Crystal Reports: Hands-On

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About this class

With the power of this industry-leading report-writing tool, Crystal Reports users and developers can integrate their organisation's data, making sophisticated reports readily available to support critical business decisions.

In this hands-on course, you gain extensive experience using Crystal Reports to connect to databases, retrieve raw data, format data, and create and present reports for widespread distribution. You return to your organisation with a detailed process to help you connect to data sources and create useful reports right away.

This training may be available onsite; please contact us if you are interested.

Who will the lesson benefit?

Anyone involved in creating reports from stored data. Experience using Windows and working with a spreadsheet is assumed.

What delegates will learn

You will learn to:

• Develop reports using Crystal Reports to transform data into meaningful information
• Create advanced graphical and crosstab reports
• Add calculations and program logic with the Formula Workshop
• Connect to data sources natively, via ODBC and OLE DB
• Analyse database structures and extract the data you need to meet your reporting needs
• Deploy reports to Web browsers, Visual Basic and .NET

Contents of this class

Overview of Crystal Reports

• Formatting and summarising data
• Filtering, sorting and grouping data
• Customising reports with business logic
• Connecting to SQL Server, Oracle and Access databases
• Adding charts and sub reports to a report

The Crystal Report Writer

Writing a basic report

• Selecting a format
• Adding text and fields
• Connecting to remote data sources
• Configuring the reporting environment

Formatting and styling

• Tailoring sections within a report
• Annotating header and footer fields
• Designing fields for quality presentations
• Adding colour, borders and pictures
• Highlighting data with Highlight Expert

Linking Crystal Reports to Data

Connecting to popular data sources

• SQL Server
• Oracle
• Access
• Web logs
• XML
• Reporting from stored procedures and views

Establishing data connections

• Creating a connectivity checklist
• Configuring ODBC and OLE DB
• Integrating SQL commands in a report

Interpreting Structures and Retrieving Data

Navigating complex data

• Deciphering data structures
• Identifying data relationships

Gathering the right data

• Merging data from multiple tables
• Building business queries
• Optimising data retrieval

Combining Powerful Report Techniques

Organising and summarising reports

• Sorting user sort control and grouping
• Grouping with formulas
• Summary and Rolling Total fields
• Using Report Alerts

Building advanced reports

• Embedding linked and unlinked subreports into reports
• Creating crosstab and drill-down reports
• Designing dynamic and cascading prompts
• Multipass reporting, Hyperlinking Reports and Multilingual Reports
• Achieving reusability with templates

Visualising complex data

• Simplifying data with charts and graphs
• Organising fields into sections
• Adding, merging and suppressing sections

Programming Data Functionality

Coding in formula language

• Working with variables and operators
• Deciphering formula syntax
• Adding and modifying formulas with the Formula Workshop
• Calling and working with functions
• Sharing formulas with the Repository

Writing effective formulas

• Building if/then/else statements
• Converting and comparing data
• Debugging the code
• Employing the Formula Workshop

Converting to Basic Syntax

• Writing formulas with Basic Syntax
• Laying a foundation for complex programming

Deploying Reports to the Internet, Intranets, Visual Basic and .NET

Deploying Crystal Reports

• Deciding among Push, Pull, Static and Dynamic reports
• Migrating to production by switching databases
• Determining when to use the Crystal Reports Server

Publishing reports to a Web site

• Exporting reports to HTML
• Publishing to CrystalReports.com

Integrating into custom applications

• Adding Crystal Reports to Visual Basic and .NET
• Exploring application development options with Crystal Reports

Crystal Reports: Hands-On / 126

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