About this Course

This two-day course covers the more complex and powerful features of Crystal Reports. The course focuses on the student’s ability to perform tasks using the most productive techniques allowing you to pull data from all times of data sources. The course discusses very technical issues and includes several fast-paced, comprehensive exercises.

Audience Profile

Experienced administrators, developers and end-users who are experienced with Crystal Reports.

Prerequisites

A comfort level of understanding in regards to relational databases.

Course Outline

1. Refresher Exercise

• Review of Planning a Report
• Creating a 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

2. Power Formatting

• Using Multiple Sections in Reports
• Using the Section Expert to Work with Sections
• Exercises

3. Using the Running Totals Feature

• Understanding Running Totals
• Creating Running Totals for a List of Numbers
• Conditional Running Totals

4. Prompting with Parameters

• Parameter Fields Overview
• 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
• 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

5. 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
• Variable Scope
• Separating Statements in Complex Formulas
• Working with Arrays
• Understanding the Formula Evaluation Time Debugger

6. Using Subreporting as a Workaround Solution

• 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

7. 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

8. Working with Cross-Tab Reports

• Understanding How Cross-Tabs Affect Your Data
• Creating a Cross-Tab Report
• Crating a Cross-Tab with Multiple Rows or Columns
• Applying a Formatting Style to the Cross-Tab
• Customizing the Cross-Tab Format
• Changing the Summary Operation
• Charting Cross Tabs
• Customizing Cross-Tab Group Names
• CurrentFieldValue

9. Report Alerts

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

Appendix A – Report Templates

• 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

Appendix B: The Northwind 2008 Database

Appendix C: Installation and System Requirements

• Installing the Application
• Minimum Installation Requirements

Appendix D: Setup Instructions for Crystal Reports 2013

• Crystal Reports 2013 Application Installation Instructions
• Installing Required Class Files

Appendix E: Function and Operation Locations