While using Crystal Reports I have encountered a strange bug, that repeats itself already with a number of my reports.
I still didn't fully get how I replicate it, but usually it goes as follows:
I add a parameter of any type to an existing report document, however it doesn't appear in a parameter prompt at all.
After I change parameter order in the Parameter Fields Section, my Parameter disappears and instead I see a duplicate of another parameter in a parameter list, and in the "Set Parameter Order"-Window I see this duplicated parameter as [ParameterName, ParameterName]. If I save the document in this moment and try to reopen it, CR crushes.
If I try to load this document in Vstudio with CREngine, the code exits with the message "Access violation".
Here is a pic of what is happening:
The reason you are not being prompted for the new "test" parameter is that it is not used by the report for anything.
The rest of the behavior is indeed strange. Consider removing the '#' character from the name of the first parameter to see if that fixes it.
If some of those parameters are from a stored procedure, perhaps your report is simply out of sync with the data source. Do Database, Verify Database...
Related
I have designed report in 10g. When I call report through forms 10g than report executed but do not display anything. Kindly help me what I have to do to resolve this issue. I use .rep report and desformat is PDF. One thing more when in this desformat my report started downloading instead of giving a preview in internet explorer and downloaded pdf is empty (contain nothing).
Report displays the result of a query. So the most obvious question is: does the query, when you run it outside of the Forms/Reports application, work correctly and returns the result?
If it accepts certain parameters, verify that they are correctly passed. Mind the datatype, especially if DATE is involved as people usually have problems with different format masks, NLS settings and stuff.
Also, check whether those parameters are obligatory or not. If not, report's query should contain something like
where (some_value = :parameter_value or :parameter_value is null)
Furthermore, make sure that all those parameters are passed to the report. You can display their values in the report, just to see what's going on. Open Reports Paper Layout Editor, go to the margin and - using the ampersand notation - display those values, such as
Parameter one = ¶meter_one
Parameter two = ¶meter_two
I have been designing Crystal Reports, and publishing them to the SAP Central Management Console, for the past couple of years; but I have never come across this really strange issue before!
The report in question has 7 Parameters:
1 is a static String Parameter,
1 is a static Date Range Parameter
3 are static Number Parameters
1 is a static String Parameter with a pre-defined list of values
1 is a multi-level dynamic String Parameter
All of these parameters work fine when running reports from the Designer application itself, but as soon as it's published to the Central Management Console it all messes up:
If you choose the first Parameter, you get the first parameter input screen.
If you choose the second Parameter, you get the first parameter input screen.
If you choose the third Parameter, you get the second parameter input screen.
If you choose the fourth Parameter, you get the third parameter input screen.
etc
This means that there is no way of selecting the 7th Parameter as it shows you the 6th parameter input screen.
This behavior started when I added two of the static Number Parameters. Before this everything worked fine, and I cannot find online documentation/help which would allude to a Parameter limit in CMC.
Crystal Reports Designer Version: Crystal Reports 2008, Version 12.3.0.601
Central Management Console Version: SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI, Product 12.1.0
Thanks in advance for any help!
After investigating I realised that the problem was Central Management Console does not interact well with multi-level parameters.
I changed the multi-level parameter to two separate parameters, and everything is working.
I have a SSRS "statement" type report that has general layout of text boxes and tables. For the main text box I want to let the user supply the value as a parameter so the text can be customized, i.e.
Parameters!MainText.Value = "Dear Mr.Doe, Here is your statement."
then I can set the text box value to be the value of the parameter:
=Parameters!MainText.Value
However, I need to be able to allow the incoming parameter value to include a dataset field, like so:
Parameters!MainText.Value = "Dear Mr.Doe, Here is your [Fields!RunDate.Value] statement"
so that my report output would look like:
"Dear Mr.Doe, Here is your November statement."
I know that you can define it to do this in the text box by supplying the static text and the field request, but I need SSRS to recognize that inside the parameter string there is a field request that needs to be escaped and bound.
Does anyone have any ideas for this? I am using SSRS 2008R2
Have you tried concatenating?
Parameters!MainText.Value = "Dear Mr.Doe, Here is your" & [Fields!RunDate.Value] & "statement"
There are a few dramatically different approaches. To know which is best for you will require more information:
Embedded code in the report. Probably the quickest to
implement would be embedded code in the report that returned the
parameter, but called String.Replace() appropriately to substitute
in dynamic values. You'll need to establish some code for the user for which strings will be replaced. Embedded code will get you access to many objects in the report. For example:
Public Function TestGlobals(ByVal s As String) As String
Return Report.Globals.ExecutionTime.ToString
End Function
will return the execution time. Other methods of accessing parameters for the report are shown here.
1.5 If this function is getting very large, look at using a custom assembly. Then you can have a better authoring experience with Visual Studio
Modify the XML. Depending on where you use
this, you could directly modify the .rdl/.rdlc XML.
Consider other tools, such as ReportBuilder. IF you need to give the user
more flexibility over report authoring, there are many tools built
specifically for this purpose, such as SSRS's Report Builder.
Here's another approach: Display the parameter string with the dataset value already filled in.
To do so: create a parameter named RunDate for example and set Default value to "get values from a query" and select the first dataset and value field (RunDate). Now the parameter will hold the RunDate field and you can use it elsewhere. Make this parameter hidden or internal and set the correct data type. e.g. Date/Time so you can format its value later.
Now create the second parameter which will hold the default text you want:
Parameters!MainText.Value = "Dear Mr.Doe, Here is your [Parameters!RunDate.Value] statement"
Not sure if this syntax works but you get the idea. You can also do formatting here e.g. only the month of a Datetime:
="Dear Mr.Doe, Here is your " & Format(Parameters!RunDate.Value, "MMMM") & " statement"
This approach uses only built-in methods and avoids the need for a parser so the user doesn't have to learn the syntax for it.
There is of course one drawback: the user has complete control over the parameter contents and can supply a value that doesn't match the report content - but that is also the case with the String Replace method.
And just for the sake of completeness there's also the simplistic option: append multiple parameters: create 2 parameters named MainTextBeforeRunDate and MainTextAfterRunDate.
The Textbox value expression becomes:
=Parameters!MainTextBeforeRunDate.Value & Fields!RunDate.Value & Parameters!MainTextAfterRunDate.Value.
This should explain itself. The simplest solution is often the best, but in this case I have my doubts. At least this makes sure your RunDate ends up in the final report text.
Friends,
I'm facing another challenge in APEX and I hope you can help.
I have created a tree using the method described in John & Scott's superb book, "Pro Application Express" whereby the page link is stored in a table. Below is an example:
go to a page passing some parameters
f?p=&APP_ID.:3:&SESSION.::::P3_IDENTIFIER,P3_FAMILY_NAME:&P2_IDENTIFIER.,&P2_FAMILY_NAME.
When the page is run this works as expected. I can expand the tree and navigate to the page passing parameters if required.
However when I turned on session state protection these "hand crafted" links stopped working. Which I expected because the link contains no checksum.
After some investigation I see I have to use APEX_UTIL.PREPARE_URL to generate the URL with a checksum. Unfortunately this is where I run into problems. I can't seem to be able to pass the parameters values to the calling page.
The original tree query was:
select "IDENTIFIER" id,
"PARENT_IDENTIFIER" pid,
"TITLE" name,
"LINK" link,
null a1,
null a2
from <some table>
I then changed this to use APEX_UTIL.PREPARE_URL:
....
APEX_UTIL.PREPARE_URL('f?p='||:APP_ID||':3:'||:APP_SESSION||'::::P3_IDENTIFIER,P3_FAMILY_NAME:&P2_IDENTIFIER.,&P2_FAMILY_NAME.') link,
...
and this works, the page is called and I can see the values of the parameters passed. But I can't use this method as it is restricted to the one page!
Finally I tried storing the page number, parameters and parameter values in different columns of the table that the tree is based on and then bring them together:
...
APEX_UTIL.PREPARE_URL('f?p='||:APP_ID||':'||navigate_to_page||':'||:APP_SESSION||'::::'||parameters||':'||parameter_values) link,
...
Where:
navigate to page has the value of: 3
parameters has the value of: P3_IDENTIFIER,P3_FAMILY_NAME
parameter_values has the values of: &P2_IDENTIFIER.,&P2_FAMILY_NAME.
This now calls the page, but the parameter values have become literals. so where I'm expecting an identifier I see &P2_IDENTIFIER and ditto for family name.
What am I doing wrong? How can I pass values to my called page using apex_util_prepare_url?
In case of need, my environment details are: Apex 3.2.1, Oracle Application Server 10.1.2.3. Oracle Database 10.2.0.3
Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to provide.
I think you'll need to resolve those variables, using the v() function:
APEX_UTIL.PREPARE_URL('f?p='||:APP_ID
||':'||navigate_to_page
||':'||:APP_SESSION
||'::::'||parameters
||':'||v('P2_IDENTIFIER')||','||v('P2_FAMILY_NAME')) link,
On a side note, you might need to be careful about P2_FAMILY_NAME since it's being used in the url; it sounds like a plain text field which contains user-entered data?
In Crystal reports, you can define default values for the report parameters.
For example, I might have a date range and set a default start of 12/01/2008 and a default end of 12/31/2008.
Is it possible to modify these defaults at runtime? For example:
1 - Default to the first and last days of the current month?
2 - Default to the first and last days of a proprietary company fiscal calendar? (i.e., look it up in a database)
3 - First & Last days of the current year?
You get the point. Is this possible? I'd even be open to a solution that involved running an external application to reach into the reports and modify them, if anyone knows how to do that.
Edit:
To answer the question posed by Philippe Grondier, most of these reports are run from inside an application. I was hoping for something simpler than manipulating the crystal object at runtime; I have my hands full right now with figuring out other parts of that API. I might take a look in the future, though.
Are you planning to run your crystal report from the crystal reports interface or as an add-in embedded in another program (you can for example use the Crystal Reports ActiveX Designer Runtime Support - craxdrt.dll - in VB code) ? In this last case, it is possible to manipulate every object of the report before launching it. Objects such as parameters can then be updated according to your needs.
As a simple example of such runtime update, my report printing routine will allways check if there is a field named "printedBy" in the report. In case this field is found, its value will be settled to the the domain name of the user that requests the report and will be printed out.
At an higher level, you can even reshape the report SQL string to add specific filters that can be inherited from your code. By doing so you might not even need parameters anymore: let your code add the filtering values 'on the fly'
EDIT: some code examples:
(m_rapport is a CRAXDRT.report object, ActiveSession is my current session object)
If m_rapport.ParameterFields.Count > 0 Then
For i = 1 To m_rapport.ParameterFields.Count
If m_rapport.ParameterFields(i).Name = "{?PUB_DateDebutPeriode}" Then
m_rapport.ParameterFields(i).AddCurrentValue CDate(DateValue(sessionActive.dateDebutPeriode))
End If
If m_rapport.ParameterFields(i).Name = "{?PUB_DateFinPeriode}" Then
m_rapport.ParameterFields(i).AddCurrentValue CDate(DateValue(sessionActive.dateFinPeriode))
End If
If m_rapport.ParameterFields(i).Name = "{?PUB_id_Personne}" Then
m_rapport.ParameterFields(i).AddCurrentValue StringFromGUID(clientActif.id_Personne)
End If
Next i
Endif
I also have another function to change report's datasource at runtime, so that reports can be executed on different servers/locations.
Read my posting Crystal Reports: Named-Date-Range Parameters. Maybe you'll be able to leverage this technique for your purposes.