fundamental question re Crystal Reports

[phinds]

I just opened Crystal Reports for the first time and I am somewhat confused. It's certainly possible that my first impression is fallacious, but I see it as an ugly, cumbersome tool that is not likely to be of much use to someone who really knows what they're doing.

Am I seriously misjudging its capabilities?

Thanks for your time.

[BryanJ]

I have used Crystal Reports for two years now and I am still scared of it .

It is ugly and cumbersome and some of the functionally is clumsy but it is very powerful and you can produce amazing reports with it. - after a lot of sweat and tears.

I find the hardest thing about it , is that I have to spend alot of time fiddling with the format and it is absolutely boring and not what a software programmer likes doing - but one cannot get away from this in any reporting package.

This is the fundamentals of reporting and there are no short cuts.

Goodluck and believe me there are a lot of us out there who have had similar experiences.

[phinds]

BryanJ, can you compare it to the report capability of Access, for example?

And thank you, by the way, for your original response

[BryanJ]

It is a lot more powerful than Access but if you want to do some simple reports outside your app them I would definitely use Access.



The great features about Crystal is that you can basically embed your reports in the VB code and so there is no indication that the is a third party report package in existance. You only have to attach a couple of dll in the deployment wizard and away you go.

You can also use Vb code , instead of the Crystal Syntax, within your report to do some of the finer format.

This is the best way, I have found to implement reports ...

1.) Start developement with the report outside the VB IDE , ie in the Crystal Reports environment. This is because the formatting capability is greater than in the vb ide.

2.) Set up your data in the Crystal Reports using the Data Definition Fields. This is because you can use vb in your app to create an ado recordset with a lot of complicated joins without battling with Crystals to do the joins.

3.) Whatever you do , do not waste your time on formatting until you have tested your data bindings.

4.) I would then import the pure Crystal reports into the VB ide and bind the a recordset from my vb code with Crystal reports and test that the data is actually displayed. This is where the blood starts flowing. I have found that if there is a slight mistake such as the order of the fields the CR give an informative error message such as "Data binding not possible".

5.) Anyway when you finally find all the data is bound then return to the original report in Crystal Reports and format the report properly and re-import. There is not point in formating it in the beginning as you might have problems with databinding and you might want to delete field to find out where the problems are.


This is how I attach the recordsets..
Public Function Open_Due_Report() As Boolean
'Open the due report
If Not udt_Report.rs Is Nothing Then
Set Rep_Main = New rpt_due
Rep_Main.ReportTitle = udt_Report.strReport_Title
Rep_Main.Database.SetDataSource udt_Report.rs, , 1 'Set the record set
Rep_Main.Database.SetDataSource udt_Report.logo, , 2 'Set the record set
Open_Due_Report = True
End If
End Function

The second recordset that I attach is actually a company logo for the top of the report.

Anyway I am sure a lot of the member have their own methods but this is the way that I have found to be the best. It is painful and I do not enjoy it , so I try to stick to this formular as it seem to work quite well.

[phinds]

BryanJ, thanks very much for the detailed response. This looks like excellent information and should save me some (but clearly not all) of the pain. I really appreciate it.

[jayakumar]

hi,

crystal reports good tool to design reports.we are using since last 3 years in n-tier architecture with 500+ clientele.they are giving good results.u will get good help from

www.crystal-decisions.com

[phinds]

jayakumar, I get a "page not found" for this reference

ah, wait, I've got it. the "-" is not part of the reference; it's

http://www.crystaldecisions.com/

anyway, this looks like something you have to pay for, yes?