The Crystal Reports Underground News - Volume 2006.09 (September 2006)
an independent source for Crystal Reports Information by Ken Hamady
Contents for September, 2006:
** Visit the Crystal Reports Underground BLOG
** Deploy Crystal on the Web using RippleStone
** New Associate Trainers in Boston, Phoenix and Indianapolis:
** Crystal Reports for Eclipse Update:
** "Official" v8.5 support scheduled to end this month
** My Library of Crystal Reports Guides
** A line that grows based on a condition
** When "Repeat Group Header" won't repeat
Visit the Crystal Reports Underground BLOG:
Keep up to date with Crystal news and tips by visiting my brand new Crystal Reports BLOG (Web Log). While my newsletter goes out every month or two, my BLOG is updated once or twice a week. You can even subscribe to it as an RSS Feed which lets you know when I post a new article. It includes the same type of information as my newsletter, but more of it. And the content is indexed both by category and by month so you can find things that interest you more easily. The link is:
http://kenhamady.com/cru/
It is free and only requires registration if you want to post comments to the articles. Some recent highlights include:
Business Objects shares up on Oracle takeover rumor
What is Crystal Vision?
How to download CRXI release 2 and its documentation
Where to download the index for all Crystal white papers
Which way is up? (Rounding Negative Numbers)
DLL conflict between CR and Merant Version Manager
Deploy Crystal on the Web using RippleStone (an exclusive offer):
If you are a Small or Medium size business and want to put your Crystal Reports on the Internet or your Intranet, then you should take a look at RippleStone. Ripplestone is web application that includes many of the features of Crystal Reports Server or BO Enterprise but at a much lower cost. You get:
* Report viewing
* Report scheduling
* Report security by user
* Row-level security within reports
* Automated report distribution via e-mail
* Dynamic pick-lists for parameters
RippleStone is an update of ICB Reports, now rebuilt as a .NET application. (I wrote about ICB in my newsletter a few years back.) RippleStone can now be used with Crystal Reports versions 8.5 through XI. It normally costs $3,000 but if you purchase it between now and the end of the year you can get a $400 discount. Just ask for discount code CRU06. If you want to try it first you can download a 30-day trial copy from the RippleStone Website.
The price above allows unlimited use on one server. You also need one copy of Crystal Reports Developer Edition installed to provide your server a valid engine license. Note that the Crystal engine is a single threaded engine so there are some limits on processing throughput. For $5,000 you get a 2-server license for RippleStone. And for $8,000 you get a site license that allows you to put it on as many servers as you want.
Click the LINKS button above for more information on Ripplestone.
New Associate Trainers in Boston, Phoenix and Indianapolis:
My associates team is growing. These are experienced individual trainers with excellent references who provide a class at a great price, especially when they are in your local area. The team now includes associates in and around Los Angeles, Phoenix, Chicago, Indianapolis, Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Toronto. Most are willing to do regional travel. They all use my materials and their students can send me questions after class.
If you still can't afford your own private class, come to my public classes in Frederick, MD. These are very small classes (usually 3-5 students) and people come from all over to attend. Next round is November 7 - 10.
For more information you can call me at (540) 338-0194.
Crystal Reports for Eclipse Update:
Business Objects has finally released Crystal Reports for Eclipse (Basic Edition) - a 100% Java based report designer and deployment engine. It allows you to create and deploy Crystal Reports within your Java environment for free. It also includes:
POJO Data Source support - Take the class and drag it onto the report designer.
Web Project Wizard - Creates a project that has the required runtime configurations.
Java Reporting Component Facet - Adds Crystal Reports runtime to any web application.
JSP Page Wizard - Drag a report onto a JSP page and it generates the code.
BO is due to release the Professional Edition with a more robust runtime engine (more throughput). This will cost $495 per server.
Read more about it here:
http://diamond.businessobjects.com/node/460
"Official" v8.5 support scheduled to end this month:
According to the BO web site, support for version 8.5 is scheduled to expire at the end of this month. Originally v8.5 was set to expire in 2005, so these dates do have a way of changing. If BO does stop supporting v8.5 you can always contact me with your support questions. I support all versions of Crystal and just recently updated some version 5.0 reports for one of my customers.
My complete Library of Crystal Reports Materials:
Let a master teacher help you understand these Crystal Topics. Each guide comes with clear explanations and sample files to illustrate each concept.
Expert's Guide to Formulas ($36)
Expert's Guide to Subreports, Parameters and Alerts ($28)
Expert's Guide to Totals ($24)
Expert's Guide to Cross-Tabs ($22)
Expert Techniques Vol. I ($19)
Expert Techniques Vol. II ($19)
Quick Reference to Crystal Reports in Visual Basic ($16)
Quick Reference to Crystal Reports in .NET ($14)
Click the LIBRARY button above to order these.
A line that grows based on a condition:
I had to create a report recently with 12 columns, one for each month
of the year. The user selects the current month and the report prints
the columns from January through the selected month. When they enter
8 for August, the report is designed to only show 8 columns, January
through August. So I had to create all 12 columns and then give each
column a suppress condition that hides that column if it is a future
month.
Then I hit a problem. There were a half dozen horizontal lines going across the entire width of the report. Once I started suppressing later months I noticed how ugly it looked to have a few visible columns but a line that stretched out to the invisible 12th column. I also realized that there isn't a way in Crystal to have a line grow, shrink or suppress based on a condition. I tried a few solutions before I came up with the relatively simple method below for having a line grow and shrink automatically.
The trick was not to use a line object at all, but to use a formula field with a top border. The formula was something like this:
ReplicateString ( "XXXXXX", {?MonthNumber} )
This repeats the first string argument as many times as the value of the second argument, my parameter field. I placed the formula on the page and made it as wide as my line would need to be. The actual width would be controlled by the MonthNumber already being entered by the user. The higher the number the wider the string. The "XXXXXX" string was set (by experiment) to approximately the width of one column.
The text of the formula was made invisible by setting the font color of the formula to white. Then I gave it a single top border in black so that only thing visible would be a horizontal line. Last I activated the border property "Tight Horizontal" to make the border shrink and grow with the text. I made several copies of this formula and replaced all of my horizontal lines. They all grow and shrink together.
When "Repeat Group Header" won't repeat:
A new customer was doing a report by Sales Rep where the details carried over to multiple pages. They want the Sales Rep's name to repeat on the top of each page throughout the Sales Rep's group. So, they used the group option called "repeat group header on each new page". The customer asked me why this didn't work on the last page of each group. They had found one of the limitations of this feature. Crystal Reports will only repeat the Group Header on a new page if there is at least one Detail on that page. If the last page of a group has only the Group Footer, then the Group Header will not repeat onto that page.
If you want group information to appear on EVERY page of the group, including a final page with no details, the solution is simple. You move the information from the (repeating) Group Header to the Page Header. Anything you put in a Page Header will appear on the top of each page. And if it is something group specific, like the Group Name Field it will automatically take the value associated with the current group.
The only problem with using the Page Header this way comes if you have a section of grand totals in the Report Footer. The grand totals might be the only thing printing on the last page and you might have the name of the last sales rep over the grand totals. When this happens you need to suppress the Page Header (or at least the person's name) when the grand totals are alone on the last page.
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 2006 by Ken Hamady
All rights reserved - Republishing this material requires written permission