Crystal Reports Training by Ken Hamady, MS, Reporting
and Training Nationwide
The
Crystal Reports Underground News - Volume 2003.07 (July 2003)
an independent source
for Crystal Reports Information by Ken Hamady
Contents for July, 2003:
**
CR
Advanced Free Trial
** Shopping Around for Crystal Services and Software
** "Awesome Teacher"
** San Francisco Bay Area User group meeting this week:
** Crystal Passage includes Email
** The Expert's Guide to Crystal Reports Formulas
** Charting Enhancements by 3D Graphics
** Crystal Ease 3
** Using "Unlisted" Functions in SQL Expressions
** "..solved my problem within 2 minutes"
** Read back issues at http://www.kenhamady.com/news.html
CR Advanced Free Trial:
You
might
not notice this on the CD website, but Crystal Decisions is offering a
30-day
free trial download for CR 9 Advanced. If you are willing to give
them
your contact information, you can register and download the Advanced
Edition
of CRv9 and they will Email you a keycode to allow the install.
Note
that they won't send it to a Yahoo or Hotmail email
addresses.
Since the link is not very prominent on the CD web site, you can use
the direct
link on the LINKS page of my website (near the bottom).
Shopping Around for Crystal Reports Services and Software:
Of
course,
once you provide all of your contact information you will begin to
receive
offers for very expensive training, consulting and support. If
you consider
one of their offers, make sure you get the name and experience of the
actual
instructor. Then call me to compare notes and prices. I
think
you will be amazed.
Even when you decide to purchase the software, you should shop around
first.
You easily can save 15% or more by getting the product from a web
retailer
like Atomic Park, Programmer's Paradise or CDW. Atomic Park
consistently
has the lowest prices on Crystal products. And CDW even sells the
big-ticket
items like processor licenses and maintenance. Below is a chart
showing
the prices for CRv9 Advanced, Developer and Professional
Editions. The
first column is list price directly from Crystal Decisions and the
other columns
are the three retailers I mentioned above. The U rows provide
upgrade
pricing. You can use upgrade pricing if you own any prior version
of
any edition of Crystal Reports, including an OEM license.
Price Comparison July 2003:
|
CD
|
AP
|
PP
|
CDW
|
9 Adv
|
1995
|
1626
|
1729
|
1809
|
| 9 Adv U |
1645
|
1376
|
1485
|
1536
|
| 9 Dev |
595
|
479
|
519
|
530
|
| 9 Dev U |
315
|
270
|
283
|
289
|
9 Pro
|
495
|
397
|
432
|
447
|
9 Pro U
|
255
|
216
|
227
|
238
|
"Awesome Teacher" - Marcus D, Advanced Class June 2003:
I
don't
have any unhappy customers. If you want to take one of my classes
in
Frederick, MD or Leesburg, VA you can use the site below to review
dates,
course outlines and registration info:
http://www.kenhamady.com/public.html
Or better yet - schedule a private class at your office, with your
data.
This is my favorite way to teach, and I charge about half of what
Crystal
charges for on-site classes. I have personally taught over 1500
satisfied
students from Tampa to Anchorage so don't assume that you are too far
away.
Call for more information at (540) 338-0194.
San Francisco Bay Area User group meeting this week:
If
you
live in the Bay area and don't have firm plans for Wednesday afternoon
there
is a UG meeting on July 16, 2003. It is scheduled from 12:45 p.m.
to
5 p.m at the Concord Senior Center in Concord (East Bay). The
meeting
is going to launch a Customer Advocacy Forum to channel enhancement
requests
to the engineers at CD. Come if you want to participate.
For other
topics and directions see:
http://www.cdugna.org/regional_user_group/bayarea/meeting_6_16_03.htm
Crystal Passage Now Includes Email Export Capabilities:
It's
time
to play "choke the web server". There are about a dozen Crystal
Reports
viewer programs out there that vary widely in cost. There is only
one
that is free - Crystal Passage. It has some limitations and
disclaimers,
but you can't argue with the price. Crystal Passage was released
as
shareware a few months ago by Kevin Groff and it has been a popular
download.
Each time I mention it we exceed the allowed transfer rate of the host
site,
causing Kevin to move the files. So, if you have trouble reaching
the
server, check my LINKS page again in a few days to see if the link has
been
moved.
This month Kevin has added the Email export destination to the program,
allowing
you to attach your exported file directly to an Email message.
See my
LINKS page for more info.
The Expert's Guide to Crystal Reports Formulas:
Learn
to write and understand formulas like a Pro with "The Expert's Guide to
Crystal
Reports Formulas". I take you from the basics all the way through
variables,
arrays and looping logic. I explain HOW, WHY and WHEN to use
these techniques
and provide tips and tricks that are rarely taught in classes.
The guide includes 28 annotated reports and 45 no-nonsense pages of
detailed
explanations. The cost is only $36 and you can download it
immediately
with most Credit Cards. For more details, visit my website at:
http://www.kenhamady.com/form00.html
Charting Enhancements - Special Price for My Readers:
I
learned
something interesting this month. The charting module in Crystal
Reports
v8 and v9 was developed by an external company. Not only that,
but this
company also does the charting modules for Business Objects, Cognos,
MicroStrategy
and several other companies. The developer, Three D Graphics in
Los
Angeles, also does customizations for companies who want to expand or
modify
the default charting library in their Crystal Reports.
In August, Three D Graphics plans to release an enhanced version of the
Crystal
Reports charting DLL (SSCSDK80.DLL) which will provide additional
features
and chart types to the Crystal library. It will be fully
compatible
with versions 8, 8.5 and 9. You can contact them for more details
on
the features to be included. Mention my name in August and
receive $50
off the Single User edition or $100 off the other 3 editions.
Prices
are:
Single User $199
Corporate Edition (2 developers and 20 viewers that have CR) $399
Developer Edition (2 developers and runtime) $399
Enterprise Edition (2 developers and 1 Crystal Enterprise server): $399
See my LINKS page for more information.
Crystal Ease 3:
Surfing
Gecko software (who wins my "Most Memorable Company Name" award) has
released
a new version of their report viewer, Crystal Ease 3. The new
version
adds support for version 9 report files (along with prior versions) and
supports
Crystal Dictionaries, SQL Queries and Java Bean Classes. The
price is
the same as the original Crystal Ease, starting at $99 for 10
seats.
You can download a trial version for free. See my web site's
LINKS page
for download information.
Using "Unlisted" Functions in SQL Expressions:
Those
of you that have tried adding SQL Expressions to your reports might
have been
discouraged by the short list of functions listed in the SQL Expression
Editor.
You might be surprised to find out that this function list is not a
complete
list of available functions. You can actually use any function
that
is accepted by the ODBC/SQL driver and the target database. The
following
functions tested fine in CRv8.5 connected to Microsoft Access via ODBC:
IIF()
CStr()
VAL()
None of these functions are listed in the SQL Expression Editor.
By
putting these functions into a SQL Expressions (as opposed to a formula
field)
you may notice that the report processes faster, maybe significantly
faster.
This is especially true when you are using the expression as a
criteria.
The downside is that you get very little assistance from Crystal
Reports when
writing SQL expressions. The error messages come back from the
database
and can be quite cryptic. You also have to be careful if you try
to
convert the report to a different driver, because the SQL syntax has
more
variations. If you want to learn more about using SQL Expressions
in
reports, drop me a line.
"..solved my problem within 2 minutes..":
Two
recent
comments from purchasers of my VB Quick Reference Guide:
"..solved my problem within 2 minutes of opening the reference. I
was at
my wits end. I have to admit that I was skeptical and all ready
to
say hey I want my $16 back, but I am very satisfied with the material."
Aileen H. - July 2003
"I trawled through 4 different VB6 Bibles and guides without finding
a
solution that I could understand. I finally gave in and
downloaded
your 'Quick Reference Guide to Crystal Reports in VB' and within 2
hours had
the solution working and installed. Thanks for writing a
worthwhile
document, well worth the $16".
Simon L. - July 2003
For a clear and simple guide to Crystal Reports in Visual Basic go
to:
http://www.kenhamady.com/vbref.html
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Contact Information
Ken Hamady, MS
525K East Market St. PMB 299
Leesburg, VA 20176
(540) 338-0194
ken@kenhamady.com
http://www.kenhamady.com
Copyright 2003 by Ken Hamady
All rights reserved - Republishing this material requires written
permission