In-report comments for other designers in Crystal Reports - crystal-reports

What would be the best ways to comment/document a report in Crystal reports for other designers? I can think of the following ways:
File > Summary Info...
comments with // in Formulas
Suppressed sections with information only for designers
Comments in SQL commands
The more complex reports would be easier to read with this kind of commenting...

I use the techniques you mention. I also place a text box in a suppressed report header section detailing key aspects of the report e.g. Title & Purpose, then a list of amendment history entries to include date, who made change, version number and change comments.
Lastly, if I need to comment the selection criteria (where comments disappear after saving), i create a formula called SelectionCriteria and copy the actual selection criteria into this formula. I'll change the report selection formula to #SelectionCriteria and not only does everything work I can also add comments to the selection code.

Related

Formatting Excel Output of Crystal Reports with Multiple Subqueries

I've put together a summary report in Crystal Reports 2013 that has about 10-12 subreports. Each subreport is a fairly basic query that produces one or several lines rows and columns of data. I'm using SAP's Central Management Console to produce the reports, with the output an Excel output.
My problem is that my excel output is coming out unstandardized i.e. random extra empty rows and columns, data and header mismatches, different widths of rows and columns, etc.
I've been messing around with the formatting setting w/in Crystal Reports (standardizing size and shape of subqueries on the preview screen, supressing empty areas, etc.) but can't come close to getting the Excel output to look the way I want.
Is there a specific export formatting function/area within Crystal Reports that will allow me to design the export in the way I'd like? And if not, are there any ways to format multiple subqueries w/in Crystal Reports so their format in an Excel export is uniform?
If i really understood your issue, you have troubles with the alignment of data, cells and stuff like that in the spreadsheet, is it correct?
If so, the solution is to review the align of your fields in the report. It is very boring. You can use some functionalitis like:
right click a field and use "align to grid"
select two fields, right click and use "left align" and "top align"
change the property "gridsize" of the "report" to a higher value and use the keyboard to position the fields.
Avoid empty spaces between field at most.
Keep your eyes on the rulers.
Furthermore, check the version of Crystal Reports you are using. There is a good improvement about it from version 11 to 13.
Exporting to Excel seems a bit qwerky because the same steps do not necessarily work for all reports (my experience at least). Keep this in mind when reading the following steps. Perform the following steps on both the detail(footer if using grouping) and header rows where applicable:
Choose driver “Microsoft Excel(97-2003)”
Make sure the header and detail sections have no spaces in between the columns
Make sure the header and detail column boxes align perfectly (should see red crosses when alignment is correct).
Select all fields on the row, right-click, align to top (if this does try aligning to grid)
Right-click to the left of the detail columns and “Select All Section Objects”
Right-click in the same location and choose “Arrange Lines” then “Fit Section”
Perform steps 4 & 5 on the header columns as well
Open Section Expert, select “Suppress Blank Section” for all unused sections
If none of the above work, use driver “Microsoft Excel (97-2003) (Data Only) “
Headers will still appear in the report but will not be in bold

Crystal Reports - adding Terms & Conditions as extra page- and strike all previous formatting

I've looked at a couple other posts (listed below) but I'm still looking for advice on this. I've got an order form and need to create an additional blank page at the end for Terms & Conditions. I have that part working but I can't figure out how to remove the formatting associated with the order form.
Current setup:
- Created a Report Footer with Terms & Conditions Listed.
- Edited the suppression formula for other sections (pagenumber=totalpagecount)
Problem:
The formatting gridlines & boxes from the order form carries over and I don't know how to suppress those so I just have text on a blank page. Image attached.
Thank you in advance for your brilliance.
Previously referenced:
Adding an additional page to end of a Crystal Report
Adding a terms and conditions page to a Crystal Reports report

How do I Create a 'Layered' Crystal Report in Visual Studio 2015 Plug-In

I am trying to generate a 'layered' Crystal Report using the Crystal Report plugin for Visual Studio 2015. I am having formatting problems and would like suggestions on grouping or formatting that will help me achieve something like the below image (what I am trying to achieve).
The first layer includes headers--the row beginning with Time of Search. There are multiple results for that section. I.e. Time of Search could have that 11/12 value pictured and an 11/14, 11/19...
The second layer returns a list of details associated with the first result. In fact, for this example there would be 187 results. My difficulty is that this second section has its own header as well. After printing the seconds sections details, I would like the first header to be displayed, followed by the first header's data, then second header, then second headers data.
There is no way I can know prior to generating the report how many section ones will be needed. Additionally, I do not know how many section twos will be associated with the given sections one. Any help is greatly appreciated!
This was achieved by using two groups and placing the Time of Search row in one group header say 1A. The details from that row were placed in group header 1B.
A second group say 2 contained the blue box row as its header. The list below was filled within the details area.

In Crystal Reports, can I combine the detail lines of the main report with the detail lines of a subreport?

This is a resource planning report, and the goal is to have a running total of usage and purchases for each component. Currently, I have the main report details section that lists usage amounts ordered by date for a part. In the group footer, I have a subreport that lists all of the purchase orders for the part. I want the detail lines of the purchases subreport to be included among the detail lines of the main report at the appropriate date, kind of like a list of credits and debits. Then, for each line, the running total will subtract usage amounts and add purchase amounts. I put the subreport in the main report details section, but then it is run for each line. So I tried to suppress duplicates, but it doesn't land in the correct date position. I tried various other things like splitting the detail section of the main report and changing the linked fields of the reports to no avail.
Thanks!
Let me get this straight. You have a table of "credits" and another table of "debits" and you want them both to appear in an orderly manner in the details section. You tried a few different methods (those were all good attempts, by the way), but didn't get what you liked.
I recommend looking at your data source and seeing if you can union the two datasets there. In other words, don't bother with doing all that in Crystal.

crystal report problem

what is the equivalant command like in vb for EOF(), MoveNext, Moveprevious commands in crystal reports
There are no equivalent answers in Crystal Reports, at least not in the versions I have used. Crystal Reports more or less simply dumps the data out into the report.
That said, if you are in a detail row, and you want to find out what the next value of a field will be, you can use:
next({YourColumn})
You can also find out the previous column value by using this:
previous({YourColumn})
Keep in mind that Next() won't work on the last record, and Previous() won't work on the first record.
I'll have to double-check, but I believe there is an OnLastRecord function that returns TRUE if you are on the last record.
First, welcome to SO!
Second, you sound new to Crystal Report's purpose is to display data, not perform the kind of calculations you're talking about. CR usually goes record-by-record through the data, displaying (or suppressing) each record, and adding group headers & footers.
To answer your question, LittleBobbyTables does give a few good pointers. To see the entire list of functions available to you, there is a list in the Formula Editor (see pic below). Press F1 for detailed descriptions of each command.
You can also:
Create a "Running Total Formula" that will evaluate each record and give a calculation in the group footer.
Do the calculations outside of Crystal Reports and only feed the end result in (perhaps with an unlinked join to your primary table).
The most complex option is to make a subreport that does the calculation and feeds the result back to the main report
Can you give us some more details about what you're trying to do?