lists of values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457

Sharing common lists of values within a report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457

Using separate value and description fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459

Using command objects as list-of-values data sources . . . . . . . . . . . 460

Null handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460

Best practices for prompting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460

Unmanaged reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460

Managed reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461

Converting unmanaged reports to managed reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462

Deploying managed reports with dynamic prompts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462

Deleting parameter fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463

Responding to parameter field prompts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464

Previewing a report for the first time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464

Refreshing report data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464

Advanced parameter features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466

Creating a parameter with multiple prompting values . . . . . . . . . . . . 466

Applying conditional formatting using parameter fields . . . . . . . . . . . 467

Creating a report title using parameter fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468

Specifying single or ranges of values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468

Incorporating a parameter into a formula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469

Defining sort order using parameter fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470

Defining entry type and format using the Edit Mask . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471

Chapter 24 Subreports 473

What are subreports? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474

Unlinked vs. linked subreports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474

How subreport linking works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475

Database links vs. subreports in one-to-many situations . . . . . . . . . . 476

Inserting subreports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477

Previewing subreports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478

Saving a subreport as a primary report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478

Updating subreports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479

Linking a subreport to the data in the primary report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 17

Contents

Linking a subreport to the main report without modifying the selection

formula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481

Combining unrelated reports by using subreports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482

Combining two or more unrelated reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .482

Using subreports with unlinkable data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483

Linking to/from a formula field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483

Linking unindexed tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484

Creating an on-demand subreport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485

Adding captions to on-demand subreports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485

Showing different views of the same data in a report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486

Chapter 25 Understanding Databases 487

Databases overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488

Relational database basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488

Aliases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489

Locating files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490

Indexed tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .491

Linking tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493

Link from and link to . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494

Link relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494

Performance considerations in one-to-many links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495

Data file considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .497

SQL database considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499

Performance considerations for all reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500

The Database Expert Links tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .502

Linking indexed tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502

Link processing order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .503

Linking options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504

Using SQL and SQL databases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 514

What is SQL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 514

SQL DBMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517

How does Crystal Reports use SQL? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 518

The SQL language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 519

18 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Contents

Server-side processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521

How server-side grouping affects the SQL query . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523

Mapping database fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524

About the Map Fields dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524

Remapping processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525

Remapping altered database fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 526

Saved Data Indexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527

How Report Indexing works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 528

Considerations for using Saved Data Indexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 528

Indexing the right field(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529

Unicode support in Crystal Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 530

For additional information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 530

Chapter 26 Accessing Data Sources 531

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532

Six types of data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532

Direct access database files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533

Advantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533

Disadvantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533

Three layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534

Common database formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535

ODBC data sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 543

Advantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 544

Disadvantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545

Five layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545

Installing database clients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 548

Common ODBC database formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549

JDBC data sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552

JNDI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552

Five layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552

Supported JDBC database formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 553

Configuring the Crystal Reports JDBC driver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 554

Business Objects universes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 554

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 19

Contents

Business Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555

Crystal SQL Designer files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 556

Crystal Dictionary files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 557

Appendix A Report Processing Model 559

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560

What is a “pass”? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560

Pre-pass 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .560

Pass 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560

Pre-pass 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .561

Pass 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561

Pass 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 562

Multi-pass reporting flow chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 562

Appendix B Crystal Reports Error Messages 563

Drive:\filename.extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564

Drive:\test.rpt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564

Failed to load database connector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564

Failed to open the connection. Details:

[Database Vendor Code: <vendor code number>] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565

Failed to retrieve data from the database. Details:

[Database Vendor Code: <vendor code number>] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566

Appendix C Creating Accessible Reports 567

About accessibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .568

Benefits of accessible reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568

About the accessibility guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569

Accessibility and Business Objects products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570

Improving report accessibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571

Placing objects in reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571

Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573

Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 576

Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 578

Parameter fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 579

20 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Contents

Designing for flexibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 579

Accessibility and conditional formatting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 580

Accessibility and suppressing sections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 581

Accessibility and subreports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 582

Improving data table accessibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583

Text objects and data table values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583

Other data table design considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587

Accessibility and BusinessObjects Enterprise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588

Setting accessible preferences for BusinessObjects Enterprise . . . . 589

Accessibility and customization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589

Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 591

Appendix D Business Objects Information Resources 593

Documentation and information services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 594

Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 594

What’s in the documentation set? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 594

Where is the documentation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 594

Send us your feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595

Customer support, consulting and training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595

How can we support you? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595

Looking for the best deployment solution for your company? . . . . . . 596

Looking for training options? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 596

Useful addresses at a glance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 596

Index 597

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 21

Contents

22 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Introduction to Crystal Reports XI R2

chapter

Introduction to Crystal Reports XI R2

About Crystal Reports

Crystal Reports is designed to work with your database to help you analyze and interpret important information. Crystal Reports makes it easy to create simple reports, and, it also has the comprehensive tools you need to produce complex or specialized reports.

Create any report you can imagine

Crystal Reports is designed to produce the report you want from virtually any data source. Built-in report experts guide you step by step through building reports and completing common reporting tasks. Formulas, cross-tabs, subreports, and conditional formatting help make sense of data and uncover important relationships that might otherwise be hidden. Geographic maps and graphs communicate information visually when words and numbers are simply not enough.

Extend reporting to the Web

The flexibility of Crystal Reports doesn’t end with creating reports — your reports can be published in a variety of formats including Microsoft Word and Excel, E-mail and even over the Web. Advanced Web reporting lets other members of your workgroup view and update shared reports inside their web browser.

Incorporate reports into applications

Application and web developers can save time and meet their users needs by integrating the report processing power of Crystal Reports into their database applications. Support for most popular development languages makes it easy to add reporting to any application.

Whether it’s the web master in IT, the promotion manager in marketing, the database administrator in finance or the CEO, Crystal Reports is a powerful tool designed to help everyone analyze and interpret the information that’s important to them.

24 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

About this guide

This guide includes procedures for typical reporting tasks such as placing fields, formatting reports, and sorting records. It also contains information on more specific areas of interest such as advanced formula creation and accessing different types of data. Use this guide as a reference for your basic reporting needs as well as an introduction to new concepts in report creation.

Online help

Crystal Reports online help includes all topics within the user’s guide. It also provides additional reference material ranging from specific information on

the function of a button to general information on how to create a report formula based on a sample business scenario.

Locate information quickly

Access online help from the Crystal Reports help menu.

Use the Contents tab to view all major sections in the online help and drill down to specific headings within each section, the Index tab to view topics in alphabetical order, and the Search tab to enter a keyword to view all the sections that relate to the keyword.

Introduction to Crystal Reports XI R2

About this guide

Sample Reports

Many topics in the Crystal Reports online help include a list of related sample reports. Use these reports to illustrate concepts the topic describes. The sample reports can be adapted to your own needs.

Sample reports are located in the Crystal Reports directory under

\Samples\En\Reports.

Business Objects information resources

For more information and assistance, see Appendix D: Business Objects

Information Resources. This appendix describes the Business Objects

documentation, customer support, training, and consulting services, with links to online resources.

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 25

Introduction to Crystal Reports XI R2

About this guide

26 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

What’s New in Crystal Reports XI R2

chapter

What’s New in Crystal Reports XI R2

Introduction

This section provides a high-level overview of the components, features, and benefits that are provided by the latest release of Crystal Reports:

• “Crystal Reports XI R2” on page 28.

• “Application development” on page 32.

• “Future deprecation notices” on page 33.

You can find new features and enhancements within all of the major areas.

Crystal Reports XI R2

Crosstabs

Drag and drop crosstab enhancement

Dragging fields from a crosstab now discards the field when you drop it in an area that cannot accept the field (the field is inserted when you drop it in an appropriate area).

You can also drag supported fields from the designer into a crosstab.

Note: Dragging a crosstab summary field is not supported.

Enterprise connectivity

After you log in to BusinessObjects Enterprise and navigate through the folders to the desired location, the program retains the folder that you last visited. After closing the Enterprise Open or Save As dialog boxes, the last visited folder is displayed when you reopen them.

Exporting

PDF

A new option, called “Create bookmarks from group tree,” uses the group tree from the source Crystal report to create bookmarks in the exported PDF output, making the PDF export easier to navigate.

Excel - Data Only

A new option, “Show group outlines,” includes grouping information from the source Crystal report for use with Excel outline symbols information in the exported Excel spreadsheet, making the Excel export easier to navigate.

28 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Formatting

What’s New in Crystal Reports XI R2

Crystal Reports XI R2

Separated Values (CSV)

• Several important changes have been made to this feature:

• There are new options to control how report/page/group sections

appear in the CSV export.

• The feature now respects conditional suppression in your report.

• The output is now in UTF-8 format.

• An option, called “Legacy Mode,” has been provided to ease the

migration of existing reports. All customers are encouraged to move to “Standard Mode” as soon as possible.

For more information, go to http://support.crystaldecisions.com and search for

Custom colors

You can now save custom colors in Crystal Reports. Custom colors are automatically stored when you exit the program.

Format Painter and Status bar

Formatting multiple objects with the Format Painter has been enhanced to be more intuitive. The status bar at the bottom of the designer is now used to display a message that tells you the requirements needed to accomplish the task.

You can format multiple objects by double-clicking the Format Painter button, or by holding down the ALT key while painting objects. When you double-click the buttons for lines, boxes, and text objects, you can create multiple items.

boe_xi2_csv_export.pdf.

Formulas

Add summaries for all group levels

Use this option to add summaries to all levels of a group at once.

Autocomplete in the Formula Editor

In the Formula Editor, the auto-completion list appears when you type an open brace “{“ to signify a field. The auto-completion list contains the fields available in the report. This feature works for other report objects, such as parameter fields, formula fields, and SQL Expressions.

Tip: A related feature that is available in the Formula Editor is the ability to

use Ctrl+Space to see a list of the available functions.

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 29

What’s New in Crystal Reports XI R2

Crystal Reports XI R2

Double-clicking formulas, Running Totals, SQL Expressions, or parameter fields in the Field Explorer

Double-clicking a formula in the Field Explorer opens that formula in the Formula Editor.

• Double-clicking a Running Total opens the Running Total Field dialog box.

• Double-clicking a parameter field opens the Parameter dialog box.

• Double-clicking a SQL Expression opens the SQL Expression Editor.

Duplicate formulas, parameters, and Running Totals

An option called Duplicate is available when you right-click a formula, an SQL Expression, or a Running Total field in the Field Explorer For formulas, you can also see this option in the Formula Editor.

“Find in Formulas” and “Find in Field Explorer”

• You can now search for fields in formulas and in the Field Explorer.

To use the “Find in Formula” option, right-click any type of field in the Field Explorer, Report Explorer, or Design area of Crystal Reports and select “Find in Formula.” The Formula Workshop displays all relevant references for this field in any formula.

• To use the “Find in Field Explorer” option on a report field, right-click any

type of field in your report’s Design area and select “Find in Field Explorer.” The program highlights the selected field in the Field Explorer.

In general, the Find functionality for formulas in the Formula Workshop has been greatly enhanced to support searching across all formulas.

Formula field remains highlighted after exiting the Formula Editor

After you edit a formula and close the Formula Editor, the selected formula remains highlighted in the Field Explorer.

General report functionality

Conditional width

You can now use a formula to specify a conditional width (y position) for a report object. This functionality is similar to the current option to conditionally adjust the x position of the report object.

Find dialog box

The Find dialog box has been modified to allow it to remain in the foreground while you work on your report.

30 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Online help

The online help dialog box has been modified to allow it to remain in the background while you work on your report.

Sort field lists in the Field Explorer

By right-clicking a table under Database Fields, you now have the option to sort the database fields alphabetically. You can also right-click “Database Fields” in the Field Explorer to sort the tables alphabetically.

Swap fields

By holding down the Shift key and dragging fields from the Field Explorer, you can now replace other fields in your document (that is, swap one for another). The size, placement, and formatting of the old object is kept, and the new object replaces it.

HTML Preview tab

The search capability of the HTML Preview tab has been enhanced. The program now returns all occurrences of the search criteria it encounters on a page—not just the first occurrence on a page. Also, when the search reaches the last page of the report, it will continue searching from the first page of the report.

Note: This enhanced search capability is also available in the DHTML viewer.

What’s New in Crystal Reports XI R2

Crystal Reports XI R2

Repository Explorer

Delete/Move Enterprise objects

In the Repository Explorer, you can now move reports and folders under the Enterprise Items folder.

Application development

Workbench

Add Current Report

A new feature in the Workbench is “Add current report.” This feature lets you add the currently open report to the Workbench.

Application development

Report Application Server (RAS)

The Report Application Server contains several new features. For more information on these features, see the Crystal Reports Developer’s Help.

• New ModifyUserPaperSize API.

• New ReplaceConnection API.

• Export format enums match new Crystal Reports options.

• Saved-report export options have been added.

• Support for sessionless RAS has been added.

Java Reporting Component (JRC)

The Java Reporting Component contains many new features. For more information on these features, see the Java Reporting Component API Reference.

• The JRC now supports dynamic locations for graphics.

• The JRC now supports exporting to editable RTF and CSV formats.

• The JRC now supports XML data sets as a run-time data source.

• The JRC now includes APIs for new server-side functionality:

• Saving reports to the file system (using ReportClientDocument).

• Printing and exporting (using the print output controller).

• Setting parameters (using the parameter field controller).

• Setting database logon (using the database controller).

• The JRC now has updated Locale support with setLocale.

• The JRC now provides a sample that demonstrates how to use Plain Old

Java Objects (POJO) as a data source for reports.

32 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Crystal Reports .NET

Crystal Reports .NET contains many new features. For more information on these features, see the Crystal Reports .NET Online Help.

• Crystal Reports fully supports the new ClickOnce deployment of

Windows applications introduced in Visual Studio 2005.

• Code snippets for Crystal Reports are available when building Web Sites

or Windows projects using Visual Basic.

• Several improvements have been made to the CrystalReportViewer control.

• Accessibility has been improved in Crystal Reports .NET.

• Crystal Reports .NET supports international characters through Unicode

and GB18030-2000, the Chinese character encoding standard.

• In Crystal Reports .NET, the Preview tab has been added to the

embedded Crystal Reports Designer to enable you to preview reports at design time.

• Project templates can be selected when creating a new web site or

Windows project.

Future deprecation notices

What’s New in Crystal Reports XI R2

Future deprecation notices

General description

As technologies change, the use of these technologies at Business Objects also changes. Most of the time this evolution is managed transparently without impact to you. Occasionally, support for certain technologies or features must be modified in such a way that you are affected. If a feature becomes unsupported, advance notice will be provided. The goal at Business Objects is to provide notice at least two releases before that feature becomes unsupported.

Occasionally technology changes so quickly that such notice cannot be provided. In these instances, the case will be noted as an exception to our policy and notice of one release will be provided.

Sample reports and sample application code can be deprecated, unsupported, and removed from the product with no notice.

The time between announcing deprecation of a feature, and the end of support for a feature is known as the deprecation period. During the deprecation period, deprecated features are fully supported within the product, and technical support is available for these features for as long as that version of the suite is supported.

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 33

What’s New in Crystal Reports XI R2

Future deprecation notices

Due to rapid changes in third-party platforms, modifications to the supported platforms list will occur shortly before each released version of the product. These changes are not subject to the release-notice policy because Business Objects does not control them.

Note: Deprecation announcements within this document are subject to

change based on customer feedback and other factors.

Crystal Reports

• COM DHTML Page Viewer, COM DHTML Advanced Viewer, COM

DHTML Parts Viewer, COM DHTML Grid Viewer, Java Grid Viewer, and Java Advanced Viewer.

The Page and Parts viewers have equivalent replacements in .NET in XI currently, and the Advanced Viewer and Grid Viewer features will be considered for addition to the .NET Webform viewer in the Future Release. The ActiveX viewer is not being deprecated.

• RDC (Report Design Component).

This deprecation includes both the RDC SDK and the embedded Visual Basic designer.

• The .NET, Java, and COM Mobile Parts Viewers.

Trends in mobile technology indicate that more mobile devices are able to consume plain HTML, making mobile specific viewers unnecessary. In BusinessObjects XI Release 2, support will be added for the Blackberry Enterprise Server as a supported consumer of PDF files generated by Crystal Reports.

Report Application Server

• RAS COM SDK.

• Connection Directory Manager.

The capability provided by this feature will be replaced with repositorybased connection objects.

COM SDKs

This document announces the deprecation of most public COM (Component Object Model) SDKs in Crystal Reports and BusinessObjects Enterprise.

34 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

What’s New in Crystal Reports XI R2

Future deprecation notices

COM is a Microsoft technology and Business Objects will follow the trends setby Microsoft for support of this technology. At the time of writing, Microsoft has announced that COM-based development tools, such as Visual Basic 6 and Visual C++ 6, will become unsupported over the next few years. Visual Basic 6 will be unsupported in March 2008 and Visual C++ 6 will be unsupported in September 2005.

COM SDKs from Business Objects will be supported in BusinessObjects XI Release 2 for a period of 3-5 years after the release of that version. This means that a supported COM SDK solution will be available until support for BusinessObjects XI Release 2 is retracted in the 2008-2010 time frame.

The migration path for these technologies is described below.

XI COM Based Technology Replacement Technology available in

BusinessObjects XI

BusinessObjects Enterprise CSP pages BusinessObjects Enterprise ASP pages

BusinessObjects Enterprise COM SDK BusinessObjects Enterprise Java SDK

Viewrpt.cwr for URL reporting Viewrpt (Java servlet)

Crystal Reports Report Application Server (RAS) COM SDK

Crystal Reports Report Design Component (RDC)

Crystal Reports COM DHTML Viewer Crystal Reports Java DHTML Viewer

JSP ASPX

BusinessObjects Enterprise.NET SDK BusinessObjects Enterprise Server Controls BusinessObjects web services JSF Control

Viewrpt.aspx Opendocument (Java servlet) Opendocument.aspx

Crystal Reports Java SDK Crystal Reports .NET SDK RAS Java SDK RAS .NET SDK

Crystal Reports Java SDK Crystal Reports.NET SDK

Crystal Reports.NET DHTML Viewer

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 35

What’s New in Crystal Reports XI R2

Future deprecation notices

OLAP Intelligence

• Saved views.

This feature will be replaced with Save As functionality.

• Reporting experts.

• Pivot control within the Dimension Explorer.

• Hyperion Essbase Legacy driver.

This driver will be replaced with a new, enhanced driver.

• IBM DB2 OLAP Legacy driver.

This driver will be replaced with a new, enhanced driver.

Data Integrator

• MQ Series Technology Interface.

This functionality will be replaced by the JMS Technology Interface.

BusinessObjects Enterprise

• Crystal Server Pages (CSP) and Web Component Adapter (WCA).

With BusinessObjects XI, JAVA and .NET are the primary application server technologies supported.

• Enterprise COM SDK.

• Processing extensions on both the Windows and UNIX platforms.

In the Future Release Business Objects plans to introduce a public semantic layer SDK that will support current processing extension use cases.

• SOCKS proxy servers.

If you are using SOCKS proxy servers now, it is recommended that you switch to a different firewall method. See the BusinessObjects Enterprise Administrator’s Guide for more information on firewall support.

36 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Installing Crystal Reports XI R2

chapter

Installing Crystal Reports XI R2

The Crystal Reports Installation Wizard works with Microsoft Windows Installer to guide you through the installation process. The Installation Wizard automatically recognizes your computer’s operating system and updates files as required.

This chapter provides step-by-step instructions for installing Crystal Reports and shows how to customize your installation. The main topics are:

• “Installation requirements” on page 38

• “Installing Crystal Reports on a local machine” on page 39

• “Creating an installation point and installing from a network server” on

page 40

• “Customizing your installation” on page 42

• “Running a silent installation” on page 44

• “Upgrading Crystal Reports components” on page 48

As one of the final steps in the installation process, you’ll be asked if you want to register the product. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete this process.

Installation requirements

Minimum installation requirements

Operating Systems Windows 2000

Windows XP Professional Windows 2003 Server

Computer/Processor 450 MHz or higher Pentium-compatible CPU

Memory At least 128 megabytes (MB) of RAM. 256 MB

recommended. 4 gigabytes (GB) maximum

Disk space 1.0 gigabyte minimum. 1.5 gigabytes

recommended

Drive CD-ROM or DVD drive

Note:

• The .NET components require the .NET 1.0 or .NET 1.1 runtime.

• The Java components require a J2EE 1.3.x or J2EE 1.4.x compatible

runtime.

38 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Installing Crystal Reports XI R2

Installing Crystal Reports on a local machine

If you are installing Crystal Reports on a computer running any of the supported operating systems (see Minimum installation requirements above), you must have Administrator privileges. The installation process creates registry entries and may update some system files that require Administrator rights.

Close all currently running programs and stop as many services as possible when installing Crystal Reports.

If you want to limit the features you install, see “Customizing your installation”

on page 42.

To install on a local machine



1. Unless Autoplay is enabled for your CD-ROM drive, run Setup.exe from

win32_x86 directory of your product distribution.

the

Note: Depending on the configuration of your current system, you may

receive a dialog box informing you to update existing files. If this happens, click Yes and restart your machine. The Installation Wizard updates the required files.

2. Choose the language in which you want to install Crystal Reports.

3. Read and accept the License Agreement to proceed with the installation.

4. In the User Information dialog box, type your name, organization, and the

product activation keycode.

5. Click Next.

The Select Installation Type dialog box appears.

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 39

Installing Crystal Reports XI R2

Creating an installation point and installing from a network server

6. Choose the type of installation that you want to perform:

• Typical installs the most common application features.

• Custom enables you to choose the features that you want installed,

to specify where they will be installed, and to check the disk space required by each feature. For details, see “Customizing your

installation” on page 42.

7. Click Browse if you want to install Crystal Reports to a directory different

from the default location.

The default location for Crystal Reports is

Files\Business Objects\

8. Click Next.

The Start Installation dialog box appears.

Note: If you install Crystal Reports on a machine with an Internet

connection, you can choose to disable the automatic Web Update Service feature. This features lets you check for updates and service packs each time you open Crystal Reports; if you disable it, you cannot activate it later.

9. Click Next to begin copying files to your local drive.

C:\Program

Creating an installation point and installing from a network server

Installing Crystal Reports from a central network location involves two steps:

1. Make a copy of your Crystal Reports product distribution on a server

machine on the network (this copy becomes your installation point). See

“Creating an installation point for Crystal Reports” on page 40.

2. Access the server machine from a workstation, and run Setup.exe to

install Crystal Reports on the workstation. See “Installing Crystal Reports

from a network” on page 41.

Creating an installation point for Crystal Reports

This procedure must be performed by a network administrator who has write access and network privileges. When this procedure is complete, end users will be able to access Setup.exe from the network to install Crystal Reports onto their local machines.

40 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Creating an installation point and installing from a network server

Note: If users do not have the Microsoft Windows Installer configured on

their machines, the setup process detects the workstation’s operating system and installs the appropriate Microsoft Windows Installer package.

To create an installation point



1. Create a folder on your network, and share this folder for the users who

need to run the Setup.exe.

2. Copy the entire contents of your Crystal Reports product distribution to

the folder that you created in step 1.

3. Assign rights to the users who need to install Crystal Reports from this

folder.

Note: Restricting access to this folder lets you stay within your license limit.

Installing Crystal Reports from a network

If your network administrator has copied Crystal Reports to the network, make sure you have read privileges to that network before beginning this process.

If you are installing Crystal Reports on a computer running any of the supported operating systems (see “Minimum installation requirements” on

page 38), you must have Administrator privileges on the computer. The

installation process creates registry entries and may update some system files that require Administrator rights.

Close all currently running programs and stop as many services as possible when installing Crystal Reports.

Installing Crystal Reports XI R2

To install Crystal Reports from a network



1. Access the folder on the network that contains the Crystal Reports

installation files.

2. Double-click Setup.exe.

Note: Depending on the configuration of your current system, you may

receive a dialog box informing you to update existing files. Click Yes and restart your machine. The Installation Wizard updates the required files.

3. Choose the language in which you want to install Crystal Reports.

4. Read and accept the License Agreement to proceed with the installation.

5. In the User Information dialog box, type your name, organization, and the

product activation keycode.

Tip: You may need to contact your Administrator for the product

activation keycode.

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 41

Installing Crystal Reports XI R2

Customizing your installation

6. Click Next.

7. Choose the type of installation that you want to perform:

8. Click Browse if you want to install Crystal Reports to a directory different

9. Click Next.

10. Click Next to begin copying files to your local drive.

The Select Installation Type dialog box appears.

• Typical installs the most common application features.

• Custom enables you to choose the features that you want installed,

to specify where they will be installed, and to check the disk space required by each feature. For details, see “Customizing your

installation” on page 42.

from the default location.

The default location for Crystal Reports is

Files\Business Objects\

The Start Install dialog box appears.

Note: If you install Crystal Reports on a machine with an Internet

C:\Program

Customizing your installation

Selecting the Custom installation option invokes the Select Features dialog box, which allows you to install specific features, to change the default location of various features, and to check the amount of disk space required by each feature.

42 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Installing Crystal Reports XI R2

Customizing your installation

The icons in the feature tree indicate whether the feature and its subfeatures will be installed or not:

• A white icon means that the feature and all its subfeatures will be

installed.

• A shaded icon means that the feature and some of its subfeatures will be

installed.

• A yellow 1 means that the feature will be installed when required

(installed on demand).

• A red X means that the feature or subfeature is either unavailable or will

not be installed.

Crystal Reports uses an “install on-demand” technology for some of its features. As a result, the very first time a particular feature is used after being installed, there may be an extra wait for the “install on-demand” to complete. This behavior will affect new installations only once and will not occur when features are restarted.

To select the configuration and location of a feature or subfeature, click its icon.

Note: Each feature or subfeature can have its own configuration and location.

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 43

Installing Crystal Reports XI R2

Running a silent installation

Use the following table to determine your installation options for each feature or subfeature:

Type of feature installation

Will be installed on local hard drive

Entire feature will be installed on local hard drive

Feature will be installed when required

Entire feature will be unavailable

Note: Subfeatures are listed below each feature. A subfeature can have a

different type of installation than its parent feature.

Description of what is installed

• Installs the feature on the local hard drive.

• Uses the Typical install settings to install

some of the feature’s subfeatures to the local hard drive.

• Installs the feature and all of its

subfeatures on the local hard drive.

• Installs the feature or subfeature from the

product distribution/network when first used.

• Neither the feature nor its subfeatures are

installed.

Running a silent installation

A silent installation is one that you run from the command line to automatically install Crystal Reports on any machine in your system, without the installation program prompting for information during the installation. The command you run must include a series of parameters that provide information for installation settings and directory paths.

The silent Crystal Reports installation is particularly useful when you need to perform multiple installations and do not want to interrupt people who are working on machines in your system. You can also use the silent installation command in your own scripts. For example, if your organization uses scripts to install software on machines, you can add the silent Crystal Reports installation command to your scripts.

44 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Installing Crystal Reports XI R2

Running a silent installation

Note:

• The silent installation is not available from the Crystal Reports Setup

program and is intended only for experienced administrators of Crystal Reports.

• When you perform a silent installation, you accept the Crystal Reports

end-user license agreement by default. You can find a copy of the license agreement in the

Docs folder of your product distribution.

• Silent installations are intended for new installations; do not use them for

upgrades.

The silent installation command consists of the command followed by a number of parameters that provide information about the installation. The following example installs Crystal Reports:

setup.exe ADDLOCAL=ALL CLIENTLANGUAGE=<

REBOOT=ReallySuppress PIDKEY=< INSTALLDIR="C:\Program Files\Business Objects\Crystal Reports 11.5" /qn

Note:

•

<%langcode%>

the following table.

•

<%keycode%>

keycode.

The example uses the most common parameters. You can choose any number of valid parameters, but it is good practice to keep the silent installation as simple as possible.

The following table lists the most common parameters used in a silent installation. To use a parameter, place it on the command line after the

setup.exe command.

Note: Parameters that are not listed in this table may be available, but they

have not been tested. Untested parameters are not supported.

Replace this variable with a valid language code from

Replace this variable with a valid product activation

%keycode%

%langcode%

setup.exe,

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 45

Installing Crystal Reports XI R2

Running a silent installation

Installation parameter Description

CLIENTLANGUAGE=

Use this to specify the language version code for the install.

• For English, enter EN.

• For French, enter FR.

• For German, enter DE.

• For Spanish, enter ES.

• For Japanese enter JP.

• For Simplified Chinese, enter CHS

• For Traditional Chinese, enter CHT.

• For Korean, enter KO.

• For Dutch, enter NL.

Note: If you don’t enter this parameter, the

regular language-selection screen appears at the beginning of your install, even if you specified the parameters for a no-prompt installation.

INSTALLDIR="filepath" Specifies the machine and directory where

you want to install Crystal Reports. Replace filepath with the full path for the installation directory. For example, "C:\Program Files\Business Objects\Crystal Reports 11.5".

PIDKEY=00000-00000000000000-0000

REBOOT=ReallySuppress Prevents Crystal Reports from prompting the

/qn+ Performs the installation silently, but prompts

/qn Performs the installation silently, without

Specifies your product activation keycode.

user to reboot the machine.

the user when the installation is complete.

prompting the user.

46 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Installing Crystal Reports XI R2

Running a silent installation

Installation parameter Description

ADDLOCAL Specifies a list of features, delimited by

commas, that you want to install. For example, ADDLOCAL=ALL

Note: When using any of the EXCLUDE

parameters in this table, you must also use ADDLOCAL.

For example, ADDLOCAL=ALL EXCLUDERDCFILES=1

EXCLUDEDOTNETFILES Specifies whether the .NET developer

components should be installed. For example, EXCLUDEDOTNETFILES=1 The default value is 0, which indicates that

the .NET developer components should be installed. The value 1 indicates these components should not be installed.

EXCLUDEJAVAFILES Specifies whether the Java developer

components should be installed. For example, EXCLUDEJAVAFILES=1 The default value is 0, which indicates that

the Java developer components should be installed. The value 1 indicates these components should not be installed.

EXCLUDERDCFILES Specifies whether the RDC developer

components should be installed. For example, EXCLUDERDCFILES=1 The default value is 0, which indicates that

the RDC developer components should be installed. The value 1 indicates these components should not be installed.

Note: You can use the silent installation to add only features that you have

purchased licences for (controlled by your license key). If you add a feature that you do not have a license for, that feature is ignored by the silent installer.

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 47

Installing Crystal Reports XI R2

Upgrading Crystal Reports components

If you have purchased an upgrade product activation keycode, you will find that the installation program does not remove your previous version of Crystal Reports. In general, upgrading Crystal Reports components provides you with a side-by-side installation (that is, an installation in which you can run either your old or new version of Crystal Reports).

Note: Crystal Reports XI R2 side-by-side installation is supported when

upgrading from Crystal Reports XI, Crystal Reports 10, Crystal Reports 9, or Crystal Reports 8.5.

This side-by-side behavior applies to Crystal Reports and the various Software Development Kits (SDKs). Crystal Reports XI R2 for Visual Studio .NET can be used in side-by-side mode at runtime (that is, applications written using Crystal Reports 10 for Visual Studio .NET will continue to run with Crystal Reports 10 for Visual Studio .NET assemblies). However, Visual Studio integration is not side by side; only one version of Crystal Reports can be integrated into the Visual Studio .NET IDE at any given time. The same thing applies to the Report Designer Component (RDC): the RDC can be used in side-by-side mode at runtime, but IDE integration is not side by side.

Note: For further information that may pertain to your reporting environment,

consult the Release Notes included with your product distribution

release_en.pdf).

(

48 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Quick Start

chapter

Quick Start

Learning how to use Crystal Reports

You can teach yourself how to use Crystal Reports by choosing from the methods available in this chapter:

• You can study the sample reports and sample database included with

Crystal Reports.

• You can use the detailed descriptions and instructions in the “Quick start

for new users” on page 52.

• You can use the summaries and topic cross-references in the “Quick

start for advanced users” on page 72—especially useful if you’re already

familiar with reporting concepts.

Each method is a helpful way to learn and understand Crystal Reports and, although any one might be enough to get you up and running, you can always come back to this chapter and consult the other methods as you need them.

Sample data - Xtreme.mdb

Crystal Reports comes with Xtreme.mdb, a sample database you can use when learning the program. Xtreme.mdb is a Microsoft Access database and all of the necessary drivers are included. You should be able to open the database directly and begin designing reports. Virtually all of the examples in this manual are based on Xtreme.mdb data.

Xtreme.mdb is a database that contains data for Xtreme Mountain Bikes, a fictitious manufacturer of mountain bikes and accessories.

Note: The sample data has been designed to illustrate various reporting

concepts in a training environment, not to teach database design. While there are alternative ways of designing a database, this design was selected to keep the tutorials and examples focused on reporting, not on data manipulation.

Report Creation Wizards

The tutorials in this chapter show you how to build a report from scratch. As a complement or an alternative, however, you may want to use the Report Creation Wizards available on the Start Page. There are four Report Creation Wizards:

• Standard

• Cross-Tab

• Mailing Label

• OLAP

50 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Standard

Cross-Tab

Quick Start

Report Creation Wizards

Each wizard guides you through the creation of a report by providing a series of screens. Many of the wizards have screens unique to a specific type of report. For example, the Mailing Labels Report Creation Wizard has a screen that allows you to specify the type of mailing label you want to use.

Note: After you’ve clicked the Finish button in a Report Creation Wizard, you

can click the Stop button on the Navigation Tools toolbar if you don’t want the program to gather all the data from your data source. This is useful if you want to make adjustments to the report layout that the wizard created.

The Standard Report Creation Wizard is the most generic of the wizards. It guides you through choosing a data source and linking database tables. It also helps you add fields and specify the grouping, summarization (totals), and sorting criteria you want to use. Finally, the Standard Report Creation Wizard leads you through chart creation and record selection.

The Templates screen contains predefined layouts for you to apply to your report to give it more impact.

The Cross-Tab Report Creation Wizard guides you through the creation of a report in which your data is displayed as a cross-tab object. Two special screens (Cross-Tab and Grid Style) help you create and format the cross-tab itself.

Mailing Label

The Mailing Labels Report Creation Wizard lets you create a report that is formatted to print on any size mailing label. You can use the Label screen to select a commercial label type, or you can define your own layout of rows and columns for any multi-column style report.

OLAP

The OLAP Report Creation Wizard lets you create a report in which your OLAP data is displayed as a grid object. Although similar to the Cross-Tab Report Creation Wizard in several ways, the OLAP Report Creation Wizard appears to be different due to the requirements of working with OLAP data sources. You first specify the location of your OLAP data, and then you choose

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 51

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

the dimensions you want to include in the grid. Next you filter the report data and choose the style of the grid object, which you can also customize. Finally, you can define labels for your grid and insert a chart, if you wish.

This is only a brief overview of the four Report Creation Wizards available in Crystal Reports.

Quick start for new users

The following tutorial has been designed to give you confidence when creating your first report.

In this tutorial, you will get an introduction to the program as you create a Customer List report. The Customer List is one of the most basic business reports and typically has information such as Customer Name, City, Region, and Contact Name.

You begin by learning the basic concepts: selecting a database, placing some fields on the report, and then selecting specific records to be included. You will then learn how to:

• Insert and move database fields.

• Add and format a title.

• Display a report in the Preview tab so you can fine-tune your work.

• Use the Select Expert to ensure the report includes only the data you

need.

• Move objects.

• Group and sort data.

• Insert pictures.

• Print a report.

Before you begin

This tutorial assumes you are familiar with Microsoft Windows and uses conventional terms and procedures common to the Windows environment. If you are not familiar with Windows, please refer to the documentation that came with Microsoft Windows for further explanation.

The default font for all report sections in the program is set to Arial, 10 point. If you have changed the default font, or if your printer does not support this font, the field size, field spacing, and screen shots will look different than those included in this tutorial.

52 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

This tutorial has been designed using Microsoft Windows 2000. Screen shots may vary slightly if you are using a different platform.

If you are not familiar with the Crystal Reports environment, review

“Formatting” on page 235, which describes working with the grid, using

guidelines, and formatting activities.

Creating the report

1. Click the Start Page tab if the Start Page is not already visible in Crystal

Reports.

The New Reports area of the Start Page contains a number of wizards to guide you through the creation of specific types of reports. Since you will be learning reporting concepts here, you can skip the wizards and build your report from scratch. After you have completed this tutorial, you may want to build some reports using the wizards to decide which method of report construction you are most comfortable with.

2. In the New Reports area, click Blank Report.

The Database Expert dialog box appears.

Note: You can create reports based on database files, SQL/ODBC data

sources, Business Views, and a variety of other data sources.

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

Selecting a database to use

The next step in creating a report is to select a database. Select the Xtreme.mdb sample database for this tutorial.

To select a database



1. In the Database Expert dialog box, expand the Create New Connection

folder and then expand the Database Files folder; then search for the Xtreme.mdb sample database.

By default, this file was installed in the

Objects\Common\3.5\Samples\En\Databases directory.

\Program Files\Business

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 53

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

Note:

• You have to use the Open dialog box to find the Xtreme database.

• If you wish to see database and server properties after you have

selected a database, right-click the database node in the Database Expert and select Properties from the shortcut menu.

2. Expand the Tab le s node of the Xtreme.mdb connection to see a list of

tables.

Because you are dealing only with customers in this tutorial, you will select the Customer table.

3. Select Customer and click the > arrow to add it to the Selected Tables list,

and then click OK.

The Design tab of the Report Designer appears.

4. Click Field Explorer on the Standard toolbar.

The Field Explorer dialog box appears.

Note: Depending on how it appeared when you last used Crystal

Reports, the Field Explorer dialog box might be docked or in floating

54 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Report sections

The Design tab is divided into five sections: Report Header (RH), Page Header (PH), Details (D), Report Footer (RF), and Page Footer (PF). If at any time you are unsure of the report section in which you are working, simply look at the shaded area to the left of the report which always displays either the section names or the initials that designate the names. See “Design tab” on page 91.

If the Short Section Names check box is selected in the Design View area of the Options dialog box, then the Report Header, Page Header, Details, Report Footer and Page Footer section names will appear as RH, PH, D, RF and PF respectively. If this check box is not selected, follow these steps:

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

mode. For more information about docking explorers, see “Opening and

docking explorers” on page 118.



1. On the File menu, click Options.

2. In the Design View area, select the Short Section Names check box.

3. Click OK to return to the report.

Inserting a field

You’ll use the Field Explorer dialog box to insert database fields when you create a new report.

This dialog box is set to remain on-screen until you close it. All the tables available for use are listed in this box.

You will now start placing objects on the report by inserting the Customer Name field.

To show short section names

The Options dialog box appears with the Layout tab active.

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 55

Quick Start

Quick start for new users



To insert a field

1. Expand the Database Fields node in the Field Explorer dialog box and

expand a table.

2. Highlight a field name by clicking the name once.

When you highlight a field name, you can review a subset of the values for that field as well as the field type and size by right-clicking the field and selecting Browse Data from the shortcut menu.

3. Click the Customer Name field and drag it into the Details section of the

report.

An object frame appears with the Arrow cursor as you drag the field onto the report:

• The object frame represents the object you have just selected for

placement.

• The size of the object frame approximates the size of the data in the

field selected.

4. Move the object frame as far to the left as you can in the Details section.

If you move the field too far to the left, the Arrow cursor turns into a Stop cursor, indicating that you cannot drag the field that far. Keep in mind that you cannot place any objects outside the page margin.

56 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

The Design tab should look similar to this:

Understanding fields

Before going any further, take a look at the field you just placed in the Details section:

• First of all, the object frame indicates that when the report is printed, a

field value will appear where the box is positioned.

• If you haven’t selected the Show Field Names check box on the Layout

tab of the Options dialog box, the object frame contains Xs to indicate that the database field contains a text string. Other data types have different character representations. For example, a currency data type is represented by $55,555.56.

• If your report is not showing field names, the number of Xs in the object

frame is the data width, the maximum number of characters in the field as defined by the database. Whether or not your report shows field names, the width of the object frame is the field width (the amount of space allocated to the field for printing). Initially it is set to the width needed to display the maximum number of characters in the field (using the font selected for the field). You can change this width by resizing the field.

• The size of the characters or Xs indicates the point size selected for the

characters in the field.

• The font and style (Bold, Underline, and so on) used in displaying the

characters or Xs indicate the font and style selected for the characters in the field. Later in this tutorial you will learn how to make changes to these properties.

• The line spacing is adjusted to the point size selected for the characters

in the field.

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 57

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

Adding additional fields

Next, you will insert two additional fields in the report. This time, however, you will use the Ctrl-click combination to add them at the same time.



1. Highlight the City field in the Field Explorer dialog box, press the Ctrl key on

2. Drag the fields to place them.

3. Place the fields to the right of the Customer Name field.

To add additional fields

your keyboard, and then highlight the Country field. Release the Ctrl key.

If you scroll through the field list, you will notice that both fields remain selected.

Note: Using the Ctrl-click combination allows you to select a non-

continuous range of fields. The Shift-click combination can be used to select several fields from the list that are contiguous.

As the cursor is moved over the report, an object frame appears along with the Arrow cursor.

Both fields appear in the Details section of the report in the same order in which they are listed in the Field Explorer dialog box.

Selecting fields

When a field is selected, the object frame appears with a handle (box) on its right, left, top, and bottom edge. These handles indicate that the field is selected, and therefore active. To do anything with a field (change the font, move it, and so on), you first have to select it:

• Position the cursor inside the object frame and click once. The handles

appear, indicating the object is selected.

• Move the cursor away from the object frame and click in an empty part of

the window. The handles disappear.

That’s all it takes to select and deselect objects.

Resizing fields

To resize the field, follow these steps:

1. Click the Customer Name field in the Details section to select it.

2. Press the Ctrl key and click the field heading to select both objects.

3. Move the cursor over the resizing handle on the right edge of the fields

until the cursor turns into a Resizing cursor.

4. Resize the fields to the right until they are approximately two inches in length.

58 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Reviewing your work

Now let’s see how the report looks with three fields placed and positioned.

1. Click Print Preview on the Standard toolbar to activate the Preview tab.

The screen should look similar to this:

Note: The first time you preview a report, you must click Print Preview

on the Standard toolbar to activate the Preview tab. The Preview tab appears to the right of the Design tab. You can then switch between designing and previewing the report by clicking the corresponding tab.

You have the beginnings of a customer list report, but you still have several fields to add.

2. When you are finished reviewing the report, return to the Design tab by

clicking it.

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

Combining database fields in a text object

Instead of adding the Contact First Name and Contact Last Name fields as separate objects, you can insert both fields in a text object. This allows you to control the formatting of both fields by making changes to only one object. When you insert fields in a text object, the fields are automatically trimmed (they do not have any extra white space on either side). This is important because a field is a fixed size but the data in the fields can vary in size, leaving various amounts of unwanted white space.

To combine fields in a text object



1. Click Insert Text Object on the Insert Tools toolbar. As you move the

cursor over the report, an object frame appears next to it.

2. Insert the field to the right of the fields in the Details section.

As you drag the field, the Design tab automatically scrolls to the right, if necessary. When you click to place the object, a text object appears and the horizontal ruler of the Design tab changes to a ruler/tab selector that

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 59

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

is used for editing the text object. If you click an empty area of the report or a field object, the standard Design tab ruler appears.

3. Click once on the border of the text object to select it for resizing. Handles

appear on all sides of the object.

4. Move the cursor over the right sizing handle of the text object and

increase the width by about 1 inch. You may need to scroll to the right and continue resizing.

5. Double-click inside the text object to select it for editing. Notice the

insertion point is now flashing within the text object.

6. Select the Contact Last Name field in the Field Explorer dialog box.

Remember, you can move the Field Explorer dialog box by dragging and dropping it by its title bar.

7. Drag the field to the text object.

8. Move the cursor over the text object until the cursor becomes a Drag and

Drop cursor.

9. Release the mouse button to place the field in the text object. The cursor

now appears after the Contact Last Name field, within the text object.

10. Type a comma and a space after Contact Last Name.

11. In the Field Explorer dialog box, highlight the Contact First Name field.

12. Drag the field to the text object.

13. Move the cursor over the text object until the cursor becomes a Drag and

Drop cursor. Move the cursor to the right of the comma and space you just typed, and release the mouse button. The field will be inserted to the right of the comma and space.

14. Click the Preview tab to look at the fields you just placed.

The report should now look similar to this:

60 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Adding summary information

The next step is to add summary information to your report. Adding summary information allows you to specify the author, title, and subject of the report, as well as any keywords or comments related to the report. When you add summary information, users can find information related to the report quickly.

To add summary information



1. On the File menu, click Summary Info.

The Document Properties dialog box appears with the Summary tab active.

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

Adding a title

2. Enter information about your report in the text boxes provided. Be sure to

enter the title “Customer List” in the Title text box. This information will be used in the next section of the tutorial.

3. Click OK when finished.

As you can see, the report looks incomplete without a title. Although you can add a title using a text object, you can also tell the program to take the title information directly from the Title text box in the Document Properties dialog box.

To add a title



1. Click the Design tab.

2. In the Field Explorer, scroll down to Special Fields and expand it.

3. Choose Report Title.

4. Drag the cursor over the report. An object frame appears.

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 61

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

Formatting objects

5. Position the object frame in the upper left-hand corner of the Page

Header (PH) section of the report and release the mouse button to place the object.

6. Click the Preview tab or Refresh to review your changes.

The report title object now displays the title that you entered in the Title text box of the Document Properties dialog box.

Now you can format the report title. This time, however, you will remain in the Preview tab to do the work. This will make it easier to see your work while you are formatting the title.

To format an object



1. To center the title, you will first need to expand the Title field so that it’s

about the same width as the data in your report. To do this, select the object by clicking it.

2. Position the cursor on the right edge of the object until the cursor turns

into a Resizing cursor. Drag the right edge of the field box until it is even with the right edge of the data in the Contact Name field object.

You have created a large field that extends from the left edge to the right edge of the report.

3. With the report title object still selected, click Align Center on the

Formatting toolbar. The title is centered within the object.

4. Right-click the object and choose Format Field from the shortcut menu.

5. When the Format Editor appears, click the Font tab.

6. Set the report title to a larger, bolder version of the active font by selecting

Bold from the Style list and 16 (or a point size suitable to the font you are using) from the Size list.

7. Change the color of the text by selecting Maroon from the Color palette.

Notice that the Sample box shows an example of how the text will look.

8. Click OK when finished.

9. Resize the report title object vertically to accommodate the increased

size of the title.

The title is now formatted to stand out on the report.

62 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Adding a field heading

As you can see, the Contact Name field is the only field without a heading. In this section you will create a heading.

To add a field heading



1. Click Insert Text Object on the Insert Tools toolbar.

2. Insert the text object in the Page Header section directly above the

Contact Name field.

3. Click Underline on the Formatting toolbar, and then type

into the text object.

4. Click your cursor outside the text object.

The Contact Name field now has a heading that looks just like the other field titles.

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

Contact Name

Saving the report

1. Click Save on the Standard toolbar to save your work.

2. Type Custlist.rpt in the File name box and click Save.

3. Click the Preview tab to view the report.

Since this is the first time you are saving the report, the Save As dialog box appears displaying the default directory where the file will be saved. Notice that a default file name, based on the report title you defined earlier, is also displayed.

Your report is saved to the default directory or another directory you chose.

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 63

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

Record Selection

The report should now look similar to the following:

Congratulations! You have just created a basic listing report. You will continue to refine this report throughout the rest of this tutorial.

Crystal Reports allows you to limit or restrict the records that are to be included in a report. In this section you will learn how to:

• Select the records you want included in the report.

• Save a report, including the selection criteria.

For example, it may be useful to have a customer list that only lists customers from the USA. The sample data contains records from the United States and International customers. It is easy to restrict lists like this using the Select Expert.

Entering the selection criteria

When you scroll through the report, you will see that it contains information for customers from many different countries. In this step, you will limit the number of countries displayed to the USA.

To enter selection criteria



1. To begin, click the Design tab to return to design mode.

2. Click an empty area of the report to make sure all fields are deselected.

3. Click Select Expert on the Expert Tools toolbar.

64 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

The Choose Field dialog box appears.

This dialog box lists all the fields currently in the report in the Report Fields section and then lists all fields that are available from each table in the database fields section.

4. Since you are going to base record selection on the country field, select

Country in the Fields list and click OK.

The Select Expert appears.

Imagine that you are completing the following sentence:

Select all records where a customer’s country is

You complete the sentence with the condition you want the program to use when selecting records for your report. Right now the condition is any value, which implies there is no restriction on the record selection.

5. Click the arrow on the operators box to see what other options you have.

Since you want only those records where the Country is USA, select the is equal to condition.

A new box appears on the right. The dialog box sentence now reads:

Select all records where a customer’s country is equal to

All that you need to complete the sentence is the value USA.

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 65

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

Deleting a field

6. Click the arrow on the empty list. A list of all the country values appears.

Select USA from the list.

The sentence now reads:

Select all records where a customer’s country is equal to USA

7. Click OK to return to the Design tab.

8. Click the Preview tab to review the results of your work.

The Change In Record Selection Formula dialog box appears.

9. Click Refresh Data.

10. Save this version of the report without overwriting the original report by

choosing Save As from the File menu and giving the new report the name USA.rpt.

Congratulations! You have started formatting your report and have added selection criteria to it. More than that, you have learned how to manipulate your data. By now, you have a good idea of the powerful kinds of reports you can prepare.

Now that the report contains only records from the USA, displaying the Country field in the body of the report is not necessary. You can delete this field before continuing.

To delete a field



1. Select the Country field and the Country column heading using the Ctrl-

click combination.

2. Press Delete on your keyboard.

That is all it takes to delete fields from the report.

The report should now look similar to this:

66 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Balancing field spacing

Now that the Country field has been deleted, there is a large amount of white space between the City and Contact Name fields. You might be satisfied with the spacing as it stands, but it might be more readable if the columns were better balanced across the page.

To balance field spacing



1. Return to the Design tab. Select the Contact Name field and its field

heading by using the Ctrl-click combination.

2. Place the cursor over one of the two highlighted text objects and drag

them to the left, closer to the City field.

3. Click the Preview tab and review your work again.

The report should look similar to this:

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

The spacing between the fields is much better, but it looks as if the report title is off-center.

4. Click the report title object to select it.

5. Position the cursor on the right handle of the object until the cursor turns

into a Resizing cursor. Drag the right edge of the object frame until it is even with the right edge of the data in the Contact Name field object.

The report title automatically centers itself based on the size of the object.

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 67

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

Grouping and sorting

Data in reports can be grouped and sorted in a variety of ways. Sorting and grouping tools provide a great deal of flexibility for customizing reports.

Grouping the report

In many reports you need to break the data into groups in order to make it easier to read and to understand. Crystal Reports lets you do this easily. For this customer list, you will group the customers by region and then sort the customers alphabetically within each group.

To group a report



1. While on the Design tab, click Insert Group on the Insert Tools toolbar.

The Insert Group dialog box appears.

2. Select Region from the Customer table in the first drop-down list.

The program takes all records with the same value in the region field and places them together in a group on the report.

3. Select in ascending order from the second drop-down list.

The region grouping will be displayed on the report in alphabetic ascending order.

4. Click OK.

Notice that two new sections now appear in the Design tab: GH1 (Group Header #1) and GF1 (Group Footer #1). This is how the program shows that the report has been grouped.

5. Click the Preview tab to see what the report looks like.

68 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

6. If the group tree is not visible, select Toggle Group Tree on the Standard

toolbar to see the groups included in the report.

You can view the group of interest by clicking on the group name in the Group Tree. For example, to see the Texas customer group, click TX in the Group Tree. The program jumps to the Texas group, displaying that group in the Preview tab. The Group Tree allows you to quickly jump to a specific group of interest instead of scrolling through the report looking for the group. For more information on the group tree, see “Group Tree view” on page 96.

Note: For many reports, you will want to insert summaries, subtotals and

grand totals. For example, when creating a sales report rather than a customer list, you would want to calculate the total sales amount for each region. See “Sorting, Grouping, and Totaling” on page 171.

Understanding “live” group headers

When a group is inserted, a group name field is automatically inserted in the Group Header section of the report. The group name field displays the current group’s name. For example, if you group by region, and preview the report, the group header for the CA (California) group shows “CA.”

The group field name is automatically formatted to stand out from the records in the group.

Sorting records

In a typical customer list report, customer names are listed alphabetically. In this example, you will sort the customer names alphabetically within each region.

To sort records



1. While on the Preview tab, click Record Sort Expert on the Expert Tools

toolbar.

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 69

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

The Record Sort Expert appears.

The Available Fields list box displays all fields currently on your report and all the fields in the data source. You can choose to sort based on any of these fields.

The Sort Fields list box displays the fields that are already sorted in the report. Since the region field has already been sorted, the sorting you are about to do will be within each region, and not for the entire report.

2. Highlight the Customer Name field and click the > arrow button to add it

to the Sort Fields list.

3. Select Ascending for the Sort Direction and click OK. The report should

now look similar to the following:

Notice that the records within each group are in alphabetic order.

70 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Completing the report

You have just one step left to complete the report. A company logo needs to be added to the first page of the report.

Inserting a company logo

In this section, you will place a company logo at the top of the first page of the report.

To insert a company logo



1. While on the Design tab, click Insert Picture on the Insert Tools toolbar.

The Open dialog box appears.

2. Choose a bitmap logo (.bmp) file and click Open.

An object frame appears as you move the cursor over the report. The object frame represents the logo you will place.

3. Position the object frame in the upper left-hand corner of the Report

Header (RH) section of the report and click once to place it.

Placing the logo in the Report Header (RH) section ensures that the logo is printed only on the first page of the report.

Note: Although there does not appear to be enough room in the Report

Header (RH) section when you place the graphic, the section will automatically expand to accommodate the picture.

4. Click the Preview tab to view the report.

The final report should look something like this (with the logo that you chose in step 2):

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

5. Save the report by clicking Save on the Standard toolbar.

You have just completed your first report.

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 71

Quick Start

Quick start for advanced users

Report Design Concepts

chapter

Report Design Concepts

Basic report design

The purpose of this chapter is to suggest a structured approach to preparing a Crystal report. This approach includes the following elements:

• Deciding on the content of the report.

• Developing a prototype on paper.

This section has been designed to provide a conceptual understanding of the reporting process.

Deciding on the content of the report

Before you do anything else, you should outline the information you want the report to provide. The following sections provide a guide to making that outline.

Stating the purpose

What is the overall purpose of the report?

Reports are management tools. Their purpose is to help you quickly grasp the essential elements and relationships found in raw data, to help you make effective decisions. For a report to be effective, it has to present the correct data in a logical way. If it presents the wrong data, or if it presents the right data in a haphazard manner, the report may slow the decision-making process or may even encourage incorrect decisions.

A good starting place in the development of a report is to write out the purpose of the report in a sentence or two. The purpose statement helps you focus on your primary needs, and it gives the report both a starting point and a goal.

Here are some examples of purpose statements.

• The purpose of this report is to show monthly and year-to-date sales by

sales representatives, compare this year’s numbers to last year’s, and flag representatives whose sales figures do not meet company standards.

• The purpose of this report is to show sales activity for each item in

inventory, and to suggest reorder quantities based on that activity.

• The purpose of this report is to calculate bowling averages and

handicaps for each member of the bowling league.

Defining the purpose of the report before you start is a critical step in the overall process.

78 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Who is going to read the report?

A single report is often used by many individuals. A detailed, company-wide sales report, for example, may be used by sales representatives, the regional sales manager, the national sales manager, and the Chief Operating Officer (COO).

These individuals will be interested in different aspects of the report:

• A sales representative will use the report to evaluate individual sales

performance and compare this performance to that of other representatives in the region.

• The regional sales manager will use the report to evaluate regional

representatives and compare the region’s performance to that of other regions.

• The national sales manager will use the report to evaluate the

performance of regional managers and compare overall sales to the current sales forecasts.

• The COO will use the report to evaluate the performance of the Vice-

President of Marketing and the sales department as a whole, and to project such things as manufacturing needs and warehouse locations.

Since each user of the report has different interests, it is important to plan the report so it includes the information each user is looking for.

Report Design Concepts

Deciding on the content of the report

Determining the layout of the report

What is the report title going to be?

Write out a working title for the report. You may decide to change it later, but at least you will have a title to use when creating the prototype report.

What identifying information is needed in the header and footer?

You may wish to include the print date, information on who prepared the report, a block of text to describe the purpose of the report, the range of data covered, or something similar. If you are going to include such information, write it down so you can use it in preparing your prototype.

The information can come from a variety of sources, depending on the kind of information you plan to use.

• Information on who prepared the report might be drawn from individual

data fields in the database table(s) used. If it is to be drawn from a database table, what table? Or, what combination of tables?

• A block of text can be created as a text object and placed anywhere on

the report.

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 79

Report Design Concepts

Deciding on the content of the report

• Crystal Reports can generate information such as the print date or page

numbers.

Finding the data

What data do you want to use in the report?

Do you know the type of database you are reporting from? Will you be reporting off a data file, SQL/ODBC, or another data source?

If you do not know, ask the database administrator in your organization for help in setting up the database type and location of the data. For more information, see Accessing Data Sources in the Crystal Reports Online Help.

Are you familiar enough with the data to find the necessary information? When looking for a Customer Contact name, can the field be found in a database table?

If not, your MIS professional, database administrator, or co-workers will have to help you become familiar with the data.

What specific data should appear in the body of the report?

The body should contain all the data needed to fulfill the statement of purpose you wrote for the report. It should also contain all of the data needed by the various users that you have identified.

This step requires you to look at the available database table(s). Crystal Reports allows you to combine data from different databases when you create reports, so you have a great deal of flexibility in your work.

• Much of the data in a typical report is taken directly from data fields.

Which data fields will be used, and where are they located?

• Other data will be calculated based on data fields. Which data fields will

be used in the calculations?

• Still other data will be placed directly into the report using text objects

(headings, notes, labels, and so on).

Does the data exist or does it need to be calculated?

Some report information can be drawn directly from data fields (sales information, for example); other information will have to be calculated based on data field values (for example, sales commission, based on the relationship of sales to quota). In your planning, it can be helpful to segregate or flag data that needs to be calculated from that which can be used directly. See “Specifying formulas” on page 423.

80 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Report Design Concepts

Deciding on the content of the report

What types of fields contain data?

You should take the time to get to know the data type for data fields that will be used in your calculations. Since formula functions and operators work with specific kinds of data, it is important to recognize the data type you are working with, before you start any calculations. For example, some functions require numeric data, while others work with only string fields.

Manipulating the data

Do you want the data organized into groups?

How? By customer? By date? By hierarchy? Or by other criteria? Crystal Reports provides several options for grouping data in a report. See “Grouping

data” on page 175.

Do you want the data sorted based on record or group values?

Crystal Reports gives you both alternatives. See “Understanding sort options”

on page 172.

Do you want the report to contain only specific records or groups?

Crystal Reports gives you the opportunity to base a report on all records in a given database, or on a limited set of records from the database. Crystal Reports can be used to select records based on simple date ranges or comparisons, or to create complex formulas to identify the records to be included. Take a few minutes to determine the records needed for the report and list the criteria to be used for selecting those records. See “Selecting

records” on page 160.

Do you want to summarize the data?

Do you want to total, average, count, or determine the maximum or minimum value included in all the values in any column on the report?

Crystal Reports allows you to do this, and it also allows the grand total (or the grand total average, grand total count, and so on) to be placed at the bottom of the selected column. See “Calculating a percentage” on page 201 and

“Selecting top or bottom N groups or percentages” on page 195.

What information should be flagged on the report?

You may want to call attention to some data by flagging it on the report. For example, non-moving inventory items are often flagged on inventory reports so they can be given special attention. You might want to flag each item that

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 81

Report Design Concepts

Deciding on the content of the report

has shown no activity during the last month, during the last three months, or during some other defined period. To flag information, identify it and any conditions that will trigger the flagging.

How do you want information flagged?

You may want to flag items with an asterisk or some other symbol, or you may want a word to appear as a flag. In any case, you should write out flagging instructions so they are handy.

Crystal Reports gives you the opportunity to underline report elements, and change the font type, size, or color used for specific report items. It allows you to put borders around items and to draw lines and boxes (to break the report into sections), set off headings, and so on. All of these formatting tools can be used to highlight key data on a report. See “Formatting” on page 235.

Determining printing area characteristics

Each report area has its own printing characteristics. It is important to understand these characteristics because they affect when and how often different report objects get printed.

In what order will the areas print on the report?

Areas print in the order they appear on the Design tab (top to bottom). If there is more than one section in an area, the sections print in the order they appear. For example, if you have three Report Header sections, all three of those sections will print, in order, before the section(s) in the Page Header area begin to print.

How often do report objects print?

The way objects print will determine how you design your report. This will help you decide where to place charts, Cross-Tabs, and formulas to get specific results.

Report Header

Objects placed in the Report Header area print once, at the beginning of the report.

• Charts and Cross-Tabs placed in this area contain data for the entire report.

Note: Both charts and Cross-Tabs can filter report data by using a Group

Sort; in such cases, the data shown in the chart or Cross-Tab is a subset of the data for the entire report.

• Formulas placed in this area are evaluated once, at the beginning of the

report.

82 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Report Design Concepts

Deciding on the content of the report

Page Header

Objects placed in the Page Header area print at the beginning of each new page.

• Charts or Cross-Tabs cannot be placed in this section.

• Formulas placed in this area are evaluated once per page, at the

beginning of each new page.

Group Header

Objects placed in the Group Header area print at the beginning of each new group.

• Charts and Cross-Tabs placed in this area contain data just for the group.

• Formulas placed in this area are evaluated once for each group, at the

beginning of the group.

Details area

Objects placed in the Details area print with each new record.

• Charts or Cross-Tabs cannot be placed in this area.

• Formulas placed in this area are evaluated once for each record.

Group Footer

Objects placed in the Group Footer area print at the end of each group.

• Charts and Cross-Tabs placed in this area contain data just for the group.

• Formulas placed in this area are evaluated once for each group, at the

end of the group.

Report Footer

Objects placed in the Report Footer area print once at the end of the report.

• Charts and Cross-Tabs placed in this area contain data for the entire

report.

Note: Both charts and Cross-Tabs can filter report data by using a Group

Sort; in such cases, the data shown in the chart or Cross-Tab is a subset of the data for the entire report.

• Formulas placed in this area are evaluated once, at the end of the report.

Page Footer

Objects placed in the Page Footer area print at the bottom of each page.

• Charts and Cross-Tabs cannot be placed in this area.

• Formulas placed in this area are evaluated once per page, at the end of

each new page.

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 83

Report Design Concepts

Developing a prototype on paper

While a paper prototype is useful regardless of your level of expertise with Crystal Reports, it is particularly valuable when you are first learning the program. With the paper prototype in hand, you can put your full effort into learning and using the commands, rather than into trying to design and learn at the same time.

To design a paper prototype



1. Get the same size paper you will be using for the finished report.

2. Position the title and other descriptive header information, using boxes or

lines to represent report elements.

3. Position the footer information.

4. Review the page layout for balance.

5. Look at the information you intend to include in the body of the report:

• Count the number of fields being used and estimate the appropriate

spacing between fields.

• Use rectangles to pencil in the fields within the estimated spacing.

• Change the spacing if you need to.

• Decide on a logical sequence for presenting the data in the body of

the report.

• Label the fields to indicate that sequence.

6. Use small boxes to indicate group values and totals.

7. Place random flags in the column where you want flags to appear.

8. Darken any elements you want highlighted to make them stand out from

the rest of the prototype.

9. Review the finished product for layout and balance, and make changes

as needed.

84 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Introduction to Reporting

chapter

Introduction to Reporting

Report creation options

Each time you create a new report, you have three options:

• Use a Report Creation Wizard.

• Use another report as a model.

• Create a report from scratch.

You will probably use each option at some time.

Report Creation Wizards

The Report Creation Wizards help create reports as quickly as possible and many new users and developers alike prefer to create the majority of their reports using them. All you have to do is choose the wizard that most closely matches your report type. The wizard walks you through the process of creating reports step-by-step.

Another report

To build a new report based on one that already exists, another report can be used as a model. Open the report you want to use in this way by selecting the Open File option and save it to a new file using Save As (found on the File menu). This method is useful to:

• Create a new report with a different grouping or different record selection

than that of an existing report.

• Reconstruct a report based on an earlier time period using the same

report structure used today.

• Create an entirely new report based on a set of databases that are linked

in another report. You can create a report and delete the fields without disturbing the underlying links. Then, without relinking, you can build all your new reports based on this report.

Crystal Reports also lets you format a report by applying a template. See

“Using a template” on page 236 for more information.

New report

The Blank Report option is used to create a report from scratch. This is useful when you want the full flexibility and control of building a report from the ground up, or when a report type is different from the many report types available in the wizards.

86 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Introduction to Reporting

Choosing data sources and database fields

The Blank Report option was chosen for the “Quick start for new users” on

page 52, because the process of creating a report from scratch most fully

illustrates the basics of reporting.

Choosing data sources and database fields

Crystal Reports makes it simple to select data sources and database fields by providing easy-to-use functionality in the Database Expert dialog box and the Field Explorer dialog box. Each of these dialog boxes uses the familiar Windows tree structure to allow you to navigate through the possible choices.

The Database Expert

The Database Expert provides an integrated tree view of all data sources you can use with Crystal Reports. In the Database Expert, you can select from the following as a data source for your report:

• A currently connected data source.

• An SQL command that has been saved to the BusinessObjects

Enterprise Repository.

• A data source that has been added to your Favorites folder.

• A recently accessed data source (the Database Expert automatically

maintains a list of such data sources for you).

• An existing data source (for example, a data file residing locally, or an

ODBC data source that has already been set up).

In the Database Expert, you can also specify links between database tables when you have selected more than one table for your report.

Data tab

Tree View

The Data tab of the Database Expert shows a tree view of possible data sources you can select when creating a report. The tree—in the Available Data Sources list—is made up of folders for:

• Current Connections

• Favorites

• History

• Create New Connection

• Repository

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 87

Introduction to Reporting

Choosing data sources and database fields

The Create New Connections folder contains subfolders for many popular data sources. Among these, you’ll find:

• Access/Excel (DAO)

• Database Files

• ODBC (RDO)

• OLAP

• OLE DB (ADO)

Note: The data source options available in the Create New Connections

folder depend on the data access components selected during installation. For a brief description of each of these folders and subfolders, see “Selecting

the data source” on page 98.

Shortcut Menu

You can right-click any item in the Available Data Sources list of the Database Expert to see a shortcut menu with the following options:

• Add to Report

Use this option to add a table or stored procedure to your new report. This option is also available by clicking the > arrow on the Database Expert.

• Add to Favorites

Use this option to add a selected data source to the Favorites folder.

• Remove from Report

Use this option to remove a table or stored procedure from your report. This option is also available by clicking the < arrow on the Database Expert.

• Properties

Use this option to obtain detailed information on the selected item.

• Rename Favorite

Use this option to rename a data source in the Favorites folder.

• Delete Favorite

Use this option to remove a data source from the Favorites folder.

• Remove from repository

Use this option to delete an existing SQL command from the BusinessObjects Enterprise Repository.

• Rename repository object

Use this option to rename an existing SQL command in the BusinessObjects Enterprise Repository.

• Options

Use this option to set the global options that appear on the Database tab of the Options dialog box.

88 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

• Refresh

Use this option to refresh the list of available data sources in the Database Expert.

Links tab

Database tables are linked so records from one database match related records from another. For example, if you activate a Suppliers table and a Product table, the databases are linked so that each product (from the Product table) can be matched up with the supplier (from the Supplier table) that made the product.

The majority of reports will probably require data from two or more tables, so linking will be necessary. The process of linking is made easy by using the Links tab of the Database Expert. See “Linking tables” on page 493.

The Field Explorer

Use the Field Explorer dialog box to insert, modify or delete fields on the Design and Preview tabs of Crystal Reports. To see the Field Explorer, select the Field Explorer command from the View menu.

Tree View

The Field Explorer shows a tree view of database fields and special fields that you can add to your report. It also shows formula fields, SQL expression fields, parameter fields, running total fields, and group name fields that you have defined for use in your report.

Fields that have already been added to the report, or fields that have been used by other fields (such as formula fields, groups, running total fields, summaries, and so on) have a green check mark next to them.

Introduction to Reporting

Choosing data sources and database fields

Toolbar and Shortcut Menu

The Field Explorer’s toolbar provides buttons with tool tips and hot-key combinations. You can right-click any item in the tree view to bring up a shortcut menu.

The toolbar offers these functions:

• Insert to Report

Use this option to add a field to the report. You can insert more than one field at a time by selecting multiple fields, right-clicking, and choosing Insert to Report.

Alternatively, to insert a field, you can drag and drop it in the Design or Preview tabs.

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 89

Introduction to Reporting

Choosing data sources and database fields

• Browse

Use this option to browse data for a database field, formula field or SQL expression field.

Note: On the shortcut menu, this option is called Browse Data.

• New

Use this option to create a formula field, SQL expression field, parameter field or running total field.

• Edit

Use this option to modify an existing formula field, SQL expression field, parameter field or running total field.

• Duplicate

Use this option to make a copy of the formula that you have selected in the Field Explorer. When the copy is created, you can rename it and edit it.

• Rename

Use this option to modify the name of an existing formula field, SQL expression field, parameter field or running total field.

• Delete

Use this option to remove a formula field, SQL expression field, parameter field or running total field. You can also select multiple fields, right-click, and choose Delete to remove them all at once.

The shortcut menus for the fields in the Field Explorer offer additional functions that are not on the toolbar, including the following options:

• Find in Formulas

Use this option to find occurrences of the selected item throughout all of the formulas in your report.

• Set Prompt Order

Use this option to open the Set Prompt Order dialog box, in which you can change the prompt order of your parameter fields.

• Show Field Type

Use this option to see the field type (string, number, and so on) when you’re looking at a list of database fields. The length of string fields is included in brackets at the end of their names.

• Sort Fields Alphabetically

Use this option to display table fields in alphabetical order (instead of the order they appear in the table).

90 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

About the report design environment

• Sort Tables Alphabetically

Use this option to display database tables in alphabetical order (instead of the order they appear in the database).

• Refresh

Use this option to refresh the list of available fields in the Field Explorer.

Group Name Fields

You can insert an existing Group Name field shown in the Field Explorer by right-clicking it and selecting Insert to Report. Unlike a formula field, parameter field or running total field, however, you cannot create a Group Name field through the Field Explorer. (A Group Name field is created when you insert a group.)

About the report design environment

Design tab

When working with Crystal Reports, you will probably use the Design tab more than any other part of the program.

Introduction to Reporting

The Design tab is the place you do most of the initial work when creating a report. It designates and labels the various sections of the report. You can do the initial formatting, place objects in the sections where you want them to appear, specify sorting, grouping, and totaling needs, and so forth.

The Design tab provides a very efficient environment for designing a report because you work in the tab with data representations, not with data itself. When a field is placed on the report, the program uses a frame to identify the field on the tab; it does not retrieve the data. Thus, you can add and delete fields and other objects, move them around, set up complex formulas, and more, without tying up the computer or network resources needed to gather the data.

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 91

Introduction to Reporting

About the report design environment

The report created in the Design tab is a kind of virtual report; it has the structure and instructions for creating the final report, but it is not the report itself. To turn the Design tab report into a final report or into a report that you can fine-tune, you “just add data.” You do this whenever you preview the report, print it, or output it in any other way. The actual data will now appear in the report.

Design tab areas

When you first begin creating a report, Crystal Reports automatically creates five areas in the Design tab.

• Report Header

This section is generally used for the report title and other information you want to appear at the beginning of the report. It can also be used for charts and cross-tabs that include data for the entire report.

• Page Header

This section is generally used for information that you want to appear at the top of each page. This can include such things as chapter names, the name of the document, and other similar information. This section can also be used to display field titles above the fields on a report.

• Details

This section is used for the body of the report, and is printed once per record. The bulk of the report data generally appears in this section.

• Report Footer

This section is used for information you want to appear only once at the end of the report (such as grand totals) and for charts and cross-tabs that include data for the entire report.

• Page Footer

This section usually contains the page number and any other information you want to appear on the bottom of each page.

If a group, summary, or subtotal is added to the report, the program creates two additional sections:

• Group Header

This section typically holds the group name field, and can be used to display charts or cross-tabs that include data specific to the group. It is printed once at the beginning of a group.

• Group Footer

This section generally holds the summary value, if any, and can be used to display charts or cross-tabs. It is printed once at the end of a group.

92 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Introduction to Reporting

About the report design environment

When a group, summary, or subtotal is added, the Group Header area appears directly above the Details area and the Group Footer area appears directly below the Details area.

If you set up additional groups, the program creates new group areas between the Details area and the existing Group Header and Group Footer area(s).

Like the original areas, each of these newly added areas can contain one or more sections. By default, they each contain a single section.

Identifying and working with areas and sections

By default, each area contains only a single section. The name for that section appears directly to the left of the section. If you have multiple sections in an area, the sections are designated as a, b, c, and so forth.

Note:

• Initials, such as RH, PH, D, PF, RF, and so on, are used to identify each

section if you have selected the Short Section Names check box in the Design View area of the Options dialog box.

• If you right-click the shaded area containing a section name, a shortcut

menu appears with section-specific options.

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 93

Introduction to Reporting

About the report design environment

If you have selected the Show Rulers options on the Layout tab of the Options dialog box, the program displays a section ruler immediately to the left of each section. The section ruler is used to add, remove, and move guidelines, and to provide a visual reference when you are placing objects. See

“Designing with guidelines” on page 251.

Whenever a new section is added, the program creates a ruler for that section. See “Using multiple sections in reports” on page 222.

Other Design tab capabilities

There are several other capabilities built into the Design tab. With the Design tab, you can:

• Resize a section by dragging its boundary. See “Resizing a section” on

page 221.

• Split a section (create two sections from one) by clicking its left boundary.

See “Splitting a section” on page 221.

• Add horizontal and vertical guidelines by clicking the rulers. See

“Designing with guidelines” on page 251.

• Zoom in and out on a report at any magnification from 25% to 400% of

the original size. See “Using the zoom feature” on page 110.

Section ruler.

Preview tab

To preview a report before printing it, click Print Preview on the Standard toolbar.

The program gathers the data, makes the necessary calculations, and displays the report in the Preview tab. With the data in place, you can review the spacing and formatting of your report and see the actual results of all your summaries, formula calculations, and record and group selections.

In true WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) fashion, you can work directly on this live data, fine-tuning it until the report has the exact look you want.

94 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Standard view

Introduction to Reporting

About the report design environment

The program works with data in the following manner:

• The first time the Preview tab is used, it retrieves data from your

underlying data source(s) and saves it with the report (unless you have set up the program not to save data).

• From that point on, the program uses the saved data whenever you

preview the report unless you specifically refresh it or add a field that requires the program to retrieve new data.

Crystal Reports provides two views for previewing a report:

• Standard view

• Group Tree view

In standard view, the report is displayed a page at a time. Using the navigation buttons in the Preview tab, you can move to the beginning or end of the report, or you can move backward and forward through the report one page at a time. For shorter reports or reports in which you’re primarily interested in seeing the “bottom line” totals, the standard view provides all of the functionality you need.

The Data Age indicator

The Data Age indicator indicates the date the data was last refreshed or initially retrieved, whichever is the most recent. If the data was initially retrieved or refreshed today, it indicates the time it happened.

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 95

Introduction to Reporting

About the report design environment

Group Tree view

The Group Tree view can be shown or hidden using Toggle Group Tree on the Standard toolbar.

The Group Tree view presents a split screen:

• The right pane displays the report.

• The left pane displays a high level outline of the report, showing the

hierarchy of groups and subgroups in a familiar tree format.

The Group Tree normally displays the names of the groups and subgroups you created in your report. You can, however, customize these names using the Options tab of the Insert Group or Change Group Options dialog box. For more information on customizing Group Names in the Group Tree view, see

“Grouping data” on page 175.

When you click the tree node for the group that interests you, the program jumps immediately to the part of the report that contains the information for that group. For longer reports or reports in which you wish to jump back and forth between different groups, the Smart Navigation features of the Group Tree view make your work extremely efficient.

Comparisons with the Design tab

You have the same formatting capabilities in the Preview tab as you do in the Design tab. Menus (both menu bar and shortcut menus) and toolbars remain active, providing essentially the same functionality you have when working with a report in the Design tab. However, when you are making numerous changes, it is quicker to make the changes in the Design tab. Some additional things to consider are:

96 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Introduction to Reporting

About the report design environment

• The Design tab and Preview tab are tied together internally. Any changes

made in one are reflected in the other.

• The Preview tab has a single vertical ruler at the left of the tab rather than

the individual section rulers seen in the Design tab. The functionality of the ruler is the same.

• The Preview tab identifies report sections in the shaded area to the left of

the data. With a quick look you can tell which report section the data is printing from. While section names appear only once in the Design tab, they print each time a section prints in the Preview tab.

• The Record counter, the Data Age indicator (see “The Data Age

indicator” on page 95), and the Page Forward/Page Back controls (see “Preview tab” on page 94), are all active in the Preview tab.

• The Preview tab highlights every value when you select a field; whereas,

only the field frame is highlighted in the Design tab.

Working in the Preview tab has a different feel from working in the Design tab.

Each field in a database contains dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of values, depending on the number of records in the database. When you place a field in the Design tab, a single field frame represents all those values. When you highlight the field, sizing handles appear on the frame and the frame changes color.

In the Preview tab, however, you are working with the actual data. Instead of a field frame representing many field values, the values themselves appear. Some additional things to consider are:

• When you highlight a field or formula field value, you are actually

selecting every value in the field:

• The program places a sizing frame around the specific value you

select.

• It highlights every other value in the field.

• Likewise, when you select a summary value, you are actually selecting all

the related summary values:

• The program places a sizing frame around the specific value you

select.

• It highlights all the related summary values.

Aside from the differences in appearance, the process of building and modifying a report is the same in both the Design tab and the Preview tab. You should find it easy to work with your reports in both places.

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 97

Introduction to Reporting

Creating a new report

HTML Preview tab

To see an HTML rendering of your Crystal report as it will appear when published to the web, click HTML Preview on the Standard toolbar.

When you need to make sure that your report design is appropriate and correct over the web in a zero-client environment, the HTML Preview option lets you see an instant rendering of your report to HTML without leaving the Crystal Reports design environment. Unlike the Preview tab, which shows the true report format, the HTML Preview tab shows a converted format. By switching between the two tabs, you can make adjustments in your report design to yield the best results on the web.

In the case of reports that are published to BusinessObjects Enterprise (managed reports), you don’t have do any special configuration to make the HTML Preview feature work.

For stand-alone reports (unmanaged reports), the program must use the Report Application Sever (RAS) to generate the preview. In this case, you need to configure the HTML Preview feature. Do this in the Smart Tag & HTML Preview tab of the Options dialog box in Crystal Reports.

For information about how to configure the HTML Preview Options, search the Crystal Reports online help for “Smart Tag & HTML Preview tab (Options dialog box).”

Creating a new report

Selecting the data source

After deciding which option you want to use for creating your report (see “Report

creation options” on page 86), the next step is to select a data source to use.

Most data sources can be chosen through the Database Expert dialog box. The Database Expert appears when you create a report from scratch using Blank Report, or when you choose Database Expert from the Database menu.

Note: You also select a data source in the Report Creation Wizards. The

Data screen in all of the Report Creation Wizards, except the OLAP Report Creation Wizard, is much like the Database Expert dialog box.

To select a data source



1. Choose Database Expert from the Database menu.

The Database Expert dialog box appears.

98 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Introduction to Reporting

Creating a new report

2. Use the tree view in the Available Data Sources list of the Data screen to

select your data source:

• Current Connections

This folder shows a list of data sources you are currently connected to.

• Favorites

This folder shows a list of data sources you commonly use and have maintained in your Favorites list.

• History

This folder shows a list of data sources you have used recently. The last five data sources used are displayed.

• Create New Connection

This folder shows subfolders for various data sources you can connect to.

• Repository

This folder shows you the contents of your repository through the BusinessObjects Enterprise Explorer. Click Make New Connection to open the BusinessObjects Enterprise Explorer; from this dialog box, you can select an existing SQL command or Business View.

Some popular choices in the Create New Connection folder are described here:

• Access/Excel (DAO)

This option lets you connect to a supported database type (Access, dBASE, Excel, Lotus, and so on). You can create a new connection using the Make New Connection option.

• Database Files

This option shows a list of standard PC databases that reside locally. You can use Find Database File to browse for a PC database using the Open dialog box.

• ODBC (RDO)

This option shows a list of ODBC data sources you have already configured for use.

• OLAP

This option opens the OLAP Connection Browser so you can choose an OLAP cube as a data source.

Crystal Reports User’s Guide 99

Introduction to Reporting

Creating a new report

Adding tables

• OLE DB (ADO)

This option shows a list of OLE DB providers you have already configured for use. You can also specify a Microsoft Data Link file to use.

Note: The data source options available in the Create New Connections

folder depend on the data access components selected during installation.

Linking multiple tables

If the report contains data from two or more database tables, they need to be linked at this point when creating reports.

Note: It isn’t necessary to link tables in reports created from a query or

command because any links required by the data have already been processed.

To add and link multiple tables



1. Choose Database Expert from the Database menu.

The Database Expert dialog box appears.

2. On the Data tab, select the tables you want to add to your report. See

“Adding tables” on page 100.

The Links tab appears in the Database Expert.

100 Crystal Reports User’s Guide

Business objects CRYSTAL REPORTS XI User Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual

Contents

Introduction to Crystal Reports XI R2

About Crystal Reports

About this guide

Online help

Locate information quickly

Sample Reports

Business Objects information resources

What’s New in Crystal Reports XI R2

Introduction

Crystal Reports XI R2

Crosstabs

Enterprise connectivity

Exporting

Formatting

Formulas

General report functionality

HTML Preview tab

Repository Explorer

Application development

Workbench

Report Application Server (RAS)

Java Reporting Component (JRC)

Crystal Reports .NET

Future deprecation notices

General description

Crystal Reports

Report Application Server

COM SDKs

OLAP Intelligence

Data Integrator

BusinessObjects Enterprise

Installing Crystal Reports XI R2

Installing Crystal Reports XI R2

Installation requirements

Minimum installation requirements

Installing Crystal Reports on a local machine

Creating an installation point and installing from a network server

Creating an installation point for Crystal Reports

Installing Crystal Reports from a network

Customizing your installation

Running a silent installation

Upgrading Crystal Reports components

Quick Start

Learning how to use Crystal Reports

Sample data - Xtreme.mdb

Report Creation Wizards

Standard

Cross-Tab

Mailing Label

OLAP

Quick start for new users

Before you begin

Creating the report

Selecting a database to use

Report sections

Inserting a field

Understanding fields

Adding additional fields

Selecting fields

Resizing fields

Reviewing your work

Combining database fields in a text object

Adding summary information

Adding a title

Formatting objects

Adding a field heading

Saving the report

Record Selection

Entering the selection criteria

Deleting a field

Balancing field spacing

Grouping and sorting

Grouping the report

Understanding “live” group headers

Sorting records