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Crystal Reports 9 usage

To use Crystal Reports 9 (known as CR for rest of document) first start the

program.

Above is a screenshot of the crystal reports opening dialogue. This is pretty self-

explanatory. If you want to start a new report you should choose the Report Wizard

option, if you want to work on an existing report then open it with the open dialogue

halfway down the dialogue.

Next are the steps in creating a new report, using the report wizard.

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All reports can be created from the standard template. I.e. you can still make a cross-tab

report or a drill down report or drill-down report from a standard report. Go ahead and

click ok to move to the next screen.

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This is the connection dialogue. To work off of the JDS sql database, use a dsn to connect

to it, this is the easiest way of connecting right now, as it will allow the easiest way of

transferring the connection to the Tippecanoe sql connection when the time comes. Both

the jds and Tippecanoe fields in the database for jds.2go are set up the exact same way,so if you point the report you are working on to a dsn that points to the jds database, you

can just change what is in the dsn to point to the Tippecanoe server when the time comes

to deploy the reports. Currently there is a dsn that points to the jds database located in

/dev/reports/jdssql.dsn on the T drive.

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when you click on Create New Connection -> ODBC (RDO) this screen will show.

This is where you will point the report at the dsn. Click on the radio button by Find File

DSN and then navigate to the dsn that you want to use. Click next when you have

selected the correct dsn.

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Next you will have to put in the username and password to connect to the database. I am

not putting the current information for this in this document since it will be posted to the

web, but if you dont know these items then ask someone else on the team. NOTE: from

here on out I will be using a connection to a local mdb to demonstrate things because Iam not able to connect to the jds sql server from where I am. So the screenshots may look

slightly different from what you are looking at while working on a report, but the ideas

are the same.

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After you have made a connection, it will show in the list on the left. It will show you the

tables in the database and also the stored procedures. Queries that are storied in the

database will show up as tables. Here is where you need to know the data. What you need

to do is to select the tables that you need. With CR you need to be able to link all of thetables to a single table because CR does not support multiple starting locations. So if you

need to use multiple tables then always start by adding the main table that everything else

links from.

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go ahead and select the tables you want and they will be moved to the right side. Then

click the next button

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Now you need to link the tables. CR might try and auto link the tables, if this happens

then be sure you check the links to make sure that they are correct. What I like to do is to

erase all of the links and start over but putting in the correct links. To create a link click

and drag a field from one of the tables to the corresponding field in another table.

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This shows what a link looks like (NOTE remember that I am demonstrating from a

sample database so that is why the fields do not match up. Just remember that most of the

links will probably be mainID to mainID)

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After creating the links you will go to this screen. This is where you can select fields

from the tables that will be used in the report. Do not worry if you miss a field, as you

can add them in later, as well as other tables if need be. After selecting the fields I will

click on the finish button so that I can start working on the report. You could go aheadand do grouping, record selection, or choose a template, but I find it is easier to do these

things from the report editor instead. I will explain these later.

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After clicking finish, the report editor will show. The default view is the preview window

for the report. CR simply takes all of the fields and lists them across the top of the report

after you create a new report, so if you are using a lot of fields then everything will show

up very crowded together and the field sizes might be very small. Dont worry about thisas you now get to start building the report. One thing that is not shown on the default

view is the Field Explorer which I opened before taking the screenshot. To show the

Field Explorer go to View->Field Explorer. From here you can do a lot of things,

including add new fields to the report from the database and add Special Fields (things

like print date for the report, page number and things like that)

From here on out I suggest you go look at the sample report found at

/dev/report/sample1.rpt. It is a good example to look at. I will explain functions and

features that can be used when creating a report.

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Lets start here by explaining the parts of the report. This is the design window, to switch

between design and preview windows use the tabs near the top left of the page. First off,

lets look at the left side of the design window. You can see the Report Header, Page

Header, Details, Report Footer and Page Footer. The details section is probably the mainsection to worry about. This section will repeat for every record in the field list. If you

look at the sample report you can see how the details section is repeated over and over for

each record. You can even see the details section on the left side of the preview page (it

has a P by the details sections) The page header section will be shown on every page, as

will the page footer section. The page footer section is usually used to show things like

page number.

Now I will explain field types. There are 4 main field types. The first type are special

fields. These fields can be inserted from the field explorer. These fields include page

numbers, print date and print time and they act like database fields in that they can be

manipulated the same way. The second type are database fields. These are the fields thatwhen put in the details section will show the individual field values when previewed. The

third types are formula fields. Formula fields are very versatile, to create a formula field

use the field explorer and either right click on Formula Fields and go to new or left

click on Formula Fields and click on the new button at the top of the Field Explorer.

When you create a new formula you need to input a name then choose the Editor. Here

you can do a lot of things. In the Functions window you can use all sorts of different

functions to work with any formula that you are working on. Formulas are good for

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working with dates, any numerical formulas and they can be used with any of the

database field.

(you can do grouping on dates easier with the built in group function, but for this

example we will use a formula to show how formulas work)

For example, lets say we want to display all of the new clients in the past year and groupthem by month so that we can create a bar graph that shows the clients by month. I will

get into graphing, grouping and drilling down from a chart in a little bit. But to start this

sample report lets say we have a table with the clients entry date, main id, name and age

and we put all of these fields into the report. Lets start by creating a new formula field

that will output a 1, 2, 3. 12 based on the month of the clients entry date. So we create

a new formula called month. This is a simple formula which is basically

month({table.field}) (without the ). Formulas can be created with if-then-else

statements, they can output numbers, strings or Boolean values. Practice makes perfect

with these as you can do all kinds of things with formulas. Now that we have a field that

has a number we can create a group based on this formula field. But first we have to add

the formula field to the report, so you can just drag the formula field from the fieldexplorer list to the details section. This will result in the formula being calculated for each

record in the list. Now you can go to Insert-> group and create a grouping from this

formula field. Search for the formula field name and click ok. You will notice that a

Group Header and Footer are added to the report. You do not have to use these, but they

are nice if you want to show the group name or other information about the group.

Text fields are basically fields that you can put text into. You can also insert database

fields or formula fields in text fields so that the database fields appear in line with the text

For example lets say you want to put this at the bottom of every page: Page 1 of 10.

There are built in page and total page number special fields. We will show these as [Page

Number] and [Total Pages] Now we could create two text fields and line them all up like

this: [Page: ][Page Number][ of ][Total Pages]. Well if we have 100000 pages, page 1

will show: Page: 1 of 100000. If we put all of this inline by dragging the special

fields into one big text field it will show up as Page: 1 of 100000 and will dynamically

size as the pagenumber grows to include more space.

Record Selection:

You will not need to worry about record selection. JDS.2GO generates a selection

formula that is passed into CR which limits the records to only the ones needed/selected

by the user. If you need to do manual selection of records you can go to Report->Select

Expert and basically build a formula to limit the records that you use in the report.

A few other odds and ends:

The rulers will often show little arrows which basically point to the start of fields. I

cannot stand these arrows so I usually get rid of them by dragging them off the rulers and

they disappear. By default the fields will snap to the grid, but little arrows will overrule

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the snap to grid. So I usually get rid of the arrows and just use the grid, but do whatever

you find easiest.

One thing you should never do is to save data with the report. There is an option in the

File menu called Save Data With Report which will save a current snapshot of the data

with the report. This is bad! We want reports to contain up to date data, so if this option isnot used the report will go pull data every time the report is generated. So please do not

use this option!

Please fill out information about the report in File->Summary Info. This will help other

people understand what you did for the report, and it also allows you to use the values

you put in the Summary Info as special fields.