Advanced Crystal Reports Training

Outline

Refresher Exercise

• Review of Planning a Report
• Creating the Report
• Placing Fields on the Report
• Creating the Formulas
• Advanced Grouping
• Selecting Certain Records
• Helpful Hints for Formatting the Report
• Adding and Working with Text Objects
• Hiding and Suppressing Sections
• Guidelines

Power Formatting with Multiple Sections

• Using Multiple Sections in Reports
• Using the Section Expert to Work with Sections
• Conditionally Formatting Multiple Sections
• Challenge Exercise – Formatting with Multiple Sections
• Challenge Exercise – Conditionally Formatting Using DrillDownGroupLevel

Using the Running Totals Feature

• Understanding Running Totals
• Creating Running Totals for a List of Numbers
• Conditional Running Totals
• Challenge Exercise – Creating a Conditional Running Total

Prompting with Parameters

• Parameter Field Considerations
• Creating a Parameter Field
• Using a Parameter to Select Records
• Using a Parameter Field
• Using the Parameter Panel
• Creating a Dynamic Value List for Parameter Values
• Importing a Pick List
• Adding Parameter Values to Text Objects
• Allowing Multiple Values in Parameters
• Using Multiple Parameter Fields in Reports
• Specifying and Limiting a Range
• Using Parameters in Conditional Formatting

• Using an Edit Mask to Limit String Parameters
• Sorting with a Parameter
• Using a parameter to set N in a Top N Report
• Cascading Parameters
• Challenge Exercise – Using and Displaying Parameters

Using Advanced Formula Features

• Understanding How Crystal Reports Processes the Data
• What Is a Pass?
• Using Evaluation Time Functions
• Working with Variables
• Declaring a Variable
• Assigning a Value to a Variable
• Using a Variable in a Formula
• Variable Scope
• Separating Statements in Complex Formulas
• Working with Arrays
• Understanding the Evaluation Time Debugger
• Challenge Exercise – Understand and Set Up the YTD Comparison Report

Using Sub reporting as a Workaround Solution

• Understanding Sub reports
• Unlinked versus Linked Subreports
• Creating an Unlinked Sub report
• Linking a Subreport
• Database Links versus Subreports in One-to-Many Situations
• Formatting the Subreport
• Passing Data from the Main Report into a Subreport
• Creating On-Demand Subreports
• Creating Hyperlinks
• Using Subreports to Link "Unlinkable" Data
• Challenge Exercise – Creating Reports with Linked Subreports

Creating Powerful Groups

• Creating Custom Groups
• Customizing Group Sort Order
• Using Group Selection to Filter the Records in the Report
• Grouping on a Formula Field
• Grouping Hierarchically
• Challenge Exercise – Create Customized Grouping
• Challenge Exercise – Using Group Selection
• Challenge Exercise – Creating a Group

Working with Cross-Tab Reports

• Understanding How Cross-Tabs Affect Your Data
• Creating a Cross-Tab Report
• Creating a Cross- Tab with Multiple Rows or Columns
• Applying a Formatting Style to the Cross-Tab
• Customizing the Cross-Tab Format
• Changing Background Colors
• Formatting Individual Cells
• Changing the Summary Operation
• Suppressing Rows, Columns or Totals
• Repeating Row Heading for Multi-Page Cross-Tabs
• Using Alias Names for Column and Row Headings
• Charting Cross-Tabs
• Customizing Cross-Tab Group Names
• Using the CurrentFieldValue Function
• Challenge Exercise – Cross-Tab Reports

Report Alerts

• What are Report Alerts
• Creating Report Alerts
• Basing Report Formulas or Conditional Formatting on Report Alerts
• Creative Usage for Report Alerts
• Challenge Exercise – Using Report Alerts with Parameter