Advanced Crystal Reports XI Training

Outline

Lesson 1: Refresher Exercise

• Lesson Objectives
• 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

Lesson 2: Power Formatting with Multiple Sections

• Lesson Objectives
• 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
• Challenge Exercise – Conditionally Formatting Multiple Sections

Lesson 3: Using the Running Totals Feature

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

Lesson 4: Prompting with Parameters

• Lesson Objectives
• Parameter Fields Overview
• Parameter Field Considerations
• Creating a Parameter Field
• Using a Parameter to Select Records
• Using a Parameter Field
• 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 for a Parameter
• Using Parameters in Conditional Formatting
• Using an Edit Mask to Limit String Parameters
• Sorting with a Parameter
• Group Sorting with a Parameter
• Using a Parameter to set N in a Top N or Bottom N report
• Displaying Parameter Fields
• Cascading Parameter Fields
• Challenge Exercise – Using Parameters
• Challenge Exercise – Displaying Parameters

Lesson 5: Using Advanced Formula Features

• Lesson Objectives
• Understanding How Crystal Reports Processes the Data
• What Is a Pass?
• Pre-Pass#1
• Pass #1
• Pre-Pass #2
• Pass #2
• Pass #3
• 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 Formula Evaluation Time Debugger
• Challenge Exercise – Understand and Set Up the YTD Comparison Report
• Challenge Exercise – Declare Variables and Conditionally Assign Values to Them
• Challenge Exercise – Add a formula to YTD Comparison that divides by zero

Section 2: Using Power Tools to Create Advanced Reports

Lesson 6 Using Subreporting as a Workaround Solution

• Lesson Objectives
• Understanding Subreports
• Unlinked versus Linked Subreports
• Creating an Unlinked Subreport
• 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

Lesson 7: Creating Powerful Groups

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

Lesson 8: Working with Cross-Tab Reports

• Lesson Objectives
• 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
• CurrentFieldValue
• Challenge Exercise – Cross-Tab Reports

Lesson 9: Report Alerts

• Lesson Objectives
• What are Report Alerts
• Creating Report Alerts
• Basing Report Formulas or Conditional Formatting on Report Alerts  
• Creative Usage for Report Alerts

Lesson 10: Report Templates

• Lesson Objectives
• What is a Report Template
• Standard Report Creation Wizard and Templates
• The Template Expert
• Applying a Template and the consequences
• Template Considerations
• Creating Your Own Templates
• Inserting Template Fields
• Formatting Template Fields
• Giving Template Fields a Value