Questions and Answers from User Group meeting, May 2007

Question: Have a sort field and don’t wont it to show (hide it) on the report?

Answer: There is no way to “hide” a report field. The standard workaround is to use the sort field on the report and making the background and font colors the same, reducing the width and removing borders.

Question: Where on the server does the property lie?

Answer: Click on property. (you must stop the server first)

Question: How to use AD to authorize as well as autheulate?

Answer: Define multiple AD groups which automatically propagates its members.

Question: Cascading property limit the list -= Why?  [If total options is more than 1000, it cuts off the top level prompt list of values]

Answer: This KB article seems to the only solution so far:

http://support.businessobjects.com/library/kbase/articles/c2017238.asp

Make sure the LOV server is restarted to clear the cache after this change to the registry is made.

Question: For a report can you use more than one universe?  [WEB intelligence]

Answer: This is from the Help Menu.

1. Open the sample report called Group.rpt.
   
   Sample reports are located in the Crystal Reports directory under \Samples\En\Reports.
   
   
2. On the View menu, click Field Explorer.
   
   The Field Explorer dialog box appears.
3. Error! Filename not specified. Select Parameter Fields and click New.
   
   The Create New Parameter dialog box appears.
   
   
4. Enter a name for the parameter in the Name field (up to 255 alphanumeric characters).
   
   This example uses Supplier City.
5. In the List of Values area, click Dynamic.
   
   
6. Enter prompting text for your prompt group in the Prompt Group Text field.
   
   This example uses "Choose the City that your supplier is located in."
   
   Note: Prompt groups let you use cascading list of values for other cascading prompts. For example, if you set up such a list of values for an address prompt, you might want to use the list for both shipping and billing addresses. In this case, you could create two prompt groups for the same list of values; you might call one prompt group Shipping Address and the other Billing Address.
   
   
7. Ensure that New is selected in the Choose a Data Source area.
   
   Note: If your report already contains a list of values, or if you want to pick a list of values from your repository, you can select Existing and choose an existing list of values from the tree structure.
   
   
8. Error! Filename not specified. Click Insert.
   
   The program automatically expands the Value list. You use this area to define the fields that make up your cascading list of values. This example uses a cascade of Country, Region, and City.
   
   
9. From the Value list, select Country.
   
   
10. Click the blank field under Country and select Region.
    
    
11. Click the blank field under Region and select City.
    
    
12. In the Parameters area, click City to bind the field that contains the City value to the parameter.
    
    In this step, you are choosing the field in your cascading hierarchy that should be bound to the parameter field that you are creating. Because this particular parameter is intended to provide Crystal Reports with a city value, you bind the parameter to City.
    
    
13. In the Prompt Text field (in the Value Options area), enter additional prompting text for each of the fields in your cascading list of values.
    
    This is the text that appears in the "Enter prompt values" dialog box when the report is refreshed.
    
    
14. Click OK.
    
    
15. Return to the Field Explorer dialog box, and drag the Supplier City parameter into your report.
    
    Note: If you don't want to see the parameter field you dropped in your report, place it in a section you can suppress, such as a report header or footer.

Question: Can you do a rollover in Crystal Reports?

Answer: I suspect that you may be asking about how a data field in a report may display what is called a Hier menu above it.  This is especially important for making reports ADA compliant.  If this is what you are asking then there is a way by utilizing "tool Tip Text" found by right clicking any object on the report and then select Format Field and then look in the Common tab.

Questions and Answers from User Group meeting 22 May 2007

Question: In Crystal Reports XI, date parameters force me to enter the date as yyyy-mm-dd. Although I've set my report options to format dates as dd/mm/yy I can't see any way to set the parameters screen so it lets you enter dates in "normal" (viz., US) format. How can we do this?

Answer: Go to Report Explorer, Format Field, Format Editor, Date Tab.

Question: We are going to design a nation-wide report, which has a summary report and detail sub-reports. In the summary report, the total number of each office, grouping by region, will be displayed. If the user clicks the office name in the summary report, a sub-report of all the products into the office will be displayed. What is a better report template to be used for this report?

Answer: This will depend on how the sub-report would want to be displayed. For example, if the report will display the same information as the summary report, (e.g. columns, headers, footers, etc.), then a drill-down capability should be incorporated to display the information. If the sub-report has different features, then the information should be displayed in a new report, with a hyperlink from the summary report to pass over the correct information to the sub-report.

Question: How do pass data between main report and sub report?

Answer: Answered in previous Q/A session

Question: When exporting a sub report to a PDF an error is given, how do you fix this?

Answer: Email the error for inspection.

Question: In main report there is only one hyperlink, but when clicking on the link it directs me to the sub report, how do you fix this?

Answer: Email the error for inspection.

Questions and Answers from User Group meeting 21 February 2007

Question: While running crystal reports most of my output goes to spreadsheet that exceeds over 160 characters. How can I set my crystal reports to output to a spreadsheet where I do not have to worry about length of the output report?

Answer: The version this questioner reports is 9 and that the contents of an exported cell cannot exceed 160 characters. We suggested he try using different export options as well as csv. I have often found that what may not work with one export option it can also work with another. We also pointed out this may be a limitation of version 9 which could only be fixed with a later release.

Question: When doing a left outer join in crystal reports, all of the output is displayed on the report (both records on both file and records in the left file and not in the right file). How do I display only the records in the left file that is not in the right file on the output listing?

Answer: We envisioned two ways to accomplish this but we also thought of a third way. The first two were to use the join properties on the Link Tables screen. The second was to either create a view or a command object (later versions of CR) and filter there records with a “no exists” subquery. The third way might be to create the main report against the left table and then have a “hidden” subpreport based on the right table that checks to see whether there are records in the right table. If none are found then suppress the detail record from the left.

Question: Ever accessed LDAP as a data source (from crystal)?

Answer: Not in my experience but while there are third party ODBC compliant drivers that could be leveraged, it is just as effective to connect directly to the LDAP own database. Which one you choose will likely involve what your organization will allow.

Question: How to pass dynamic parameters from Dashboard Object to WebI?

Answer: Any report, universe, or analytic object that can generate a url can be created by using the openDocument standard for launching a report including WebI documents.

Question: Crystal Enterprise- We have some end users that are unable to open or save large reports that they have successfully ran. The issue does not affect all users just some at different locations. The problem seems to occur when a report is run in Microsoft Excel Format.

Answer: Since the same report export works ok for some users and not others I would first suspect that there is some difference in the users browser security settings. One test you could try is to have the user who cannot download login to another users machine that can download. This will help to narrow down whether it is a user rights or machine configuration.

Question: How to group from formula fields?

Answer: Questioner asked why she could not select a certain formula she wrote from the list of available fields and formulas. Because of multi-pass process in CR some formulas may have logic in them that does not allow the formula to be grouped. The easiest approach to find out what is to remove sections of your formula and what when the formula then shows up in the list of fields one can group on.

Question: How to go from Next to Next records. Is there a function that looks Next to Next line?

Answer: This is in relation to Crystal Reports where you can use the Previous() function to read the previous row and Next() to read the past row.

Question: I changed the font of a text field to a handwriting font. The report is printed from users PC. Sometimes the field is in handwriting sometimes it is not?

Answer: When considering fonts for reports that will be run from other computers or server’s the fonts you choose must be installed on those machines as well.

Question: I’m modifying a report that uses parameters. I set the default values to a date, when the report is printed another date is displayed. How do I locate the place where the wrong date appears?

Answer: The questioner reported that the date was the result of a formula. The formula will need to be explored to understand what date variable is being used.

Question: With setting up security in XIR2 what are your thoughts on open vs closed security model?

Answer: It depends on the situation the system will operate in but it is rare for a system to allow reports to be open to all by default (open) versus specifically assigning rights (closed).

Questions and Answers from User Group meeting 20 November 2006

Question: Is there a way to schedule Crystal Reports 9 reports without using Enterprise?

Answer: There is not a direct way to schedule reports using Crystal Reports only. You would need to use Crystal Enterprise or there are other third party tools that might be helpful.

Question: Can you recommend a report viewer and an edition of Business Objects that will allow customization of the export event for a web application (export to text)?

Answer: The easiest way is to perform a URL method of export. You basically pass parameters in a query string to run report and export to the desired format. See Viewers SDK, keyword “URL Reporting”. Both .NET and Java versions of SDK are equally feature rich so selecting a version depends on whatever is most comfortable or what web server will be used. With regard to the version of BO Crystal Reports, it is best to go with the latest release.

For more information, check out BOBJ's devzone on their website: www.businessobjects.com/products/dev_zone/ which has a large collection of sample applications to learn from.

Question: I know that you can save images and text objects to the repository in Crystal version 10, but is there any way to save a formula to the repository, one which includes database fields?  As I understand it, the only way to add a formula to the repository is to use a custom function, which doesn't allow you to include database fields.

Answer: The Crystal Repository allows you to store report objects such as custom functions and custom SQL command, but these do not include database fields. You could use Crystal Dictionaries to create formulas that include database fields. However, the Formula Workshop is not as complete as the one used in Crystal Reports and you can not use a Dictionary with another data source in the same report.

Answer: There is not a direct way to schedule reports using Crystal Reports only. You would need to use Crystal Enterprise or there are other third party tools that might be helpful.

Question: Can you recommend a report viewer and an edition of Business Objects that will allow customization of the export event for a web application (export to text)?

Answer: The easiest way is to perform a URL method of export. You basically pass parameters in a query string to run report and export to the desired format. See Viewers SDK, keyword “URL Reporting”. Both .NET and Java versions of SDK are equally feature rich so selecting a version depends on whatever is most comfortable or what web server will be used. With regard to the version of BO Crystal Reports, it is best to go with the latest release.

For more information, check out BOBJ's devzone on their website: www.businessobjects.com/products/dev_zone/ which has a large collection of sample applications to learn from.

Question: I know that you can save images and text objects to the repository in Crystal version 10, but is there any way to save a formula to the repository, one which includes database fields?  As I understand it, the only way to add a formula to the repository is to use a custom function, which doesn't allow you to include database fields.

Answer: The Crystal Repository allows you to store report objects such as custom functions and custom SQL command, but these do not include database fields. You could use Crystal Dictionaries to create formulas that include database fields. However, the Formula Workshop is not as complete as the one used in Crystal Reports and you can not use a Dictionary with another data source in the same report.


Questions and Answers from User Group meeting 14 November 2005

Question: I have a question on the new boe xi system.

Developers have created reports with alerts.

When these reports are scheduled in boe xi, the historical instances show a yellow alert icon, whether or not the alert has actually been triggered.

Is this “by design” or is there some fix for this (so that the yellow icon only shows when the alert has been triggered)?

Answer: After conducting some tests, it seems that the yellow exclamation point icon is received regardless of whether or not the alert has been triggered.You do not know whether the alert was actually triggered, until you click on the "Success" link in the history and see if the alert was listed or not, or until you click the Alert link in the report list to see which alerts were triggered.

Not sure if this has been resolved in Release 2 yet.

he other option is to look at the Alerts page in InfoView which will display only the instances which triggered the alert.

Question: I find the Crystal Reports Wizard(s) in the Crystal Reports Gallery to be a handy way of starting a Crystal Report. I'm currently using version 10, and I noticed a discrepancy between what I have with my Developer Edition and what might be available. I'd appreciate any help DCABOCUG could give in detailing what Wizards are available with what editions of the software; I have already called the BusinessObjects/CrystalReports general sales 800 number, and the best they could do was suggest I buy support to find out if I should need a hot fix or not.

Currently, my CrystalReports Version 10 Developer Edition has the following 4 Wizards:

• Standard
• Cross-Tab
• Mail Label
• OLAP

I recently downloaded an article on Crystal Reports for .NET Developers that had the following 7:

• Standard
• Form Letter
• Form
• Cross-Tab
• Subreport
• Mail Label
• Drill Down

As you can see, there are only 3 of the 7 Wizards that are the same. I especially was interested in using the Drill Down Wizard, but I don't have any means of doing so. Whether I am using the CrystalReports 10 GUI or the one in Visual Studio .NET 2003, I still only get my 4 original Wizards.

I think it would be a great service to DCABOCUG if someone from BusinessObjects could see their way clear to tell us what Wizards are available with what versions of the software for Versions 10 and XI.

Answer: Beginning at Version 8 of Crystal Reports, the number of wizards has been scaled down and there is no word that this will change in future releases. The .NET version is probably based on Crystal Reports version 7.

Question: I'm trying to install Crystal 8 Enterprise on a IIS6 webserver where the server is the domain controller. I'm having problems. Any suggestions are appreciated. thank you.

The product is Crystal v8.5 Pro (not enterprise) using the web component & page server & using activeX viewer against an MS-SQL 2000 backend database.

There is not an error presented, however the ActiveX viewer is not invoked when calling the report, therefore the report is being called to be downloaded or open (vs. display search results in browser window).

Answer: Has the ActiveX viewer ever worked? It sounds like a corrupt or version issue with the ActiveX viewer. You may want to delete the Crystal Viewer from the browser (Internet Options – Add-Ins) then when you try to run the report again it should ask if you want to download the viewer again.

Question: I have been developing a report that I need to create excel files based on the group header and save with the group header name. I know that the print engine is involved in the process however, I am not sure where to begin.

Can you help with this?

Answer: Visual Basic? If so, then I think you will need to use a wrapper function.

Question: Many of our report requests create Excel spreadsheets.  The spreadsheets are usually mailing lists, which have fields full_name, name, apt_num, street_address, city, state, zip, and often telephone, email address, GPA , etc. etc.  In other words, the sheet is wide.  I can get all the fields in a CR report by scrunching them up together.  They export Excel data only just fine.  The problem is that we plan to let users run these reports.  If they get an output displayed with fields scrunched together, they are going to immediately call the help desk. 

We are converting from a reporting tool that can save an Excel spreadsheet directly to the users hard drive without user intervention.  Is there a way to have Crystal automatically export data to an Excel spreadsheet?  If not in CR, then in Enterprise?

Answer: Crystal Enterprise will allow you to set your report format and that can be set to default to Excel.

Question: Please let me know how to calculate a percent change from the number of sales of current year and previous year base on the sales column.

I Attached a Cross Tab Report format for reference.

Answer: A cross tab report will not allow you to create the percent change using the wizard. You will need to create a manual cross tab that groups the way that you want and then you would need to create percent change formulas for each month.

Questions and Answers from User Group meeting 24 August 2005

From: Ray Masoudi
Question: I have CR XI (Not Enterprise). It shuts down every 20 minutes.

Answer: There are several instances that may cause Crystal Reports to terminate unexpectedly. Some are addressed on the Business Objects web site in the Knowledge Base. Known issues are corrected by applying the latest CR XI hot fixes. Possibly reinstalling CR XI may be necessary if the issue is not resolved.

From: Canh Doan
Question: Having a subreport with XML http connection in a main report causes a problem in JRC. This works fine in CR Designer. Is this a bug with JRC?

Answer: First, confirm whether the report runs successfully through the CMC. If the problem persists then suspect data drivers and download the latest from the BOBJ website. If not then examine the coding involving loading the report. You can experiment with creating a report without the XML driver in the main to try to confine it to which combinations work and don't work.

From: Bryan Madaras
Question: Are there any plans of changing the way Crystal Reports handles an XML data source? Right now, it puts the data into tables. Will an XSL engine ever be created to handle the XML data source?

Answer: Crystal Reports is foundationally a two dimensional reporting tool so it seems unlikely that it expands beyond the two. If this is a concern, it might be prudent to contact BOBJ to address whether an XSL engine would be utilized in future.

From: Stan Musick
Question: The printer icon is not available on Crystal Viewer version 10. How can I get this available?

Answer: The HTML viewer that is displayed via URL reporting (.cwr) will default to an older viewer without printer icon. You can either edit the header html to add one of your own or call the report via the proccesshttprequest method. See viewer sdk help.

From: Stan Musick
Question: Problems using the merge module for vb.net development with V10 Crystal Reports.

Answer: We would need more detail on the nature of the problems encountered. See the beginning of this section to see what type of information is needed help answer this question.

From: Harriet Beasley
Question: I have successfully created a Gantt Chart in Crystal Reports, but have not been able to create a monthly and weekly calendar view in Crystal Reports that looks very similar to an Outlook calendar. The data to be pulled from the database is start date and time, finish date and time, and title of what will be or was accomplished. Several people at my college have asked for this. Please help!

Answer: This can be a very involved process, but one that is easy enough to handle. One approach is to base the calendar on the information that can be found from this Business Objects Knowledge Base article Another extremely useful article is by a frequent contributor to www.tek-tips.com

Questions and Answers from User Group meeting 24 August 2007

Question: In Crystal Reports XI, date parameters force me to enter the date as yyy-mm-dd. Although I've set my report options to format dates as dd/mm/yy I can't see any way to set the parameters screen so it lets you enter dates in "normal" (viz., US) format. How can we do this?

Answer: Since the parameters data type is date then you are restricted to that format which usually is not a problem since there is a date picker that will fill it in for you. But to get around it completely you would need to change your parameters data type to String and then use an edit mask to set the format the way you want it. Then you can convert the String parameter to a date data type in the record formula using the Date() function.

Question: How to pass data between main report and sub report?

Answer: Two ways are possible. One is to use a shared or global variable. The other is to create a subreport link which will pass the data. But between the two shared or global variables are usually the desired method.

Question: Can we create a view table with temporary table generated through SQL statement?

Answer: Not sure what this one was talking about but most likely this is a function of the database and not Crystal Reports. The answer would be dependent on what database is used.

Question: We are going to design a nation wide report, which has a summary report and detail sub-reports. In the summary report, the total number of each products in each office, grouping by region, will be displayed.

If user clicks the office name in the summary report, a sub report of all the products info in the office will be displayed. My question is what is a better report template to be used for this report.

Answer: I will assume that you are asking if this is preferred over some other method. Normally a subreport is a last resort option since they can cause serious performance problems. But sometimes you have not other alternative and so you must use it. When you do be sure to understand that the section you place will drive how often the subreport, and therefore the query of that subreport, is run. In your example you would want to place this in the group header or group footer and pass a group id in a subreport link to filter data in the subreport. One other option is to consider on-demand subreports where the query is only run once the user clicks on the group. As you can see careful consideration of placement and whether to use on-demand is crucial to the report design.

Questions and Answers from User Group meeting 22 May 2007

Question: In Crystal Reports XI, date parameters force me to enter the date as yyyy-mm-dd. Although I've set my report options to format dates as dd/mm/yy I can't see any way to set the parameters screen so it lets you enter dates in "normal" (viz., US) format. How can we do this?

Answer: Go to Report Explorer, Format Field, Format Editor, Date Tab.

Question: We are going to design a nation-wide report, which has a summary report and detail sub-reports. In the summary report, the total number of each office, grouping by region, will be displayed. If the user clicks the office name in the summary report, a sub-report of all the products into the office will be displayed. What is a better report template to be used for this report?

Answer: This will depend on how the sub-report would want to be displayed. For example, if the report will display the same information as the summary report, (e.g. columns, headers, footers, etc.), then a drill-down capability should be incorporated to display the information. If the sub-report has different features, then the information should be displayed in a new report, with a hyperlink from the summary report to pass over the correct information to the sub-report.

Question: How do pass data between main report and sub report?

Answer: Answered in previous Q/A session

Question: When exporting a sub report to a PDF an error is given, how do you fix this?

Answer: Email the error for inspection.

Question: In main report there is only one hyperlink, but when clicking on the link it directs me to the sub report, how do you fix this?

Answer: Email the error for inspection.

Questions and Answers from User Group meeting 21 February 2007

Question: While running crystal reports most of my output goes to spreadsheet that exceeds over 160 characters. How can I set my crystal reports to output to a spreadsheet where I do not have to worry about length of the output report?

Answer: The version this questioner reports is 9 and that the contents of an exported cell cannot exceed 160 characters. We suggested he try using different export options as well as csv. I have often found that what may not work with one export option it can also work with another. We also pointed out this may be a limitation of version 9 which could only be fixed with a later release.

Question: When doing a left outer join in crystal reports, all of the output is displayed on the report (both records on both file and records in the left file and not in the right file). How do I display only the records in the left file that is not in the right file on the output listing?

Answer: We envisioned two ways to accomplish this but we also thought of a third way. The first two were to use the join properties on the Link Tables screen. The second was to either create a view or a command object (later versions of CR) and filter there records with a “no exists” subquery. The third way might be to create the main report against the left table and then have a “hidden” subpreport based on the right table that checks to see whether there are records in the right table. If none are found then suppress the detail record from the left.

Question: Ever accessed LDAP as a data source (from crystal)?

Answer: Not in my experience but while there are third party ODBC compliant drivers that could be leveraged, it is just as effective to connect directly to the LDAP own database. Which one you choose will likely involve what your organization will allow.

Question: How to pass dynamic parameters from Dashboard Object to WebI?

Answer: Any report, universe, or analytic object that can generate a url can be created by using the openDocument standard for launching a report including WebI documents.

Question: Crystal Enterprise- We have some end users that are unable to open or save large reports that they have successfully ran. The issue does not affect all users just some at different locations. The problem seems to occur when a report is run in Microsoft Excel Format.

Answer: Since the same report export works ok for some users and not others I would first suspect that there is some difference in the users browser security settings. One test you could try is to have the user who cannot download login to another users machine that can download. This will help to narrow down whether it is a user rights or machine configuration.

Question: How to group from formula fields?

Answer: Questioner asked why she could not select a certain formula she wrote from the list of available fields and formulas. Because of multi-pass process in CR some formulas may have logic in them that does not allow the formula to be grouped. The easiest approach to find out what is to remove sections of your formula and what when the formula then shows up in the list of fields one can group on.

Question: How to go from Next to Next records. Is there a function that looks Next to Next line?

Answer: This is in relation to Crystal Reports where you can use the Previous() function to read the previous row and Next() to read the past row.

Question: I changed the font of a text field to a handwriting font. The report is printed from users PC. Sometimes the field is in handwriting sometimes it is not?

Answer: When considering fonts for reports that will be run from other computers or server’s the fonts you choose must be installed on those machines as well.

Question: I’m modifying a report that uses parameters. I set the default values to a date, when the report is printed another date is displayed. How do I locate the place where the wrong date appears?

Answer: The questioner reported that the date was the result of a formula. The formula will need to be explored to understand what date variable is being used.

Question: With setting up security in XIR2 what are your thoughts on open vs closed security model?

Answer: It depends on the situation the system will operate in but it is rare for a system to allow reports to be open to all by default (open) versus specifically assigning rights (closed).

Questions and Answers from User Group meeting 20 November 2006

Question: Is there a way to schedule Crystal Reports 9 reports without using Enterprise?

Answer: There is not a direct way to schedule reports using Crystal Reports only. You would need to use Crystal Enterprise or there are other third party tools that might be helpful.

Question: Can you recommend a report viewer and an edition of Business Objects that will allow customization of the export event for a web application (export to text)?

Answer: The easiest way is to perform a URL method of export. You basically pass parameters in a query string to run report and export to the desired format. See Viewers SDK, keyword “URL Reporting”. Both .NET and Java versions of SDK are equally feature rich so selecting a version depends on whatever is most comfortable or what web server will be used. With regard to the version of BO Crystal Reports, it is best to go with the latest release.

For more information, check out BOBJ's devzone on their website: www.businessobjects.com/products/dev_zone/ which has a large collection of sample applications to learn from.

Question: I know that you can save images and text objects to the repository in Crystal version 10, but is there any way to save a formula to the repository, one which includes database fields?  As I understand it, the only way to add a formula to the repository is to use a custom function, which doesn't allow you to include database fields.

Answer: The Crystal Repository allows you to store report objects such as custom functions and custom SQL command, but these do not include database fields. You could use Crystal Dictionaries to create formulas that include database fields. However, the Formula Workshop is not as complete as the one used in Crystal Reports and you can not use a Dictionary with another data source in the same report.

Answer: There is not a direct way to schedule reports using Crystal Reports only. You would need to use Crystal Enterprise or there are other third party tools that might be helpful.

Question: Can you recommend a report viewer and an edition of Business Objects that will allow customization of the export event for a web application (export to text)?

Answer: The easiest way is to perform a URL method of export. You basically pass parameters in a query string to run report and export to the desired format. See Viewers SDK, keyword “URL Reporting”. Both .NET and Java versions of SDK are equally feature rich so selecting a version depends on whatever is most comfortable or what web server will be used. With regard to the version of BO Crystal Reports, it is best to go with the latest release.

For more information, check out BOBJ's devzone on their website: www.businessobjects.com/products/dev_zone/ which has a large collection of sample applications to learn from.

Question: I know that you can save images and text objects to the repository in Crystal version 10, but is there any way to save a formula to the repository, one which includes database fields?  As I understand it, the only way to add a formula to the repository is to use a custom function, which doesn't allow you to include database fields.

Answer: The Crystal Repository allows you to store report objects such as custom functions and custom SQL command, but these do not include database fields. You could use Crystal Dictionaries to create formulas that include database fields. However, the Formula Workshop is not as complete as the one used in Crystal Reports and you can not use a Dictionary with another data source in the same report.


Questions and Answers from User Group meeting 14 November 2005

Question: I have a question on the new boe xi system.

Developers have created reports with alerts.

When these reports are scheduled in boe xi, the historical instances show a yellow alert icon, whether or not the alert has actually been triggered.

Is this “by design” or is there some fix for this (so that the yellow icon only shows when the alert has been triggered)?

Answer: After conducting some tests, it seems that the yellow exclamation point icon is received regardless of whether or not the alert has been triggered.You do not know whether the alert was actually triggered, until you click on the "Success" link in the history and see if the alert was listed or not, or until you click the Alert link in the report list to see which alerts were triggered.

Not sure if this has been resolved in Release 2 yet.

he other option is to look at the Alerts page in InfoView which will display only the instances which triggered the alert.

Question: I find the Crystal Reports Wizard(s) in the Crystal Reports Gallery to be a handy way of starting a Crystal Report. I'm currently using version 10, and I noticed a discrepancy between what I have with my Developer Edition and what might be available. I'd appreciate any help DCABOCUG could give in detailing what Wizards are available with what editions of the software; I have already called the BusinessObjects/CrystalReports general sales 800 number, and the best they could do was suggest I buy support to find out if I should need a hot fix or not.

Currently, my CrystalReports Version 10 Developer Edition has the following 4 Wizards:

• Standard
• Cross-Tab
• Mail Label
• OLAP

I recently downloaded an article on Crystal Reports for .NET Developers that had the following 7:

• Standard
• Form Letter
• Form
• Cross-Tab
• Subreport
• Mail Label
• Drill Down

As you can see, there are only 3 of the 7 Wizards that are the same. I especially was interested in using the Drill Down Wizard, but I don't have any means of doing so. Whether I am using the CrystalReports 10 GUI or the one in Visual Studio .NET 2003, I still only get my 4 original Wizards.

I think it would be a great service to DCABOCUG if someone from BusinessObjects could see their way clear to tell us what Wizards are available with what versions of the software for Versions 10 and XI.

Answer: Beginning at Version 8 of Crystal Reports, the number of wizards has been scaled down and there is no word that this will change in future releases. The .NET version is probably based on Crystal Reports version 7.

Question: I'm trying to install Crystal 8 Enterprise on a IIS6 webserver where the server is the domain controller. I'm having problems. Any suggestions are appreciated. thank you.

The product is Crystal v8.5 Pro (not enterprise) using the web component & page server & using activeX viewer against an MS-SQL 2000 backend database.

There is not an error presented, however the ActiveX viewer is not invoked when calling the report, therefore the report is being called to be downloaded or open (vs. display search results in browser window).

Answer: Has the ActiveX viewer ever worked? It sounds like a corrupt or version issue with the ActiveX viewer. You may want to delete the Crystal Viewer from the browser (Internet Options – Add-Ins) then when you try to run the report again it should ask if you want to download the viewer again.

Question: I have been developing a report that I need to create excel files based on the group header and save with the group header name. I know that the print engine is involved in the process however, I am not sure where to begin.

Can you help with this?

Answer: Visual Basic? If so, then I think you will need to use a wrapper function.

Question: Many of our report requests create Excel spreadsheets.  The spreadsheets are usually mailing lists, which have fields full_name, name, apt_num, street_address, city, state, zip, and often telephone, email address, GPA , etc. etc.  In other words, the sheet is wide.  I can get all the fields in a CR report by scrunching them up together.  They export Excel data only just fine.  The problem is that we plan to let users run these reports.  If they get an output displayed with fields scrunched together, they are going to immediately call the help desk. 

We are converting from a reporting tool that can save an Excel spreadsheet directly to the users hard drive without user intervention.  Is there a way to have Crystal automatically export data to an Excel spreadsheet?  If not in CR, then in Enterprise?

Answer: Crystal Enterprise will allow you to set your report format and that can be set to default to Excel.

Question: Please let me know how to calculate a percent change from the number of sales of current year and previous year base on the sales column.

I Attached a Cross Tab Report format for reference.

Answer: A cross tab report will not allow you to create the percent change using the wizard. You will need to create a manual cross tab that groups the way that you want and then you would need to create percent change formulas for each month.

Questions and Answers from User Group meeting 24 August 2005

From: Ray Masoudi
Question: I have CR XI (Not Enterprise). It shuts down every 20 minutes.

Answer: There are several instances that may cause Crystal Reports to terminate unexpectedly. Some are addressed on the Business Objects web site in the Knowledge Base. Known issues are corrected by applying the latest CR XI hot fixes. Possibly reinstalling CR XI may be necessary if the issue is not resolved.

From: Canh Doan
Question: Having a subreport with XML http connection in a main report causes a problem in JRC. This works fine in CR Designer. Is this a bug with JRC?

Answer: First, confirm whether the report runs successfully through the CMC. If the problem persists then suspect data drivers and download the latest from the BOBJ website. If not then examine the coding involving loading the report. You can experiment with creating a report without the XML driver in the main to try to confine it to which combinations work and don't work.

From: Bryan Madaras
Question: Are there any plans of changing the way Crystal Reports handles an XML data source? Right now, it puts the data into tables. Will an XSL engine ever be created to handle the XML data source?

Answer: Crystal Reports is foundationally a two dimensional reporting tool so it seems unlikely that it expands beyond the two. If this is a concern, it might be prudent to contact BOBJ to address whether an XSL engine would be utilized in future.

From: Stan Musick
Question: The printer icon is not available on Crystal Viewer version 10. How can I get this available?

Answer: The HTML viewer that is displayed via URL reporting (.cwr) will default to an older viewer without printer icon. You can either edit the header html to add one of your own or call the report via the proccesshttprequest method. See viewer sdk help.

From: Stan Musick
Question: Problems using the merge module for vb.net development with V10 Crystal Reports.

Answer: We would need more detail on the nature of the problems encountered. See the beginning of this section to see what type of information is needed help answer this question.

From: Harriet Beasley
Question: I have successfully created a Gantt Chart in Crystal Reports, but have not been able to create a monthly and weekly calendar view in Crystal Reports that looks very similar to an Outlook calendar. The data to be pulled from the database is start date and time, finish date and time, and title of what will be or was accomplished. Several people at my college have asked for this. Please help!

Answer: This can be a very involved process, but one that is easy enough to handle. One approach is to base the calendar on the information that can be found from this Business Objects Knowledge Base article Another extremely useful article is by a frequent contributor to www.tek-tips.com