SAP CRYSTAL REPORTS 2008 User Manual

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

Crystal Reports 2008

Windows

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2008-02-22

Introduction to Crystal Reports 2008 27Chapter 1

About Crystal Reports................................................................................28

About the Crystal Reports documentation.................................................29

What's New in Crystal Reports 2008 31Chapter 2

Introduction................................................................................................32

What's different..........................................................................................37

Installing Crystal Reports 2008 39Chapter 3

Installation overview..................................................................................40

Installing Crystal Reports 2008..................................................................40

Installation requirements............................................................................41

Installing Crystal Reports on a local machine............................................41

Creating an installation point and installing from a network server...........48

Customizing your installation.....................................................................56

Running a silent installation.......................................................................58

Locate information quickly....................................................................29

Sample Reports....................................................................................29

Advanced information visualization with Flash, Flex, and Xcelsius.....33

Improved end-user report viewing experience.....................................34

Enhanced report designer productivity.................................................34

New flexible deployment options..........................................................35

Flexible application integration.............................................................36

To install on a local machine................................................................42

Creating an installation point for Crystal Reports.................................49

Installing Crystal Reports from a network............................................49

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 3

Contents

Setting custom banners.............................................................................64

Upgrading Crystal Reports components....................................................65

Quick Start 67Chapter 4

Learning how to use Crystal Reports........................................................68

Sample data - Xtreme.mdb..................................................................68

Report Creation Wizards...........................................................................69

Standard...............................................................................................69

Cross-Tab.............................................................................................70

Mailing Label........................................................................................70

OLAP....................................................................................................70

Quick start for new users...........................................................................70

Before you begin..................................................................................71

Creating the report...............................................................................71

Record Selection..................................................................................85

Grouping and sorting............................................................................90

Completing the report...........................................................................93

Quick start for advanced users..................................................................95

Choosing a report type and data source..............................................95

Working with report elements on the Design tab..................................96

Using other reporting features..............................................................98

Report Design Concepts 101Chapter 5

Basic report design..................................................................................102

Deciding on the content of the report......................................................102

Stating the purpose............................................................................102

Determining the layout of the report ..................................................104

Finding the data..................................................................................104

Manipulating the data.........................................................................106

Determining printing area characteristics...........................................107

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Contents

Developing a prototype on paper............................................................109

To design a paper prototype...............................................................110

Introduction to Reporting 111Chapter 6

Report creation options............................................................................112

Report Creation Wizards....................................................................112

Another report....................................................................................112

New report..........................................................................................113

Report Creation Wizards....................................................................113

Another report....................................................................................113

New report..........................................................................................114

Choosing data sources and database fields............................................114

The Database Expert.........................................................................114

The Field Explorer..............................................................................117

About the report design environment......................................................119

Design tab..........................................................................................119

Preview tab.........................................................................................124

HTML Preview tab..............................................................................128

Creating a new report..............................................................................129

Selecting the data source...................................................................129

Adding tables......................................................................................131

Linking multiple tables........................................................................131

Placing data on the report .................................................................133

Formatting data .................................................................................141

Record selection.................................................................................141

Grouping, sorting, and summarizing data..........................................141

Using the drill-down option on summarized data...............................142

Using the zoom feature......................................................................143

Inserting page headers and footers...................................................143

Adding a title page to the report ........................................................144

Adding summary information to the report.........................................145

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 5

Contents

Exploring reports and working with multiple reports................................146

The Report Explorer...........................................................................146

The Workbench..................................................................................148

The Dependency Checker..................................................................150

Opening and docking explorers.........................................................152

Beyond basic reports...............................................................................153

BusinessObjects Enterprise Repository 155Chapter 7

What is the BusinessObjects Enterprise Repository? ............................156

Work flow............................................................................................156

Accessing the BusinessObjects Enterprise Repository...........................158

To open the BusinessObjects Enterprise Repository.........................158

Toolbar................................................................................................159

Adding subfolders and subcategories to the repository...........................160

To add a new subfolder or subcategory.............................................160

Adding items to the repository.................................................................161

Adding a text object or bitmap image.................................................161

Adding a text object or bitmap image - another method....................162

Adding a custom function ..................................................................162

Adding a command ...........................................................................163

Using repository objects in reports .........................................................163

Adding a text object or a bitmap image to a report............................164

Adding a custom function to a report.................................................164

Adding a command to a report...........................................................165

Adding a list of values to a parameter................................................165

Modifying objects in the repository..........................................................166

To modify a repository object..............................................................166

Updating connected repository objects in reports ..................................167

To set the update option.....................................................................167

Deleting items from the repository...........................................................167

To delete an object from the repository..............................................168

6 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

Contents

Using Undo in the repository...................................................................168

Designing Optimized Web Reports 169Chapter 8

Overview..................................................................................................170

Key strategies for optimizing web reports..........................................171

Scale with BusinessObjects Enterprise...................................................171

Evaluation times for date functions in BusinessObjects Enterprise....173

Making the right design choices..............................................................174

Using faster report formats.................................................................174

Choosing between live and saved data.............................................175

Designing summary reports...............................................................176

To hide details in a summary report...................................................177

Using subreports carefully..................................................................178

Using other design elements effectively.............................................180

Designing reports to maximize data sharing......................................180

Streamlining your reporting environment.................................................181

Selecting the fastest database and connection..................................181

Using table indexes............................................................................182

Improving table-linking choices..........................................................182

Using thread-safe database drivers...................................................183

Using stored procedures for faster processing..................................184

Using enhanced record selection formulas ............................................185

Pushing down record selection—an example....................................186

Record selection performance tips.....................................................187

Strategies for writing efficient record selection formulas ...................188

Incorporating parameter fields into record selection formulas ..........190

Using SQL expressions where appropriate........................................192

Improving grouping, sorting, and totaling ...............................................194

Performing grouping on server...........................................................194

Benefits of grouping on server—an example.....................................194

Using SQL Expressions for groups, sorts, and totals.........................196

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 7

Contents

Using SQL Expressions for Case Logic.............................................196

Inserting summary and running total fields where possible...............197

Record Selection 199Chapter 9

Selecting records.....................................................................................200

Options for selecting records..............................................................200

Determining which field(s) to use.......................................................200

Using the Select Expert......................................................................201

Using formulas...................................................................................203

Interaction of the Select Expert and the Formula Editor....................204

To view the Select Expert formula......................................................205

Saved data selection formulas...........................................................206

Using formula templates..........................................................................207

Record selection formula templates...................................................207

Pushing down record selection to the database server...........................210

Troubleshooting record selection formulas .............................................211

To troubleshoot record selection formulas.........................................211

Correcting selections that do not generate data................................213

Sorting, Grouping, and Totaling 215Chapter 10

Sorting data.............................................................................................216

Understanding sort options................................................................216

Sorting single and multiple fields........................................................219

Sort controls ......................................................................................221

Grouping data..........................................................................................223

Group and sort direction.....................................................................223

Creating custom groups.....................................................................226

Sorting groups conditionally...............................................................227

Sorting records within groups.............................................................229

Group selection..................................................................................230

8 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

Contents

Grouping data in intervals..................................................................234

Grouping by the first letter of a company name.................................237

Grouping data hierarchically...............................................................239

Editing groups....................................................................................246

Summarizing grouped data.....................................................................246

To summarize grouped data...............................................................247

Ordering groups by summarized values............................................248

Selecting top or bottom N groups or percentages .............................249

Selecting top or bottom groups or percentages conditionally............251

Subtotaling...............................................................................................252

Subtotaling data.................................................................................253

Extending prices and subtotaling the extensions...............................254

Percentages.............................................................................................255

Calculating a percentage ...................................................................255

Group headers.........................................................................................257

Creating group headers .....................................................................257

Suppressing group headers...............................................................261

Drilling-down on group headers.........................................................262

Running Totals 263Chapter 11

Understanding running totals...................................................................264

How running totals work.....................................................................264

Creating running totals.............................................................................266

Creating running totals in a list ..........................................................266

Creating running totals for a group.....................................................267

Creating conditional running totals ....................................................268

Creating running totals in a one-to-many linking relationship............270

Creating running totals using a formula...................................................272

To create running totals using a formula............................................273

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 9

Contents

Multiple Section Reports 275Chapter 12

About sections.........................................................................................276

Working with sections..............................................................................276

Inserting a section..............................................................................277

Deleting a section...............................................................................277

Moving a section................................................................................277

Merging two related sections..............................................................278

Splitting and resizing sections.................................................................279

Splitting a section...............................................................................279

Resizing a section..............................................................................280

Using multiple sections in reports ...........................................................281

Keeping variable length objects from overwriting each other.............281

Eliminating blank lines when fields are empty ...................................282

Adding blank lines conditionally ........................................................283

Form letters..............................................................................................284

Working with text objects....................................................................284

Creating a form letter using a text object...........................................286

Printing conditional messages in form letters.....................................292

Formatting 295Chapter 13

Formatting concepts................................................................................296

Using a template......................................................................................296

Applying a template............................................................................297

Removing an applied template...........................................................298

Reapplying the last template selected...............................................298

Using Template Field Objects.............................................................299

Template considerations.....................................................................300

Using the Report Design Environment....................................................303

Section characteristics.......................................................................303

10 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

Contents

Making an object underlay a following section...................................304

Pre-printed forms................................................................................306

Multiple columns.................................................................................307

Hiding report sections.........................................................................308

Hiding report objects..........................................................................308

Placing text-based objects.................................................................311

Placing multi-line, text-based objects.................................................315

Importing text-based objects from a file.............................................316

Spacing between text-based objects.................................................316

Overflow Field Representation...........................................................323

Selecting multiple objects...................................................................324

Vertical placement..............................................................................324

Inserting character and line spacing..................................................325

Setting fractional font sizes................................................................326

Setting page size and page orientation..............................................327

Setting page margins.........................................................................328

TrueType fonts....................................................................................328

Printer drivers.....................................................................................329

Formatting a report for web viewing...................................................330

Formatting properties...............................................................................331

Working with absolute formatting ............................................................331

Adding borders, color, and shading to a field ....................................332

Making a report, section, area, or object read-only............................332

Locking an object's size and position.................................................333

Changing your default field formats...................................................334

Adding and editing lines ....................................................................336

Adding and editing boxes...................................................................337

Expected behavior of line and box formatting....................................338

Adding shapes to a report..................................................................341

Scaling, cropping, and sizing objects.................................................342

Using conventional accounting formats.............................................343

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 11

Contents

Repeating report objects on horizontal pages ...................................344

Using white space between rows ......................................................346

Working with conditional formatting.........................................................349

Conditional on or off properties..........................................................350

Conditional attribute properties..........................................................350

Changing fonts conditionally..............................................................352

Changing margins conditionally.........................................................353

Changing X position conditionally......................................................354

Creating footers after the first page....................................................354

Using the Highlighting Expert.............................................................356

Undo/Redo activities..........................................................................360

Using the Format Painter ........................................................................361

To copy and apply formatting.............................................................362

Working with barcodes............................................................................363

Adding a barcode...............................................................................363

Changing the appearance of a barcode.............................................364

Removing a barcode..........................................................................365

Charting 367Chapter 14

Charting concepts....................................................................................368

Charting overview...............................................................................368

Chart layouts .....................................................................................369

Chart types.........................................................................................370

Where to place a chart ......................................................................373

Drill-down with charts.........................................................................374

Drill-down with legends......................................................................374

Creating charts........................................................................................374

Charting on details or formula fields (Advanced layout) ....................375

Charting on summary or subtotal fields (Group layout) .....................377

Charting on Cross-Tab summaries (Cross-Tab layout) .....................378

Charting on an OLAP cube (OLAP layout) ........................................380

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Contents

Working with charts.................................................................................381

Editing charts using the Chart Expert.................................................381

Editing charts using the Chart Options menu items...........................381

Editing charts using other menu items...............................................382

Using the zooming features with bar and line charts.........................384

Auto-arranging charts.........................................................................384

Formatting charts...............................................................................385

Using the underlay feature with charts...............................................386

Mapping 389Chapter 15

Mapping concepts....................................................................................390

Mapping overview..............................................................................390

Map layouts........................................................................................390

Map types...........................................................................................391

Where to place a map........................................................................394

Drill-down with maps..........................................................................395

Creating maps.........................................................................................395

Mapping on details fields (Advanced layout) .....................................395

Mapping on group fields (Group layout).............................................398

Mapping on Cross-Tab summaries (Cross-Tab layout)......................399

Mapping on an OLAP cube (OLAP layout)........................................401

Working with maps..................................................................................402

Editing maps using the Map Expert...................................................402

Changing the map title.......................................................................403

Changing the map type......................................................................403

Changing map layers.........................................................................404

Resolving data mismatches...............................................................406

Changing the geographic map...........................................................406

Zooming in and out on a map.............................................................407

Panning a map...................................................................................407

Centering a map.................................................................................408

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 13

Contents

Hiding and showing the Map Navigator ............................................408

Formatting Maps................................................................................409

Using the underlay feature with maps................................................409

OLE 411Chapter 16

OLE overview..........................................................................................412

OLE terminology.................................................................................412

Types of OLE objects.........................................................................413

General OLE considerations..............................................................414

Inserting OLE objects into reports...........................................................414

To copy and paste OLE objects .........................................................415

How OLE objects are represented in a report.........................................415

Editing OLE objects in reports.................................................................416

In-place editing...................................................................................416

Dynamic OLE menu commands........................................................416

OLE and the Insert Picture command................................................417

Working with static OLE objects..............................................................417

Inserting a static OLE object..............................................................418

Making a static OLE object dynamic..................................................418

Converting a static OLE object to a bitmap image object..................419

Working with embedded vs. linked objects..............................................420

Embedded objects..............................................................................420

Linked objects....................................................................................421

Integrating Shockwave Flash (SWF) objects...........................................423

Adding an Xcelsius SWF object to a report .......................................424

Using data binding to bind an Xcelsius SWF object to a report.........425

Cross-Tab Objects 427Chapter 17

What is a Cross-Tab object?....................................................................428

Cross-Tab example..................................................................................429

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Contents

Report of order data - no sorting/grouping.........................................430

Report of order data - grouped by region...........................................430

Report of order data - grouped by product.........................................431

Report of order data - grouped by region and product.......................432

Order data in a Cross-Tab object.......................................................433

Creating a Cross-Tab report....................................................................435

To create a new cross-tab report........................................................435

To add a Cross-Tab to an existing report...........................................435

Specifying the data source.................................................................437

Modifying the links..............................................................................438

Adding a chart....................................................................................438

Selecting records................................................................................438

Defining the structure of the Cross-Tab..............................................439

Applying a predefined style and finishing the report..........................440

Adding a Cross-Tab to an existing report using the Cross-Tab Expert.440

Working with Cross-Tabs.........................................................................443

Showing values as percentages........................................................443

Abbreviating large summarized fields ...............................................443

Customizing row/column labels..........................................................445

Using running totals in Cross-Tabs....................................................446

Printing Cross-Tabs that span multiple pages ...................................447

Formatting Cross-Tabs............................................................................447

Changing width, height, and alignment of Cross-Tab cells ...............448

Formatting background color of entire rows/columns........................448

Formatting fields individually .............................................................448

Formatting several fields at one time.................................................449

Suppressing Cross-Tab data..............................................................449

Displaying summarized fields horizontally.........................................451

Advanced Cross-Tab features.................................................................451

Calculated Members..........................................................................451

Embedded Summaries.......................................................................456

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 15

Contents

Building Queries 459Chapter 18

Connecting to a universe.........................................................................460

To connect to a universe....................................................................460

Defining the data selection for a query....................................................461

To build a simple query.......................................................................461

To create a combined query...............................................................462

Quick reference to objects..................................................................463

Editing an existing query..........................................................................464

To edit an existing query.....................................................................465

Viewing the SQL behind a query.............................................................465

To view the SQL when you create a query.........................................465

To view the SQL after you have created a query...............................466

Query filters and prompts........................................................................466

Creating query filters..........................................................................466

Building prompts.................................................................................467

Combining query filters and prompts.................................................468

Using And or Or to combine query filters...........................................469

Quick reference to query filter operators............................................470

Editing and removing query filters......................................................473

Filtering data using subqueries and database ranking............................474

What is a subquery?...........................................................................474

Building a subquery............................................................................475

What is a database ranking?..............................................................478

Creating a database ranking..............................................................478

Creating and Updating OLAP Reports 483Chapter 19

OLAP reporting with Crystal Reports.......................................................484

OLAP grid objects..............................................................................484

Creating an OLAP report.........................................................................485

16 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

Contents

To create an OLAP report...................................................................485

Specifying the data source.................................................................485

Defining the structure of the grid........................................................486

Setting sliced dimensions and specifying the number of grids...........488

Applying a predefined style................................................................490

Inserting a chart..................................................................................491

Updating an OLAP report........................................................................491

To update a cube location in an OLAP grid object.............................492

Updating the database location..........................................................493

Formatting data in an OLAP grid.............................................................493

Changing the background color of a dimension.................................494

Creating an alias for a dimension.......................................................495

Formatting grid lines...........................................................................496

Labelling dimensions..........................................................................496

Changing the view of OLAP data ...........................................................496

To show or hide dimension members ................................................497

To create asymmetry in an OLAP grid...............................................497

To add totals to an OLAP grid............................................................497

To change the display format for member names..............................498

To alter the data displayed in the OLAP grid......................................498

To pivot an OLAP grid .......................................................................498

To define the order of fields in the OLAP grid ...................................498

Sorting and filtering OLAP grid data........................................................499

Sorting data in an OLAP grid .............................................................499

Filtering data in an OLAP grid ...........................................................501

Adding calculations to OLAP grids .........................................................502

Printing, Exporting, and Viewing Reports 503Chapter 20

Distributing reports...................................................................................504

Printing a report..................................................................................504

Faxing a report...................................................................................504

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 17

Contents

Exporting a report...............................................................................505

Working with Web folders...................................................................519

Working with Enterprise folders .........................................................520

Viewing reports........................................................................................523

What are Report Parts?......................................................................523

What is navigation?............................................................................524

The Report Part Drilldown option.......................................................527

The Another Report Object option.....................................................530

Hyperlinks displayed in the viewers...................................................537

Creating an Enterprise Hyperlink.......................................................538

Using smart tags......................................................................................539

To use smart tags with a Crystal Reports object................................540

Report Alerts 543Chapter 21

About Report Alerts ................................................................................544

Working with Report Alerts......................................................................544

Creating Report Alerts........................................................................544

Editing Report Alerts..........................................................................547

Deleting Report Alerts........................................................................547

Viewing Report Alerts.........................................................................547

Referring to Report Alerts in formulas................................................548

Using Formulas 551Chapter 22

Formulas overview...................................................................................552

Typical uses for formulas....................................................................552

Formula components and syntax............................................................553

Formula components .........................................................................553

Formula syntax...................................................................................555

User Function Libraries in formulas.........................................................556

Specifying formulas.................................................................................557

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Contents

Working with the Formula Workshop.................................................558

Working with the Formula Editor........................................................563

Creating and modifying formulas.............................................................569

Creating a formula and inserting it into a report.................................569

Creating a formula in the Formula Expert .........................................570

Editing formulas..................................................................................572

Searching for formula text..................................................................572

Copying formulas...............................................................................573

Deleting formulas.....................................................................................575

Removing the working formula from your report................................576

Deleting the formula specification......................................................576

Debugging formulas.................................................................................576

Debugging evaluation time errors......................................................576

Debugging tutorial..............................................................................577

Parameter Fields and Prompts 583Chapter 23

Parameter and prompt overview ............................................................584

Parameter field considerations...........................................................584

Prompt considerations........................................................................586

Data and non-data parameters..........................................................586

Optional parameters...........................................................................587

Understanding dynamic prompts.............................................................588

Understanding lists of values...................................................................591

List-of-values types............................................................................592

Determining which list-of-values type to use......................................595

Lists of values and prompt groups contrasted...................................597

Creating a parameter with a static prompt...............................................598

To create a parameter with a static prompt........................................598

To incorporate the parameter into the record selection filter..............600

To incorporate the parameter into a saved data selection formula.....601

Creating a parameter with a dynamic prompt..........................................602

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 19

Contents

To create a parameter with a dynamic prompt...................................602

Creating a parameter with a cascading list of values..............................604

To create a parameter with a cascading list of values........................605

The Parameter Panel...............................................................................607

Working with lists of values......................................................................608

Sharing common lists of values within a report..................................608

Using separate value and description fields.......................................610

Using command objects as list-of-values data sources.....................611

Null handling.......................................................................................612

Long lists of values.............................................................................612

Best practices for prompting....................................................................613

Unmanaged reports............................................................................613

Managed reports................................................................................614

Converting unmanaged reports to managed reports.........................615

Deploying managed reports with dynamic prompts...........................615

Deleting parameter fields.........................................................................616

To delete a parameter that is not used in a formula...........................616

To delete a parameter used with the Select Expert............................616

To delete a parameter that is used in a formula.................................617

Responding to parameter field prompts..................................................617

Previewing a report for the first time...................................................617

Refreshing report data........................................................................618

Advanced parameter features.................................................................619

Creating a parameter with multiple prompting values........................619

Applying conditional formatting using parameter fields......................620

Creating a report title using parameter fields.....................................621

Specifying single or ranges of values.................................................622

Incorporating a parameter into a formula...........................................623

Defining sort order using parameter fields.........................................624

Defining entry type and format using the Edit Mask...........................625

Creating a saved-data record filter using parameter fields................627

20 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

Contents

To create a saved-data record filter using parameter fields...............627

To create a parameter appearing on the Parameter Panel................628

To incorporate the parameter into a saved data selection formula.....629

Adding dynamic grouping using parameter fields..............................629

Subreports 633Chapter 24

What are subreports?..............................................................................634

Unlinked vs. linked subreports...........................................................635

How subreport linking works..............................................................636

Inserting subreports.................................................................................637

Previewing subreports........................................................................639

Saving a subreport as a primary report..............................................639

Updating subreports...........................................................................640

Linking a subreport to the data in the primary report...............................641

To link a subreport to the data in the primary report...........................641

Linking a subreport to the main report without modifying the selection

formula...............................................................................................642

Combining unrelated reports by using subreports ..................................643

Combining two or more unrelated reports..........................................644

Using subreports with unlinkable data.....................................................645

Linking to/from a formula field............................................................645

Linking unindexed tables....................................................................646

Creating an on-demand subreport...........................................................647

To create an on-demand subreport....................................................647

Adding captions to on-demand subreports........................................647

Showing different views of the same data in a report..............................649

Understanding Databases 651Chapter 25

Databases overview................................................................................652

Relational database basics................................................................652

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 21

Contents

Aliases ...............................................................................................654

Locating files......................................................................................655

Indexed tables....................................................................................656

Linking tables...........................................................................................659

Link from and link to...........................................................................659

Link relationships................................................................................659

Performance considerations in one-to-many links.............................660

Data file considerations......................................................................664

SQL database considerations............................................................666

Performance considerations for all reports........................................667

The Database Expert Links tab..........................................................670

Linking indexed tables........................................................................670

Link processing order.........................................................................671

Linking options...................................................................................672

Using SQL and SQL databases..............................................................689

What is SQL?.....................................................................................690

SQL DBMS.........................................................................................692

How does Crystal Reports use SQL? ...............................................694

The SQL language.............................................................................694

Server-side processing............................................................................697

How server-side grouping affects the SQL query..............................699

Mapping database fields..........................................................................700

About the Map Fields dialog box........................................................700

Remapping processes........................................................................701

Remapping altered database fields....................................................703

Saved Data Indexes................................................................................705

How Report Indexing works...............................................................705

Considerations for using Saved Data Indexes...................................706

Indexing the right field(s)....................................................................706

Unicode support in Crystal Reports.........................................................707

For additional information........................................................................707

22 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

Contents

Accessing Data Sources 709Chapter 26

Introduction..............................................................................................710

Six types of data.................................................................................710

Direct access database files ...................................................................711

Advantages........................................................................................711

Disadvantages....................................................................................712

Three layers.......................................................................................712

Common database formats................................................................713

ODBC data sources ................................................................................724

Advantages........................................................................................725

Disadvantages....................................................................................725

Five layers..........................................................................................726

Installing database clients..................................................................729

To ensure correct ODBC DSN configuration......................................729

Common ODBC database formats....................................................730

JDBC data sources .................................................................................733

JNDI ..................................................................................................734

Five layers..........................................................................................734

Supported JDBC database formats...................................................736

Configuring the Crystal Reports JDBC driver.....................................736

Business Objects universes....................................................................737

Business Views........................................................................................738

Crystal SQL Designer files.......................................................................739

Crystal Dictionary files.............................................................................740

Report Processing Model 741Appendix A

Overview .................................................................................................742

What is a "pass"? ..............................................................................742

Pre-pass 1..........................................................................................742

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 23

Contents

Pass 1................................................................................................742

Pre-pass 2..........................................................................................743

Pass 2................................................................................................743

Pass 3................................................................................................744

Crystal Reports Error Messages 745Appendix B

Drive:\filename.extension........................................................................746

Drive:\test.rpt...........................................................................................746

Failed to load database connector..........................................................747

Failed to open the connection. Details: [Database Vendor Code: <vendor

code number>].........................................................................................747

Failed to retrieve data from the database. Details: [Database Vendor Code:

<vendor code number>]...........................................................................748

Creating Accessible Reports 751Appendix C

About accessibility ..................................................................................752

Benefits of accessible reports............................................................752

About the accessibility guidelines......................................................754

Accessibility and Business Objects products.....................................755

Improving report accessibility..................................................................755

Placing objects in reports...................................................................756

Text.....................................................................................................758

Color...................................................................................................762

Navigation..........................................................................................764

Parameter fields.................................................................................764

Designing for flexibility.............................................................................765

Accessibility and conditional formatting.............................................766

Accessibility and suppressing sections..............................................767

Accessibility and subreports...............................................................768

Improving data table accessibility............................................................769

Text objects and data table values.....................................................769

24 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

Contents

Other data table design considerations..............................................775

Accessibility and BusinessObjects Enterprise.........................................776

Setting accessible preferences for BusinessObjects Enterprise........777

Accessibility and customization...............................................................777

Resources................................................................................................779

Get More Help 781Appendix D

Index 785

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 25

Contents

26 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

Introduction to Crystal Reports 2008

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.

28 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

Introduction to Crystal Reports 2008

About the Crystal Reports documentation

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.

About the Crystal Reports documentation

The Crystal Reports documentation 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 the documentation as a reference for your basic reporting needs as well as an introduction to new concepts in report creation.

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.

• Access a PDF version of the Crystal Reports documentation online at

http://support.businessobjects.com/documentation.

The PDF version contains a subset of the topics found in the online help, along with additional sections—such as a Quick Start—that can help you learn Crystal Reports.

Sample Reports

Many topics in the Crystal Reports documentation 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 on the Business Objects Technical Support web site http://support.businessobjects.com/samples/.

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 29

Introduction to Crystal Reports 2008

About the Crystal Reports documentation

30 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

What's New in Crystal Reports 2008

Introduction

Creating and delivering information-rich reports with compelling visualization.

Crystal Reports is an intuitive reporting solution that helps customers create flexible, feature-rich, and dependable reports, and tightly integrate them into both thick and thin client applications.

The Crystal Reports solution consists of these features:

• Powerful report designer

Report authors benefit from a complete set of layout and design controls to create highly formatted, interactive, and professional looking reports. Use the standalone designer, or the design tool integrated within Visual Studio, without leaving the development environment.

• Flexible application development

Developers can leverage cross-platform support for both Java and .NET development technologies. HTML is generated directly by Crystal Reports, allowing developers to focus on application business logic, rather than tedious, time-intensive hand coding. Separation of application development and report design tasks allow developers to focus on application development, while the report authors can focus on report design.

• Report management and delivery

Reports are easily previewed in HTML and published to the web for better business decisions at all levels of the organization. Reports can also be exported and repurposed to the electronic formats used by most end users, such as PDF, Excel, and RTF. IT can centralize the management of operational reporting while distributing the report authoring function out to the lines of business.

New Crystal Reports 2008 provides advanced functionality to help reduce report proliferation and maintenance, increase visualization flexibility, and save time with high-productivity design features.

The following is an overview of the new features in Crystal Reports 2008.

•

Advanced information visualization with Flash, Flex, and Xcelsius on

page 33

•

Improved end-user report viewing experience on page 34

•

Enhanced report designer productivity on page 34

32 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

What's New in Crystal Reports 2008

Introduction

•

New flexible deployment options on page 35

•

Flexible application integration on page 36

Advanced information visualization with Flash, Flex, and Xcelsius

Note: Flash features are available for viewing only in the .NET Winform and

Java DHTML viewers.

Adobe Flash integration

A wide variety of flexible data presentation options are available through Flash. Flash (SWF) files can now be integrated into your report, and report data can be shared with the SWF via Flashvars. This feature enables the creation of compelling, interactive, and information-rich reports. The SWF files can be embedded in the report or linked via a website.

Xcelsius integration

Deliver professional-looking reports with powerful decision-making support. Import Xcelsius-generated SWF files into your reports and benefit from improved design-time integration and stunning visualizations. Enhance your reports with what-if analysis models that enable users to make important decisions dynamically, without leaving the report file.

Adobe Flex integration

Integrate your reports with operational workflows by embedding Adobe Flex (SWF) applications into your reports. Using Adobe Flex Builder, you can create any business-user UI that accesses report data and also integrates with external web services. Data in your report can be passed to the Flex application via Flashvars, making it easy to create flexible UI even when you don't have web-services access to your data. The Flex applications can do tasks like database write-back and can invoke operational workflows directly within Crystal Reports.

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 33

What's New in Crystal Reports 2008

Introduction

Improved end-user report viewing experience

Interactive report viewing

Get more information out of your report. New on-report sorting, filtering, and report reformatting with the .NET Winform, Java DHTML and .NET Webform viewers let users explore information interactively without re-querying the database. New optional parameters enable complex, user-driven filtering scenarios. Users can answer more business questions with fewer, more flexible, reports thereby significantly reducing Developer and IT support.

Parameter Panel

The report designer and the .NET Winform, Java DHTML, and .NET Webform viewers now have a Parameter Panel that allows parameter values to be set without refreshing data. The report consumer can easily see the parameters used for a report on the panel, change them, and have the new values applied directly to the saved data.

Flexible pagination

New pagination features allow report designers to customize page size and easily control page breaking after N records/groups. A single report can combine portrait- and landscape-oriented pages, and the white space at the end of groups can be removed by compressing the page footers. These features improve the online report-consumption experience by making reports easier to read.

Enhanced report designer productivity

Powerful cross-tabs

Insert summary, variance, and any other custom calculation into a cross-tab row or column. Custom calculations makes cross-tabs more powerful than before and can be used in reports that benefit from a table structure—especially financial reports. The cross-tab table structure makes reports much faster to build and maintain. This feature also provides powerful

34 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

What's New in Crystal Reports 2008

Introduction

benefits to cross-tab-based charts, because custom formulas in the cross-tab can be visualized directly in the charts.

Built-in barcode support

Generate barcodes with only a few clicks of the mouse by using the new "Change To Barcode" function in the context menu. Easily convert fields to Code39 barcodes without coding and extra steps. Additional barcode fonts are available from third-party barcode vendors.

Enhanced designer features

Improved report designer productivity is provided with new features such as global formula search, duplicate formula, duplicate running total, auto-complete field names, and Find in Field Explorer.

Hyperlinking Wizard

The new Hyperlinking Wizard saves report designers valuable time by letting them automatically create the Crystal Reports formula to call a BusinessObjects Enterprise OpenDocument hyperlink.

Note: This feature is available only with a BusinessObjects Enterprise

Release 3 server environment.

New flexible deployment options

Save reports directly to crystalreports.com

Expand your deployment options with on-demand reporting capabilities when you open and save reports directly to crystalreports.com. This new integration allows you to manage and share your reports securely with no dependency on IT.

Improved XML exporting

Render reports in almost any industry-standard format. New XML export allows for faster and easier integration with your industry-specific business processes, without custom coding. The XSLT transformations are embedded into the report file and will be triggered by the report viewers when exporting

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 35

What's New in Crystal Reports 2008

Introduction

to XML. XML exports can now be invoked from within the report viewers. This feature provides a powerful, flexible hook for transforming Crystal Reports data and integrating it into other applications.

Advanced report publishing

Also known as report bursting, this new advanced-publishing feature is a platform for the mass distribution of personalized content. Multiple reports can be created based on different data sources, combined into one desired file format (for example, PDF), loaded with personalized content, and then sent to a dynamic list of recipients—all in one action. The content can be archived, printed, or emailed in separate actions, or simultaneously. This feature makes scheduling much faster and easier, and provides the ability to conduct cost effective one-on-one marketing campaigns and other personalized high-volume reporting.

Note: This feature is available only with a BusinessObjects Enterprise

Release 3 server environment.

Flexible application integration

Integrated salesforce.com driver

Now you can build reports that refresh against live salesforce.com data. The included salesforce.com driver is optimized for reporting off salesforce.com to easily access complete customer data and turn it into actionable business information. Reports that use the salesforce.com driver can refresh their data also when deployed to crystalreports.com.

Enhanced Web Services data driver

Integration with various web services can be difficult and complex due to a wide variety of implementation types. The new data driver offers additional web access to Web Services by providing support for RPC encoding of SOAP messages, SSL-secured Web Servers, as well as working compatibility with the WS-Security standard. It adapts to custom logon requirements such as email address or user/password.

36 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

.NET report-modification SDK now included

The Report Application Server SDK is now available to users of the CR.NET API without running a RAS server. Report modification such as changing/adding/removing database providers, adding/removing/creating report objects, parameters, formulas, and sections can be achieved by accessing the RAS SDK through the CR .NET SDK.

What's different

In an effort to improve the Crystal Reports design experience, certain components of Crystal Reports 2008 have been changed. This section outlines some of the important changes.

Report samples and sample database

To reduce download time, report samples and the Xtreme sample database are now accessed through separate downloads on the Start Page of Crystal Reports 2008.

What's New in Crystal Reports 2008

What's different

.NET Developer SDK documentation, Merge Modules, and MSI files

.NET Developer documentation, merge modules, and MSI files are now accessed through separate downloads on the Start Page of Crystal Reports

2008.

Report Developer Component (RDC)

The RDC is unsupported in Crystal Reports 2008. Developers wishing to use Crystal Reports in a COM application should use Crystal Reports XI Release 2. The ActiveX viewer remains a fully supported component of Crystal Reports 2008.

Advanced DHTML viewers

The Advanced DHTML viewers have been removed from Crystal Reports 2008 because the improvements to the DHTML viewers make these additional viewers unnecessary.

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 37

What's New in Crystal Reports 2008

What's different

Java Reporting Component (JRC) availability and Java SDK documentation

Java developers now receive the JRC and Java SDK documentation through the free Crystal Reports for Eclipse download. This product will be updated on a separate schedule from Crystal Reports. Visit the start page in Crystal Reports 2008 for more information on updates to Crystal Reports for Eclipse.

38 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Installation overview

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.

Note: Data-Direct ODBC driver installers are not included as part of the

Crystal Reports installer. Instead, you must download and run these installers separately.

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

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

•

Installation requirements on page 41

•

Installing Crystal Reports on a local machine on page 41

•

Creating an installation point and installing from a network server on

page 48

•

Customizing your installation on page 56

•

Running a silent installation on page 58

•

Setting custom banners on page 64

•

Upgrading Crystal Reports components on page 65

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.

40 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

Installation requirements

Minimum installation requirements

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Windows Vista

Installation requirements

Operating Systems

Computer/Processor

Memory

Disk space

Note: The Java components require a J2EE 1.6 compatible runtime, which

is automatically installed at the same time as Crystal Reports.

Windows XP Professional SP2

Windows 2003 Server

450 MHz or higher Pentium-compatible CPU

At least 128 megabytes (MB) of RAM. 256 MB recommended. 4 gigabytes (GB) maximum

1.0 gigabyte minimum. 1.5 gigabytes recommended

CD-ROM or DVD driveDrive

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 on page 41 above), you must have Administrator privileges. The installation process creates registry entries and may update some system files that require Administrator rights.

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 41

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Installing Crystal Reports on a local machine

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 56.

To install on a local machine

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

the win32_x86 directory of your product distribution.

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. Indicate whether or not you want to create a log file during installation (it

is enabled by default ).

4. Click OK.

The Welcome dialog box appears, indicating that the installation wizard has started.

42 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Installing Crystal Reports on a local machine

5. Click Next.

The License Agreement dialog box appears.

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 43

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Installing Crystal Reports on a local machine

6. Read and accept the License Agreement to proceed with the installation,

then click Next. The User Information dialog box appears.

44 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Installing Crystal Reports on a local machine

7. Type your name, organization, and the product activation keycode.

8. Click Next.

The Select Installation Type dialog box appears.

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 45

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Installing Crystal Reports on a local machine

9. 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 56.

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

from the default location.

The default location for Crystal Reports is C:\Program Files\Business

Objects\

11. Click Next.

The Choose Language Packs dialog box appears.

46 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Installing Crystal Reports on a local machine

12. Choose any of the language packs you want to install from the list.

13. Click Next.

The Start Installation dialog box appears.

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 47

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Creating an installation point and installing from a network server

Note: If you install Crystal Reports in Custom Installation Mode 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.

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

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 49.

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 49.

48 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Creating an installation point and installing from a network server

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.

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 41), 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.

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 49

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Creating an installation point and installing from a network server

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. If this happens, 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. Indicate whether or not you want to create a log file during installation (it

is enabled by default ).

5. Click OK.

The Welcome dialog box appears, indicating that the installation wizard has started.

50 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Creating an installation point and installing from a network server

6. Click Next.

The License Agreement dialog box appears.

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 51

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Creating an installation point and installing from a network server

7. Read and accept the License Agreement to proceed with the installation,

then click Next. The User Information dialog box appears.

52 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Creating an installation point and installing from a network server

8. Type your name, organization, and the product activation keycode.

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

keycode.

9. Click Next.

The Select Installation Type dialog box appears.

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 53

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Creating an installation point and installing from a network server

10. 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 56.

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

from the default location.

The default location for Crystal Reports is C:\Program Files\Business

Objects\

12. Click Next.

The Choose Language Packs dialog box appears.

54 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Creating an installation point and installing from a network server

13. Choose any of the language packs you want to install from the list.

14. Click Next.

The Start Installation dialog box appears.

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 55

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Customizing your installation

Note: If you install Crystal Reports in Custom Installation Mode on a

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

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.

56 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

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 2008 User's Guide 57

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Running a silent installation

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

Will be installed on local hard drive

Entire feature will be installed on local hard drive

Feature will be installed when required

Description of what is installedType of feature installation

•

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 subfea-

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.

tures are installed.

Running a silent installation

A silent installation is one that you can run either from the command line or by use of a response file to automatically install Crystal Reports on any machine in your system, without the installation program prompting for information during the installation.

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

58 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Running a silent installation

to install software on machines, you can add the silent Crystal Reports installation command to your scripts.

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.

Command line silent installation

The silent installation command consists of the command setup.exe, followed by a number of parameters that provide information about the installation. The following example creates a sub-directory /Crystal Reports and installs Crystal Reports into it:

setup.exe ADDLOCAL=ALL CLIENTLANGUAGE=<%langcode%> REBOOT=Re allySuppress PIDKEY=<%keycode%> INSTALLDIR="C:\Program Files\Business Objects" /qn

•

<%langcode%> Replace this variable with a valid language code from the following table.

•

<%keycode%> Replace this variable with a valid product activation 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 command-line 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.

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 59

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Running a silent installation

CLIENTLANGUAGE=

DescriptionInstallation parameter

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 Italian, enter IT.

•

For Korean, enter KO.

60 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

•

For Dutch, enter NL.

•

For Portuguese (Brazilian), enter PT.

•

For Swahili, enter SW.

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"

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Running a silent installation

DescriptionInstallation parameter

Specifies the machine and directory where you want to create the Crystal Reports sub-directory, Crystal Re-

ports and install Crystal Reports in-

to. Replace filepath with the path where to create the installation subdirectory. For example, setting filepath to, C:\Program

Files\Business Objects would

create the path, C:\Program

Files\Business Objects\Crystal Reports\ and install the files there.

PIDKEY=00000-0000000-00000000000

REBOOT=ReallySuppress

/qn+

/qn

Specifies your product activation keycode.

Prevents Crystal Reports from prompting the user to reboot the machine.

Performs the installation silently, but prompts the user when the installation is complete.

Performs the installation silently, without prompting the user.

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 61

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Running a silent installation

DescriptionInstallation parameter

Specifies a list of features, delimited by commas, that you want to install.

For example, ADDLOCAL=ALL

ADDLOCAL

EXCLUDEDOTNETFILES

A silent install log file is created in the %TEMP% folder to capture all placeholder DLL errors. If the installation is successful, it is copied to the logging folder. If the installation fails for any reason, the installation log file remains in the %TEMP% folder.

Note: When using any of the EX-

CLUDE parameters in this table, you must also use ADDLOCAL.

For example, ADDLOCAL=ALL EXCLUDEJAVAFILES =1

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.

Response file silent installation

During an installation, you can optionally indicate that you want the installer to create an INI file to act as a response file during subsequent installs. The installer then records the installation options you select as you install Crystal Reports, and saves the file to disk.

The created INI file can be read by the installer to silently install Crystal Reports with the same options specified during the creation of the file. This

62 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Running a silent installation

is helpful for quickly producing a Silent Installation of Crystal Reports without having to figure out complicated command-line parameters.

Once created during an installation, the INI response file must be included with the set of Crystal Reports installation files.

The following table lists the parameters used to create and use an INI response file for silent installation. To use a parameter, place it on the command line after the setup.exe command.

DescriptionInstallation parameter

Creates an INI response file at the path specified by filepath.

-w "filepath"

-r "filepath"

Note: You can follow all the steps of

the installation up to the final dialog in the sequence, then cancel the installation. This creates the INI response file without installing Crystal Reports.

Reads the INI response file at the path specified by filepath, and installs Crystal Reports based on the settings in the file.

Note: In the INI response file, there is

a section "others". Set the key to /qb to perform an install with a progress meter. Set the key to /qa to perform a completely silent install.

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 63

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Setting custom banners

DescriptionInstallation parameter

To be used with the -r parameter. Creates a silent install log file at the path specified by filepath.

-l "filepath"

Setting custom banners

The installer can be configured to display customized or re-branded banners along the top and as the background of the Crystal Reports installer. Typically, this functionality is intended only for partners who have signed agreements with Business Objects.

In order to use custom banners, find the directory where the MSI installer is located. Create a sub-directory called res and copy your banner images to it:

top.bmp

If this parameter is not set, the default location for the creation of the silent install log file is the %TEMP% folder.

This log captures all the placeholder DLL errors.

DescriptionImage filename

Banner that is shown along the top of the installation window.

Size: 500 x 59 pixels

full.bmp

64 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

Banner that is shown as the backdrop for the installation window.

Size: 1024 x 768 pixels

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Upgrading Crystal Reports components

Both images must be Windows bitmap format.

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 2008 side-by-side installation is supported when

upgrading from Crystal Reports XI R2 , Crystal Reports XI,Crystal Reports 10, or Crystal Reports 9.

This side-by-side behavior applies to Crystal Reports and the various Software Development Kits (SDKs). Crystal Reports 2008 for Visual Studio .NET can be used in side-by-side mode at runtime (that is, applications written using Crystal Reports XI R2 or Crystal Reports 10 for Visual Studio .NET will continue to run with Crystal Reports XI R2 or 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.

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

consult the Release Notes included with your product distribution (re

lease_en.pdf).

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Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Upgrading Crystal Reports components

66 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

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 section:

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

Crystal Reports.

You will find the sample reports and sample database for Crystal Reports at the Business Objects Technical Support web site:

http://support.businessobjects.com/samples/

•

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

for new users on page 70.

•

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

for advanced users on page 95—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 section and consult the other methods as you need them.

Sample data - Xtreme.mdb

A sample database, Xtreme.mdb, is available for you to use while you are learning Crystal Reports. 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 located on the Business Objects Technical Support web site

http://support.businessobjects.com/samples/.

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

68 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

to keep the tutorials and examples focused on reporting, not on data manipulation.

Report Creation Wizards

The tutorials in this section 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 on page 69

•

Cross-Tab on page 70

•

Mailing Label on page 70

•

OLAP on page 70

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.

Quick Start

Report Creation Wizards

Standard

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.

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Quick Start

Quick start for new users

Cross-Tab

Mailing Label

OLAP

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

70 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

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

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

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.

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 295, 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.

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 71

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

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.

Selecting a database to use

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

The Xtreme.mdb file is located on the Business Objects Technical Support web site http://support.businessobjects.com/samples/.

Copy Xtreme.mdb to a location on your machine that you can access for the 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.

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.

72 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

2. Expand the Tables 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.

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

explorers on page 152.

Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide 73

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

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 119.

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:

To show short section names

1. On the File menu, click Options.

The Options dialog box appears with the Layout tab active.

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.

74 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

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

To insert a field

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

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

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

expand a table.

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.

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Quick Start

Quick start for new users

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.

76 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

• The line spacing is adjusted to the point size selected for the characters

in the field.

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.

To add additional fields

1. Highlight the City field in the Field Explorer dialog box, press the Ctrl key

on 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.

2. Drag the fields to place them.

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

As the cursor is moved over the report, an object frame appears along with the Arrow cursor.

3. Place the fields to the right of the Customer Name field.

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.

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Quick Start

Quick start for new users

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.

Reviewing your work

Now let's see how the report looks with three fields placed and positioned.

tab.

Click Print Preview on the Standard toolbar to activate the Preview

The screen should look similar to this:

78 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

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.

Displaying field names

Field pictures (object frames containing character representations) have been discussed, but there may be times when you want to see the field names in the Design tab.

To display field names

1. On the File menu, click Options.

The Options dialog box appears with the Layout tab active.

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

2. Select the Show Field Names check box and click OK.

Now in the Design tab you will see the actual field names instead of character representations (X, $, #, and so on).

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

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.

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Quick Start

Quick start for new users

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 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:

80 Crystal Reports 2008 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.

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

To add summary information

1. On the File menu, click Summary Info.

The Document Properties dialog box appears with the Summary tab active.

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Quick Start

Quick start for new users

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.

Adding a title

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.

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.

82 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

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.

Formatting objects

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.

Quick Start

Quick start for new users

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.

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Quick Start

Quick start for new users

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

2. Insert the text object in the Page Header section directly above the

Contact Name field.

Name into the text object.

4. Click your cursor outside the text object.

Click Insert Text Object on the Insert Tools toolbar.

Click Underline on the Formatting toolbar, and then type Contact

The Contact Name field now has a heading that looks just like the other field titles.

Saving the report

Click Save on the Standard toolbar to save your work.

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.

84 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

Quick start for new users

2. Type Custlist.rpt in the File name box and click Save.

Your report is saved to the default directory or another directory you chose.

3. Click the Preview tab to view the report.

The report should now look similar to the following:

Quick Start

Congratulations! You have just created a basic listing report. You will continue to refine this report throughout the rest of this tutorial.

Record Selection

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.

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Quick Start

Quick start for new users

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.

Click Select Expert on the Expert Tools toolbar.

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.

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Quick Start

Quick start for new users

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.

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.

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Deleting a field

To delete a field

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.

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:

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

88 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

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.

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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

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.

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Quick Start

Quick start for new users

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.

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 on page 125.

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 215.

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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

While on the Preview tab, click Record Sort Expert on the Expert

Tools toolbar.

The Record Sort Expert appears.

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Quick Start

Quick start for new users

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.

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.

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Quick Start

Quick start for new users

To insert a company logo

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.

While on the Design tab, click Insert Picture on the Insert Tools

The final report should look something like this (with the logo that you chose in step 2):

5. Save the report by clicking Save on the Standard toolbar.

94 Crystal Reports 2008 User's Guide

You have just completed your first report.

For more information

• For information about distributing reports (printing, exporting, and so on)

see the printing topics in Formatting on page 295 and Printing, Exporting,

and Viewing Reports on page 503.

Quick start for advanced users

If you are an experienced Windows user who wants to get right into the program, follow these steps to set up a report for the first time.

If you're not an experienced user, check the Quick start for new users on page 70.

Choosing a report type and data source

Quick Start

Quick start for advanced users

1. In Windows, click Start > Programs > BusinessObjects XI Release 3

> Crystal Reports, and then select Crystal Reports 2008.

2. Click Blank Report to open the Database Expert dialog box.

As an alternative to creating a blank report, you can choose one of four Report Creation Wizards.

After choosing a wizard, you can build your report on a variety of data sources.

3. Browse through the contents of the Database Expert to find the data

source you want to use for your report.

4. Select a table you want to use in your report and click the > arrow to add

it to the Selected Tables list.

5. After you have added all the tables you want to work with, click OK on

the Database Expert.

Note: If you select more than one table in the Database Expert dialog

box, the Links tab appears. For more information on linking, see Linking

multiple tables on page 131.

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Quick start for advanced users

The Design tab appears with Report Header, Page Header, Details, Page Footer, and Report Footer areas. A report is created by inserting and formatting items in each of these areas.

Note: To use additional database tables for a report and match them up

on a record-by-record basis, click Database Expert on the Expert Tools toolbar, select the table(s), and then set up the links on the Links tab when it appears.

Working with report elements on the Design tab

Each of the default report areas contains a single section. To add additional sections, click Section Expert on the Expert Tools toolbar and use the Section Expert to add the desired sections.

Once you have added sections to an area, you can move, merge, and delete them in the Section Expert. See Designing with guidelines on page 318.

2. To turn the grid on or off, choose the Options command from the File

menu and select or clear the Grid check box in the Design View area of the Layout tab when the Options dialog box appears. See Using the grid on page 316.

3. If you are working with the grid off and you want to use snap-to guidelines

for positioning objects, click the top or left ruler wherever you want guidelines to appear.

Some further ways you can use guidelines:

• Drag a field to a guideline until it snaps to the guideline.

• Drag the guideline arrow to move the guideline (and any objects that

are snapped to it).

• Drag the guideline arrow away from the ruler to remove the guideline.

See Designing with guidelines on page 318.

If the Field Explorer dialog box is not visible, click Field Explorer on the Standard toolbar.

Expand the Database Fields node to display a list of fields. To speed the entry of multiple fields, this box will remain on-screen until you close it.

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This dialog box can be moved to a new location or resized, if you wish. See Placing data on the report on page 133.

5. Select the field(s) you want to appear on the report.

You can select and place them one at a time, or use the Shift-click combination to select a number of contiguous fields, or the Ctrl-click combination to select fields from the list at random. Drag and drop is also active. Place the fields in the Details section where you want them to appear.

When you place multiple fields, they appear in the same order that they appear in the Field Explorer dialog box. The program marks the position of each field with a rectangular frame. The characters in the frame indicate whether the field is text (XXX...), number (555...), currency ($555...), date (12/31/99), time (00:00:00), DateTime (12/31/99 00:00:00), or Boolean (T/F).

Note:

• The field names and field types can be viewed by selecting the Show

Field Names check box on in the Options dialog box (Layout tab).

• The program automatically places field titles in the Page Header

section unless the Insert Detail Field Headings check box is not selected in the Options dialog box (Layout tab).

• If additional Details sections are added to the report, field titles will

only be placed in the Page Header section for fields in the Details A (the original) section of your report.

6. Once the objects are in place, you may want to adjust the report sections.

To do this, right-click the shaded area to the left of the section ruler and use the shortcut menu that appears:

• To expand a section to accommodate an additional line, choose the

Insert Line command.

• To have the program automatically align the objects in the section

horizontally, choose the Arrange Lines command.

• To reduce the size of a section to eliminate unnecessary white space

above and below objects, choose the Fit Section command. See Using

white space between rows on page 346.

7. To generate a report title, you must first enter the title in the Document

Properties dialog box. On the File menu, click Summary Info. Enter a title in the Title text box of the Document Properties dialog box. Click OK.

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8. Choose Report Title from the Special Fields list in the Field Explorer. A

rectangular placement frame appears when you move the cursor over your report. Click once in the Report Header (RH) section to place the report title. The report title field contains the text that you typed in the Title text box of the Document Properties dialog box. See Adding a title

page to the report on page 144.

To see how the results will print, click Print Preview on the Standard

toolbar.

To speed processing time while building a report, you can preview the report using only a small subset of the available data. To do this, go to the File menu, point to Print and then click Preview Sample. See Preview

tab on page 124.

In either case, the program takes you to the Preview tab. You can fine-tune a report in the Preview tab while viewing the results as actual report data. You can also close the Preview tab and continue working on the report in the Design tab.

Using other reporting features

1. If you want to format a field, change the placement or width of a field, or

insert a summary, click the field to select it. Handles appear on the top, bottom, and sides of each selected field:

• To change the placement of the field(s), use the mouse to drag the

field placement frame to its new position.

• To change the width of the field, use the mouse to drag the right or

left handle.

• Right-click the field to format or to summarize it. A shortcut menu

appears listing commands for formatting and summarizing the field.

Tip: Many font and formatting options are available on the formatting

toolbar.

Note: To apply formatting only under certain conditions, click

Conditional Formula next to the formatting property in the Format Editor, and create a formula that defines those conditions. See Working with

conditional formatting on page 349.

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2. To create a formula that makes data calculations or comparisons, select

Formula Fields in the Field Explorer.

Note: You can also click Formula Workshop on the Expert Tools

toolbar to work with formulas, custom functions, SQL expressions, and so on.

Click New. The Formula Name dialog box appears. Enter a name for the formula and click OK. The Formula Workshop appears with the Formula Editor active.

5. When you are finished editing, click Save and close to return to the Field

Enter the formula in the Formula Editor. Enter fields, operators, and functions by selecting them from their respective lists or by typing them in. You can check the formula syntax by clicking Check.

Explorer dialog box.

Click Insert to Report to place the formula just like you would a

database field. See Using Formulas on page 551.

To insert a subreport (a report within a report), click Insert Subreport on the Insert Tools toolbar and choose an existing report to import as a subreport or use the Report Creation Wizard to create a new subreport. See Inserting subreports on page 637.

If you want the records in a subreport to match up with the records in a primary report, click the Link tab of the Insert Subreport dialog box and specify the link when the tab appears.

To insert a cross-tab object in a report, click Insert Cross-Tab on the Insert Tools toolbar and set up the cross-tab in the Cross-Tab Expert when it appears. See Cross-Tab Objects on page 427.

To create a parameter field (a field that prompts you for a value whenever you retrieve data for a report), click Field Explorer on the Standard toolbar, then select Parameter Fields in the Field Explorer dialog box when it appears. Click New to set up a parameter field. Once created, you can insert the parameter field in a report like a database field or select it from the Fields list in the Formula Workshop.

Parameter fields can be used in reports (as title or label prompts), in selection formulas (as selection criteria prompts), and in formulas (for a

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variety of purposes including specifying sort fields). See Parameter Fields

and Prompts on page 583.

10.

11.

12. To insert a spreadsheet, picture, or other OLE object that you can edit

13.

14.

15.

To add a chart, click Insert Chart on the Insert Tools toolbar. See

Charting on page 367.

To add a map, click Insert Map on the Insert Tools toolbar. See

Mapping on page 389.

from within the Report Designer using the tools from the object's native application, choose OLE Object from the Insert menu. See OLE on page 411, and Working with static OLE objects on page 417.

To change the record sort order, click Record Sort Expert on the Expert Tools toolbar. The Record Sort Expert appears. Highlight the field(s) you want to use for sorting the report data and the sort direction. See Sorting single and multiple fields on page 219.

To limit the report to specific records (for example, the records of California customers who have year-to-date sales greater than $10,000), click the first field on which you want your selection to be based and then click Select Expert on the Expert Tools toolbar. When the Select Expert appears, set up the record selection criteria.

To print the report, click Print on the Standard toolbar.

That's it! It is that easy to build a report.

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SAP CRYSTAL REPORTS 2008 User Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual

Contents

Introduction to Crystal Reports 2008

About Crystal Reports

About the Crystal Reports documentation

Locate information quickly

Sample Reports

What's New in Crystal Reports 2008

Introduction

Advanced information visualization with Flash, Flex, and Xcelsius

Improved end-user report viewing experience

Enhanced report designer productivity

New flexible deployment options

Flexible application integration

What's different

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Installing Crystal Reports 2008

Installation overview

Installation requirements

Installing Crystal Reports on a local machine

To install on a local machine

Creating an installation point and installing from a network server

Creating an installation point for Crystal Reports

To create an installation point

Installing Crystal Reports from a network

To install Crystal Reports from a network

Customizing your installation

Running a silent installation

Setting custom banners

Upgrading Crystal Reports components

Quick Start

Learning how to use Crystal Reports

Sample data - Xtreme.mdb

Report Creation Wizards

Standard

Quick start for new users

Cross-Tab

Mailing Label

OLAP

Before you begin

Creating the report

Selecting a database to use

To select a database

Report sections

To show short section names

Inserting a field

To insert a field

Understanding fields

Adding additional fields

To add additional fields

Selecting fields

Resizing fields

Reviewing your work

Displaying field names

To display field names

Combining database fields in a text object

To combine fields in a text object

Adding summary information

To add summary information

Adding a title

To add a title

Formatting objects

To format an object

Adding a field heading

To add a field heading

Saving the report

Record Selection

Entering the selection criteria

To enter selection criteria

Deleting a field

To delete a field

Balancing field spacing

To balance field spacing

Grouping and sorting

Grouping the report

To group a report

Understanding "live" group headers