Crystal report multiple date count - charts

Question

I am trying to create a crystal report chart that counts the number of opened and closed tickets of each month.
Example they opened 10 tickets but 15 were close (7 from the same month 8 from other months).
When I try to generate the report I can get either the open or the closed working. I know the problem is with the grouping (if grouped by the submitted date the submitted date is right but the closed is wrong because of ones from other months and vis-a-versa).
I have tried overlapping the reports but the problem with that is the auto scale could be different for the reports and fixed scaling is not an option.
Because the data is filtered to return all rows with a submitted date or a closed date is greater than one year ago. I use a sum to count the records
example:
if submitted > 1 year ago
1
else
0
same for closed
For the display I need a bar chart where the two groups are sorted by the month. One bar for the ones opened in that month and one bar for the closed of that month.
Similar situation but I can't modify the sql.
One record in multiple Groups within Crystal Reports XI

Answer 1

I'll offer my solution based on years of wrestling with Crystal.
Do your data processing in the database (stored procedures) or core application (C# or whatever), then hand off a simple table or two to Crystal.
This makes your reports lightweight and easy to maintain (or move to another reporting tool later on) and puts the "guts" of your logic in plain code that can be managed in source control.
I'm sure you could get it to work in Crystal, but next month you will forget how it works and your coworkers will be even worse off. Let Crystal do basic formatting and render a pretty report, but do the hardcore data processing elsewhere.
Spend an hour feeding Crystal simple data rather than spending an hour configuring 5-level-deep options in the Crystal designer.