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The Expert's Guide to Totals in Crystal Reports


This guide is now a FREE Download

Did you know that there are at least 4 different methods for creating totals in a Crystal Report?  Many people paint themselves into a corner by using the wrong method.  Why not let a master teacher show you each of these methods, and when they should be used.  I have explained these methods to hundreds of students and my explanations and exercises  have been refined and rewritten through 10 years of teaching.  Let me share this experience with you through my new book,  The Expert’s Guide to Totals in Crystal Reports.

The material includes an in depth discussion of each feature, example reports that illustrate the techniques, and exercises that walk you through each step.  The exercises are the key.  They have been written to provide practical examples that are easy to understand and follow.  Also included are several relevant articles borrowed from my Expert Techniques series. The material is condensed into 35 no-nonsense pages and is backed up with 24 sample reports.  The exercises provide keystroke by keystroke instructions to implementing each of the discussed features.  The material is applicable to  versions 8.5 to 14.1 (CR 2013) and the sample reports can be opened with any of these Crystal versions.   Most of the material can be applied to older versions as well and an appendix is supplied to discuss the differences.

I also provide Email support and telephone training on any Crystal Reports topic.  I charge $180 per hour billed in 15 minute increments.  This is a great way to learn Crystal technique, one-on-one, with a Crystal Reports expert.

Outline of The Expert's Guide to Totals in Crystal Reports:

Summary Fields
    Creating a Summary Field
    Changing a Summary Field

Using Summary Functions in Filters
    Adding a Group Selection Rule
    Understanding how Group Selection is Different from Record Selection
    Writing a Group Selection Formula

Using Summary Functions to Rank Groups

Using Summary Functions in Formulas
    Using Grand Totals in a calculation
    Using Subtotals in a calculation

Conditional Totals
    Creating a Conditional Total
    Advantages of Conditional Totals over Running Totals
    Manual Cross-Tabs from Conditional Totals

Automatic Running Totals
    Creating a Running Total
    Using the Evaluate setting
    Using Reset to Creating Running Subtotals

Running Totals using variables
    The Running Grand Total
    The Running Subtotal
    Accumulating values once per group
    Totaling the values from a recurring Subreport

Tips and Tricks
    21. Forcing a formula to return a Null value
    23. Reasons to group on a formula that contains a database field, instead of the field itself
    25. The easy way to add the Distinct Counts of several groups, and get a grand total
    35. Grouping subtotals into ranges
    55. Show groups when an individual record in the group meets criteria
    56. Select Groups that are missing a specific type of record

Appendix for Versions before v9
    Summary Fields
    Conditional Totals
    Group Sorting/TopN
    Running Total Fields
    Running Totals with Variables