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ELCOME TO THE
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About This Guide
The purpose of this guide is to provide you with an overview of Seagate Crystal Reportsย 7. This powerful tool is designed to make designing, formatting and distributing presentation-quality reports as simple and flexible as possible. The acknowledged market share leader among desktop query and report writers, Seagate Crystal Reports has won every major industry award, and is bundled with more than 160 independent software vendors, including Microsoft, PeopleSoft and Informix.
The Getting Started Guide contains enough information to help get you up and running with Seagate Crystal Reports 7 and perform some basic reporting tasks. Once you have completed this guide you may want to continue to experiment on your own.
Seagate Crystal Reports 7 also provides many other very powerful reporting capabilities for more both application development and web-based reporting. You may want to consult one of the other Getting Started Guides included on this CD or the comprehensive Userยs Guide to better appreciate how Seagate Crystal Reports can help address all of your reporting needs.
How Should I Use This Guide?
New to Reporting or Seagate Crystal Reports
If youยre new to Seagate Crystal Reports, youยll find that it uses a ยbandedย report structure to design reports. This is simply a logical way of breaking up the report into headers, footers, summary groups and detailed data. Seagate Crystal Reports is a very powerful reporting tool, but has a number of features which make it easy to design both simple and fairly complex reports. It also can inter-face to virtually any data source and has a large number of formatting features for producing presentation-quality reports.
You should read the section and complete some of the exercises to get a feel for reporting with this release. You should have no trouble working through the examples in this guide, but for more information on Seagate Crystal Reports and report design in general, you should consult the online help. You may also want to open some of the supplied sample reports to get a better idea of the different types of reports and how they look in the designer.
Existing Seagate Crystal Reports Users
If you already use a previous version of Seagate Crystal Reports, you will already be familiar with a lot of the reporting concepts and terminology used in this guide. This guide will help you understand how the Report Designer inte-grates the reporting environment into your applications and how to take advan-tage of some of the event oriented features.
Version 5 or 6
If youยre a version 5 or 6 user, youยll notice that the Crystal Report Designer and most menus look fairly similar to what youยre using now. The major visible dif-ferences are the addition of several new menu items and buttons, the Analyzer view for charts and maps, and several new report experts. Youยll also notice a new look for parts of the user interface including the formula editor and report gallery.
Other Versions
If youยre a user of earlier versions of Seagate Crystal Reports, youยll notice a new look and feel in the designer interface with easier ways of adding and manipulating fields, sections and other report objects. If you look through the various menus, youยll see that there a lot more formatting and data manipulation choices and several new report experts.
Reading the section will give you an idea of the major changes between the ver-sion you are using now and this release. The section will give you more details about the most recent changes and the exercises will give you hands-on experi-ence with most of them. You may also want to open some existing reports to see how they look in this release and become more familiar with the various menus and options.
To Find Out More
P
RODUCT
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NSTALLATION
Before You Begin
Seagate Crystal Reports has been designed for be installation on the Microsoft Windows platform. You can use either Windows 3.1, 95/98 or Windows NT as your operating system.
Installation Requirements
Seagate Crystal Reports 7 and associated support files have the following instal-lation and run time requirements:
Microsoft Windows 3.1, 95, 98 or Windows NT 3.51 (Intel) or higher System RAM: 16 MB (32 MB Windows 98 and NT)
Hard drive free space (16-bit): approximately 172 MB for Full install, 24 MB for Compact install
Hard drive free space (32-bit): approximately 120 MB for Full install, 10 MB for Compact install
CD-ROM drive
If your system does not meet these requirements, the program may not install or run correctly.
Installing Seagate Crystal Reports
Seagate Crystal Reports has been designed for installation on several Microsoft Windows platforms. You can use Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows NT 3.51 and higher as your operating system.
Windows 3.1 or NT 3.51
where x represents the appropriate drive letter. For example, if your CD is in drive d:, type
d:\setup
5 When the Seagate Crystal Reports splash screen appears, select 16- or 32-bit as the installation type according to your operating system. The End User License Agreement appears.
6 If you agree to the terms of the license agreement, click I Agree to continue installing the product. The Enter the Installation Key dialog box appears. 7 Enter the product key code in the dialog box (the 12-digit key code is
print-ed on the CD sleeve).
8 Click OK. The Installation dialog box appears.
9 Follow the directions on the screen to set up the program. During the instal-lation procedure, you will be given the choice to have Setup complete an automatic installation or a custom installation. If you select Automatic Installation, Setup installs all of the Seagate Crystal Reports files to the drive you specify. If you select Custom Installation, you will be given the opportu-nity to select which components of the Seagate Crystal Reports application files are installed on your system.
Windows 95/98 or NT 4.0 or higher
To install Seagate Crystal Reports, complete the following steps: 1 Select Run from the Start menu. The Run dialog box appears. 2 Complete steps 4ย8 above.
I
NTRODUCTION TO
S
EAGATE
C
RYSTAL
R
EPORTS
The amount of data being generated in worldwide business activities is growing at a staggering rate. Making business decisions based on this data can be extremely valuable, but the data must first be filtered into meaningful informa-tionยa daunting task. Without powerful query and reporting tools, itยs difficult to organize, analyze, or present this information effectively. Seagate Crystal Reports was designed to address these challenges.
Seagate Crystal Reports is a desktop query and reporting tool; it accesses more than 30 different data sources, has powerful data analysis capabilities, and pro-duces a virtually unlimited variety of presentation-quality reports with an ease that its users rave about. Because of its modular design, the Crystal Report Engine can be used to integrate reporting into database applications with free runtime licensing. Users can also perform ad-hoc query and report viewing over the Web using the advanced web reporting capabilities of Seagate Crystal Reports 7.
Seagate Crystal Reports is used by business professionals who need of easy-to-create reports, IT professionals who easy-to-create reports for their users, and software developers integrating powerful reporting into their database applications.
The Reporting Tool of Choice
Seagate Crystal Reports has been chosen by over 160 of the industryยs leading software vendors including Microsoftยฎ, Informixยฎ, and PeopleSoftยฎfor inclusion
ย First Report Engine DLL, complete with a free runtime ย First report writer to include integrated e-mail
ย First report writer with VBX / OCX / ActiveX controls
ย First report writer with compiled reportsยexecutable versions of reports ย First 32-bit Windows-based report writer
ย First report writer with HTML exporting and web-based ActiveX Viewer Control
ย First report writer to report from special data sources such as Microsoft Internet Information Server Web Logs, Microsoft Exchange Folders, and Windows NT Event Logs
ย First OLAP-aware report writer
True to form, Seagate Crystal Reports 7 continues this tradition of innovation by offering new ways to analyze data including the ability to perform ad-hoc report-ing over the Web, new visualization tools and the most requested improvements to existing features. For more information, refer to the Product Overview section.
Product Overview
If youยre not familiar with Seagate Crystal Reports, or just want an overall sum-mary, this section will give you an overview of the key features and capabilities of this product.
Powerful, Flexible Reporting
You donยt have to adapt your report to the limitations of your reporting tool. Although database programs often include their own report writers, they typically require extensive knowledge of the database with which they are bundled. With Seagate Crystal Reports, however, even inexperienced users can quickly create stunning reports with Report Experts that guide them through the report creation process.
Access Data Easily
You can access data from virtually any PC, SQL, OLE DB, ODBC-compliant, groupware, or MicrosoftยฎBackOfficeยdata source. A wide range of built-in tools
Native database drivers for Oracle, Informix, ACT!, the IBM DB2 family and others, make Seagate Crystal Reports the only tool you need to transform data from over 30 different relational databases to information-rich reports. And with a native driver for Arbor Essbase, you can also report off multidimensional (OLAP) databases.
Design Reports Quickly
Report Experts make it easy to produce informative, visually appealing reports. A drag-and-drop interface, the option to edit reports while viewing live data, and an interface designed to make common reporting tasks highly efficient all help you design reports more productively.
Distribute Reports Widely
When your report is complete, Seagate Crystal Reports makes it easy to send it just about anywhere, in practically any format. Export your report to a wide vari-ety of popular formats including Microsoft Word and Excel, HTML or even e-mail. Compile reports into standalone applications for interactive viewing. Distribute reports via the Web using advanced web reporting technology. Build Any Report You Can Imagine
Place the data in your report wherever you want and customize it to look any way you choose; reports can be as simple or as complex as your needs demand. You donยt need to adjust your projects around what Seagate Crystal Reports can do. In this version, you have a variety of report types from which to choose:
ย Subreports: Replace several reports by creating one main report that contains embedded subreports. Each subreport can access a different data source.
ย Web Reports: Publish new and existing reports to the Web by exporting directly to HTML format, or use the Crystal Web Report Server to deploy reports in *.RPT format to the Web.
ย Form-style Reports: Print precisely onto pre-printed forms using guide-lines, text objects, and free-form object placement.
In-Depth Analysis
Seagate Crystal Reports gives you the tools to examine trends, expose relation-ships or zero in on important facts. An analyzer view lets you interactively zoom in, drill down or modify graphs and maps to examine items of interest.
Customizable cross-tabs help uncover relationships and allow you to compare two perspectives on the same data. A powerful formula editor, with over 160 functions, lets you create important summary data that might not be present in your database, and easy to use field highlighting visually alerts you to key values in your report.
Powerful Processing
Server-side processing lets you design reports which perform grouping, sorting and SQL expressions on the database server, conserving precious network resources. Use on-demand subreports to speed up initial report display and defer optional report processing until requested by your user.
Manage Your Reports
R
EPORTING
T
ECHNOLOGY
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ESIGNED FOR THE
W
EB
Access the most advanced web reporting capabilities available in the industry and transfer the reporting skills you already have to web projects. Many reporting tools claim to be web-enabled, but a reporting tool truly designed for the Web needs to do more than just export to HTML. Seagate Crystal Reports 7 goes far beyond the HTML export capabilities that we introduced in April 1996; weยve created a reporting tool designed for the Web that maintains Seagate Softwareยs technological leadership through superior web reporting functionality. Itยs also designed to build on your existing development skills. Seagate Crystal Reports offers the following technological advantages:ย The ability to leverage existing reporting skills and knowledge ย Smart Navigation for the Web
ย Smart Viewers
ย A thin-client, thin-wire architecture ย Hassle-free cross-platform deployment ย Ad-hoc query and analysis over the Web ย Web application deployment
Leverage Existing Reports
Smart Navigation
Now itยs fast and easy to find information, whether itยs on the desktop or in a browser. Rather than having to page through an entire report, you can quickly navigate to specific details via a new page-on-demand interface that presents a summary of the report. Pull reports from the web server to the browser, one page at a time, then drill down for more detail on graphs, group totals, and embedded hyperlinks. Automatically generated group trees provide an index to reports so you can quickly jump, with a single mouse click, to the section of the report you need to analyze.
Smart Viewers
Smart Viewers are lightweight add-ins (less than 300KB) for ActiveX and Java that let you view reports in their native *.RPT format. Distributing reports via the Web doesnยt mean you need to compromise when it comes to the presentation quality of your reports. Seagate Crystal Reports 7 has Smart Viewersยthin-client add-ins that enable you to add functionality to web reports without the hassles of application setup on client desktops. With the ActiveX and Java-based viewers, you can view reports in native Seagate Crystal Reports format or export reports to your client system using web browsers supporting ActiveX or Java. In addi-tion, Smart Viewers for HTML Frames or plain HTML provide platform inde-pendence by letting users view any Crystal Report on any web browser, running on any operating system.
Thin-wire Architecture
Even if youยre deploying large reports to your intranet, the ยthin-wireย architec-ture of the Crystal Web Report Server ensures superior response times and reduces web traffic. Page-on-demand access to reports lets users download only the specific pages of a report which they need to see. An ISAPI/NSAPI/CGI-compliant component, the Crystal Web Report Server is compatible with popular Windows-based web servers including Microsoft Internet Information Server, Netscape Enterprise Server, Apache and Lotus Domino.
Cross-Platform Support
Ad hoc Query and Analysis
Crystal Query is a new query generation tool which allows you to go beyond simply viewing existing reports over the web. Java applets allow you to create ad hoc queries remotely using compatible web browsers. Simply select a database from a list of available sources, choose fields and specify sorting, grouping, and selection options. The results appear in a Query Results Grid which you can use to analyze the data, change sort order, column orders, etc. The results of the query can then be saved as a simple report (in RPT format) which can be viewed using one of the standard Smart Viewers.
Web Application Deployment
Get the same flexible reporting power in your web-deployed applications that you enjoy on the desktop. Seagate Crystal Reports 7 includes the Crystal Active Server Component, which lets you integrate the Crystal Report Engine directly into Active Server Pages (ASPs). A Design-time ActiveX Control for Microsoft Visual InterDev is also included to make integrating reports into ASPs as simple as pointing and clicking.
Two Component Architecture
Seagate Crystal Reports is a combination of two components: the Crystal Report Designer, which builds, manipulates, and formats reports, and the Crystal Report Engine, which processes reports and then prints or exports them to a specified destination.
Crystal Report Designer
Crystal Report Engine
The printing and exporting heart of Seagate Crystal Reports is the Crystal Report Engine, a true Dynamic Link Library (DLL) that you can integrate dependably into Windows-based and web-based applications with a royalty-free runtime license. As a developer using Visual Basic, Visual C++, Visual InterDev, Delphi, INFORMIX-NewEra, Visual dBASE, C, C++, or any other programming lan-guage that can access a DLL, you can add sophisticated reporting capabilities to your applications without the time-consuming task of writing your own code from scratch. Available in both 16- and 32-bit versions, Seagate Crystal Reports runs on Windows 3.1, Windows for Workgroups, Windows 95/98, and Windows NT 3.51+. All reports created with Seagate Crystal Reports are compatible across 16- and 32-bit environments.
Advanced Developer Features
Adding superior reporting functionality to your applications faster and easier than ever. Seagate Crystal Reports is well-known among Windows developers. When your application runs, it links to the Crystal Report Engine to access report processing, printing, and exporting functionality. Reporting can be simple, pro-ducing only a single report that is sent to a printer or preview window with no options available to the user. Or, it can be complex, letting the user change record selections, sorting, grouping, and export options.
Seagate Crystal Report 7 contains many innovative features that continue to make it the premier choice for developers who need to integrate sophisticated reporting into their applications.
Supported Environments
Integrate the powerful functionality of the Crystal Report Engine with any of the controls or class libraries included in Seagate Crystal Reports 7:
ย ActiveX (OCX) Control (16- and 32-bit) ย Visual Basic Custom Control (VBX)
ย Microsoft Foundation Class Library with AppWizard for Visual C++ ย Delphi Visual Component Library (VCL)
ย INFORMIX-NewEra Class Library ย Automation Server and Object Library
Interactive Reporting
Reports donยt have to be static objects within your application. Your reports can come alive with the smart Preview Window; it provides unprecedented interactiv-ity by offering more control to users. The result? Live reports and superior con-trol over your application design.
Use Event and Call-back support to create truly interactive reporting applications. When a user clicks on an element in the Preview Window, your application can present additional report details, launch another report, execute application code, or do whatever you choose. Customizable Preview Window controls include fea-tures such as a printer setup button, a variable zoom control, a refresh button, and search capabilities in your application. Enable any or all of these new features, or use the default settingsยthe choice is yours.
Report From Application Data
Connect to data sources on the fly using the Active Data Driver in Seagate Crystal Reports 7. Create a report template that you can use within your Visual Basic application. Then, at runtime, use Active Data Objects (ADO), Remote Data Objects (RDO), or Data Access Objects (DAO) to bind your report to any runtime data source, including grid data. Or use the Crystal Data Object (CDO) to report off memory blocks by binding to application memory. Your application is more tightly integrated with data so it only needs to connect to the data once. Report Designer Component
Now you can create reports from directly within the Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 or 6.0 Integrated Design Environment using this ActiveX-based designer. Import or use familiar Report Experts to create you report and then add formatting, data-base selection and other customization to your report using familiar Visual basic code. Reports created in the Visual Basic 6.0 Data Reporter can also be migrated to Seagate Crystal Reports as your reporting needs become more complex. JavaBean Viewer
prop-V
ERSION
7 T
EST
D
RIVE
This Test Drive section is designed to give you some hands-on exposure to the Seagate Crystal Reports 7. These exercises step you through designing a new report and adding formatting and other enhancements to an existing report. Even if youยre an experienced Seagate Crystal Reports user, you may want to follow through these exercises to better understand how this release may be different from the version you use now.
The Hands On exercises include:
ย Creating a Report - connecting to a database and creating a simple report
ย Modifying a Report - adding some additional formatting and enhance-ments to a report
ย Importing a Report - converting an ASCII legacy report to a Crystal Report
After you have completed these exercises, you may want to create some simple reports using a database you are familiar with, or try modifying some of the sam-ple reports included with this version. There other specific test drives you can complete for both Web Reporting and the Report Designer Component for Microsoft Visual Basic. These are included in the corresponding Getting Started Guides which can also be found on the Seagate Crystal Reports CD.
Hands On: Creating a New Report
To help you quickly create professional-quality reports, Seagate Crystal Reports includes Report Experts that walk you through the report generation process step-by-step, giving you ยpaint-by-numberย solutions to complex reporting problems. In most cases, Report Experts present you with a series of tabs. Each tab requests information about one aspect of the reporting process. You work through the tabs, selecting only those tabs necessary for the reporting task at hand. When the final tab is completed, the Report Expert generates the report.
Step by step
1 Open Seagate Crystal Reports 7, if it is not already running.
2 To create a new report, select New... from the File menu. The Report Gallery window will appear.
4 You will be connecting to an existing Access database file so click on the Data File button. The Choose Database File window will appear. Select the file named ยxtremeย from the list of files and click Add.
6 Click on the Fields tab and select the ยCustomer Nameย database field in the Database Fields text box. Click and drag the field into the Report Fields text box. Do the same for the ยLast Yearยs Salesย, ยCityย and ยRegionย fields.
The Report Expert creates column headers for you using the field names as a default. If you want to rename a column, simply type the new name in the corresponding column header field.
Manipulating Data
Now that youยve created a basic report, you can manipulate the data to modify the report any way you want. You may want to filter data to include only those customers in a certain country, for example, or you may need to present subtotals in a certain order, list companies by region, or highlight certain totals according to their amounts.
To use the Report Expert to help make these changes, select Report Expert... from the Report menu. A Confirm Command dialog box will pop up, click Yes and the Report Expert will appear.
9 We want to show the total sales for each group on our report so click on the Total tab. Because The ยLast Years Salesย field is the only numeric field in the report, the expert automatically selected it for totaling.
Adding a Graph
Seagate Crystal Reports contains a powerful graphing tool that converts data into graphs so you can include intuitive, presentation-quality graphs in any report. These graphs can be completely customized and they can be inserted almost any-where in your report. Simply select the style of graph you want and the Report Export automatically creates it for you.
Adding a Style
To make your report more appealing, you can add a variety of elements such as borders, underlines, and logos. By using the style features in the Create Report Expert, you can add style attributes to any report.
13 To add a style to this report, click on the Style tab and select the Red/Blue Border style. Weยll take this opportunity to add a title as well by typing ยSales by Regionย in the Title field.
Hands On: Modifying Reports
In some cases, you will want to create reports that are more complex than the simple report you created in the previous exercise. Summarizing data, incorporat-ing data from more than one database or providincorporat-ing multiple views of the same data are typical requirements for many, more complex reports. Seagate Crystal Reports has several powerful tools that help you design almost any report that you can imagine.
In this exercise, youยll start with an existing simple report and use Seagate Crystal Reports to make several modifications to the report.
Before you begin
Ensure that you have completed the previous exercise and know the name and location of the sample report you created. This will be used as the starting point for this exercise.
Step by step
1 Open Seagate Crystal Reports 7, if it is not already running.
2 Open the report you created in the previous exercise by selecting Open... under the File menu and navigating to the appropriate file location. Creating a Formula
In many cases, the data you want to appear in your report already exists in fields within database tables. Sometimes, however, you need to put data in your report that does not exist in any of the data fields. In such cases, you must create a for-mula. For example, to calculate each customerยsales for last year as a percentage of total sales for the region, you need to know the subtotal of sales for the region as well as the sales for each individual customer in that region.
The Formula Editor window will appear. The Formula Editor lets you create, test, and modify your formula. and displays a series of buttons representing the dif-ferent types of Report Experts that are available.
4 Enter the following formula in the Formula Editor window by double-click-ing each field in the Formula Editor list boxes:
{Customer.Last Yearโs Sales} % Sum ({Customer.Last Yearโs Sales}, {Customer.Region}) ย Double-click ยCustomer.Last Yearยs Salesย from the Fields list (Left
Pane)
ย Double-click ยPer cent x%yย from the Operators list (Right Pane) ย Double-click ยGroup Footer #1:Sum of Last Yearยs Salesย from the
The operator you selected automatically formats the result of the formula to print as a percentage.
When you select items from the list boxes, they are automatically entered in the formula window complete with brackets, punctuation, and other syntax items. If you enter your formula manually using the keyboard, you have to make certain you enter those syntax items yourself. It is safer and faster to build a formula by choosing list-box items.
Scroll through the Functions list box to see the wide range available to you. Functions are built-in procedures or subroutines used to evaluate, calculate, or transform data; they make it easy for you to create formulas without coding. The Formula Editor includes financial functions that let you place arrays and ranges in formulas. You can even extend functions with your own custom functions by creating them with any COM-compliant language such as Visual Basic, Visual C++, and Delphi.
5 Click on the Save and Close button (third from the left) at the top of the Formula Editor to return to your report.
6 Click Insert to place the field in your report. When you move the pointer, it will change to a gray field object box.
7 Position the field object box in the Details section of your report, to the right of the ยLast Yearยs Salesย column. Click to insert the field.
8 Click Close. The Insert Fields dialog box will close.
Highlighting Important Data
To manipulate the formatting in different sections of your report, you can use for-mulas created in the Formula Editor to control field and object attributes such as color, font, border, underline, and strikeout. Using formulas, you can conditional-ly format data based on whatever criteria you select. This version of Seagate Crystal Reports also introduces the concept of highlighting - a quick and easy way to identify important data in your report.
In the following example weยll use highlighting to display percentages of last yearยs sales in red if they are less than 20% and in blue if they are greater than 30%.
9 Select the Preview tab in the report window. A preview of your report will appear.
10 Position the mouse pointer over any number in the ย% of Salesย column and click to select it. A rectangle appears around that entry and the rest of the column becomes shaded to indicate that all similar fields in this column have also been selected.
11 Click the right mouse button. The shortcut menu for that column appears. 12 Select Highlighting Expert... from the shortcut menu. The Highlighting
Expert window will appear.
13 In the Item List window, click on new item to create a new rule. Select ยless thanย from the Value is: list box and type the number 20 in the value box. In the Font Color list box, select ยRedย. This completes the first condition we wanted to highlight.
14 Click OK to save the new highlighting and return to the Preview window. Youยll now notice that all sales percentages less than 20% or greater than 30% are now highlighted in the appropriate color. Any other value is dis-played in the default color. Highlighting is a very simple way to spot impor-tant values, especially in very complex or detailed reports.
Inserting a Map
Sometimes, there are important relationships in your report that depend on geo-graphic location. These dependencies are often very difficult to uncover using a report with conventional tables and graphs. Seagate Crystal reports provides a geographic mapping expert that provides a visual view of your data, superim-posed on an appropriate map. In this exercise, weยll add a map to the simple sales report and interactively alter the appearance of the map.
15 Before adding the map, locate the pie graph at the beginning of the report, right-click on it and select Delete.
17 Select Map... from the Insert menu item at the top of the screen. The Map Expert window will appear. The default values shown in the Data window will map the Sum of FY98 Sales by State/County. Weยll accept these defaults.
18 Click on the Type tab at the top of the window. You can change the type of map produced as well as set the colors used to display data. Weยll accept the rest of the default values, but we will change to colors used to display the data. From the ยColor of lowest intervalย box, select the color in the bot-tom row labeled ยPale greenย. In the ยColor of highest intervalย box, select the color in the top row labeled ยDark greenย. Click OK to continue.
19 Right-click on the map and select Launch Analyzer... from the menu. This will open a third tabbed window which presents the Analyzer view of the report. In the Analyzer, you can right-click to zoom in, zoom out and pan the map to zero in a particular region. Try zooming in on Southern California and you will eventually see additional detail representing cities, roads and rivers. Any changes you make in this view are retained in the Preview win-dow, letting you interactively customize the map view presented without recreating the map itself.
Hands On: Importing Reports
Many companies rely on several existing computer systems to help manage criti-cal business operations. Most of these legacy systems produce some kind of report which is needed to make important decisions. The investment in designing and producing these reports often makes it difficult, expensive or time consuming to modify these reports, distribute them or migrate them to newer computer sys-tems. Seagate Crystal Reports has a powerful tool that can help convert these reports into the Seagate Crystal Reports format. The Document Import Tool is designed to convert existing ASCII-based reports to make transitioning between systems or distributing legacy reports, as simple as possible.
In this exercise, youยll start with an existing simple legacy sales report, and use the Document Import Tool to convert it to a Crystal Report.
Step by step
1 Open Seagate Crystal Reports 7, if it is not already running.
2 To create a new report, select New... from the File menu. The Report Gallery window will appear.
4 To create a new report, select New... from the File menu. You will be prompted to locate a legacy report file. Use the browse button to navigate to one of the included sample files. The default directory is ยProgram
Files\Seagate Software\Crystal Reports\Reports\Importย and the file name is ยimport1ย. Select this file and click Open and OK to load the file.
The legacy text report will appear in the document window.
5 Now you will use your mouse to highlight and define various sections and fields in the report. This process involves clicking on one of the selection buttons to the right of the document window and highlighting the corre-sponding portion of the report. Follow the steps listed below to begin this selection process:
ย Click on the Page button and use your mouse to completely select the first four lines of the report. This defines the report header.
ย Click on the Field Value button and select the first ยPsycho Cycleย entry. Make sure that you select the full field width as you did with the ยCustomer Nameย column heading.
Your results should look similar to the following:
Normally, you would follow a similar procedure in selecting the remain column headers (text), the first line of the reports details (as individual field values) and the dates and page numbers (special fields). You can continue this process, but in order to quickly see the finished results, weยll open an existing format definition for this legacy report file.
7 You will need to select the appropriate format file. This file is located in the same directory as the legacy report and is called ยimport1.cifย. Select this file and click Open and OK to load the file. Seagate Crystal Reports will now use this file to separate the report data from the structure of the report. When it is finished, you will see the same legacy report with more fields and sections highlighted. You can view some of the properties for these areas by clicking on them. Once the report format has been fully defined, the Document Import Tool can convert it to a Seagate Crystal Report. 8 Select Generate Report... from the Compile menu. A dialog will appear
which will allow you to specify file names and locations for the resulting report file and database file. Accept the defaults by clicking on the OK but-ton. The Document Import Tool will then create a Seagate Crystal Report file based on the report structure defined by the highlighted areas. It will also extract the data form the legacy report and store it in a separate Access data-base file. Once the report format definition has been created, it can be used to process any other legacy reports that have the same structure. This could be used to convert recurring instances of the same report without having to redefine the report structure.
The finished report can then be modified, formatted or redistributed, including via the Web. You could also use the Field Mapping expert to ยpointย the report to the original legacy database, if accessible. This can be used for migrating reports from one system or reporting package to Seagate Crystal Reports.
S
UPPORTED
F
EATURES BY
E
DITION
This matrix describes most of the major features of Seagate Crystal Reports 7 by both edition (Standard and Professional) as well as platform (16 versus 32-bit). Since support for database drivers is continuously updated, please check the Seagate Crystal Reports web site for the most up to date information.
Feature 16-bit Standard 32-bit Standard 16-bit Professional 32-bit Professional New in 7.0 Report Navigation
Smart Navigation, Group Tree, Drill down, Search
โ โ โ โ
Analyzer view for Maps and Graphs โ โ โ
Rapid Application Development
Report Designer Component (ActiveX Designer) for Visual Basic 5.0/6.0
โ โ
VB 6.0 Support Active Data Driver support for runtime
data sources
โ โ
Automation Server (OLE) Interface โ โ
Crystal Active Server Component โ
Event/call-back support โ โ
Visual Basic Custom Control (VBX) โ โ
ActiveX (OCX) control โ โ โ โ
Delphi control (VCL) โ โ โ โ โ
Improved
Report Engine DLL functions โ โ โ โ โ
New Calls
MFC Class Library with AppWizard โ
INFORMIX-NewEra Class Library โ โ
Web Reporting
โ โ
Dynamic data refresh capability โ
Page-on-demand โ
HTML translator โ
ActiveX and Java viewers โ โ
Feature 16-bit Standard 32-bit Standard 16-bit Professional 32-bit Professional New in 7.0 Web Application Development
Crystal Active Server Component โ
Java Bean report viewer โ โ
General Features
User-defined functions written in any COM-compatible language
Read Only Read Only โ โ
Enhanced Data Dictionaries Read Only Read Only โ โ
SQL database access โ โ
Report options saved with report โ โ โ โ
Fully customizable Runtime Preview Window
โ โ
Drill down in Runtime Preview Window โ โ โ โ
Compiled reports โ โ โ โ
Parameter fields โ โ โ โ โ
Improved
Microsoft Intellimouse support โ โ โ
Apex True DBGrid 5.0 support โ โ
Native PC Database and File Access
ACT! 2.0 โ โ โ โ
ACT! 3.0 โ โ
ACT! 4.0 โ โ โ
Clipper (NTX) โ โ โ โ
Btrieve (all indices, requires DDFs) โ โ โ โ
dBASE III, III+, IV (NDX, MDX, BDE) โ โ โ โ
FoxPro 2.6 (IDX, CDX) โ โ โ โ
Microsoft Access 1.0โ2.5, 7.0 (Jet/DAO)
โ โ โ โ
Microsoft Access Queries (Jet/DAO) โ โ โ โ
Paradox 3.5โ4.5 (Native), 3.5โ8.0 (BDE)
โ โ โ โ
Native Client/Server and Network Data Access
Arbor Essbase โ โ
Centura (formerly Gupta) SQLBase โ
IBM DB2, DB2/400, DB2/6000 โ
(NT Only)
IBM DB2/2 โ
Informix โ
Microsoft Exchange Server (and Folders)
โ โ
Microsoft Internet Information Server โ
Microsoft Outlook โ
Feature 16-bit Standard 32-bit Standard 16-bit Professional 32-bit Professional New in 7.0
Microsoft SQL Server (Native and Intersolv DataDirect)
โ โ
Microsoft Windows NT Event Logs โ
(NT Only)
Netware SQL โ
OLE DB โ โ
Oracle 7.x โ โ
Sybase SQL Server 10 & 11 โ โ
Web server activity logs (NCSA format) โ
ODBC Data sources (ODBC Drivers Included)
ASCII โ โ โ โ dBASE โ โ IBM DB2/2 โ Informix โ (Inet 5) โ (Inet 5,7) Lotus Notes 3.x โ Microsoft Access 1.0โ2.5, 7.0, 8.0 โ โ โ โ
Microsoft Access Queries โ โ โ โ
Microsoft Excel (XLS) 4.0โ5.0, 7.0, 8.0 โ โ โ โ
Microsoft FoxPro โ โ
Microsoft SQL Server โ โ
Microsoft Visual FoxPro 3.0 โ โ โ โ
Oracle 7.x โ
Oracle 8.x โ โ
Paradox โ โ
Sybase SQL Server 10 & 11 โ โ
ODBC Data Sources (ODBC Drivers Not Included)
Computer Associates CA-Open Ingres โ โ
Pervasive (formerly Btrieve) NetWare SQL
โ โ
Sybase SQL Anywhere 5.0 (Watcom 5) โ โ
All other ODBC-compliant sources โ โ
Additional SQL Features and Tools
SQL Query Tool Read Only on .qry files
Read Only on .qry files
โ โ โ
New tool for 32-bit
SQL Pass-through โ โ
Security Pass-through โ โ
Feature 16-bit Standard 32-bit Standard 16-bit Professional 32-bit Professional New in 7.0
Group-by, aggregation and SQL expressions on SQL database servers
โ
Documentation
Expanded User's Guide โ โ โ โ
Online Technical Reference โ โ โ โ
Online User's Guide โ โ โ โ
Report Types
Subreports โ โ โ โ
Multiple Section Reports โ โ โ โ
Form-style Reports โ โ โ โ
Conditional Reports โ โ โ โ
Mail Merge Documents โ โ โ โ
Cross-tab Reports โ โ โ โ Form Letters โ โ โ โ Query Reports โ โ Mailing Labels โ โ โ โ Top N Reports โ โ โ โ Drill Down โ โ โ โ
Report Design Control
Drawing-style Interface โ โ โ โ
User defined ToolTips for report objects โ โ โ
Format Editor โ โ โ โ Conditional Formatting โ โ โ โ Field Highlighting โ โ โ โ โ Text Objects โ โ โ โ Subreport Objects โ โ โ โ On demand subreports โ โ โ โ โ Cross-tab Objects โ โ โ โ โ Improved formatting Underlay Sections โ โ โ โ
Multiple Detail Sections โ โ โ โ
Guidelines & Vertical Rulers โ โ โ โ
Undo & Redo โ โ โ โ
OLE Drag & Drop Between Windows โ โ โ โ
Report Experts
15 Report Creation Experts (total) โ โ โ โ โ
Improved
Document Import Tool โ โ โ
Field Mapping Expert โ โ โ โ โ
Select Expert โ โ โ โ
Section Expert โ โ โ โ
Feature 16-bit Standard 32-bit Standard 16-bit Professional 32-bit Professional New in 7.0
Form Letter Expert โ โ โ โ
Subreport Expert โ โ โ โ โ
Improved
Running Totals Expert โ โ โ โ โ
For Presentation-Quality Reports
Line drawing, box drawing, and graphic image support (BMP,JPEG, TIFF, PCX, TGA)
โ โ โ โ
BLOB Bitmap Support โ โ โ โ
Integrated Mapping โ โ โ
Integrated Charting (Graphs) โ โ โ โ โ
New User Interface Charting and Mapping on Subtotals,
Groups, and Formulas
โ โ โ โ
ActiveX (OLE) Container โ โ โ โ
OLE 2.0 Support โ โ โ โ
Formula Control of Formatting โ โ โ โ
Data Manipulation
Multi-pass reporting โ โ โ โ
Over 160 built-in functions and operators for manipulating data
โ โ โ โ โ
Improved Formula editor with multi-select,
search/replace and bookmarking
โ โ โ โ โ
New User Interface
(32-bit)
Unlimited grouping and sorting โ โ โ โ
Sorting on groups โ โ โ โ
Custom (named) grouping โ โ โ โ
Top N, bottom N sorting โ โ โ โ
Extensible formula language (user-defined DLL functions)
โ โ โ โ
Include graphs in reports using any of 80 fully integrated and customizable styles
โ โ โ โ
Report Distribution
Microsoft Mail Support โ โ โ โ
Microsoft Exchange Support โ โ โ โ
Lotus cc:Mail Support โ โ โ โ
Feature 16-bit Standard 32-bit Standard 16-bit Professional 32-bit Professional New in 7.0
Export formats for Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect, Word, Excel, and text
โ โ โ โ
Export to Quattro Pro โ โ
Export and/or e-mail reports with saved data for mobile or remote analysis
โ โ โ โ
Compiled reports for free distribution of executable reports
โ โ โ โ
Web report deployment โ
Additional Copyright Information
W
ELCOME TO THE
G
ETTING
S
TARTED
G
UIDE
About This Guide
The purpose of this guide is to provide you with an overview of Seagate Crystal Reportsย 7. This powerful tool is designed to make designing, formatting and distributing presentation-quality reports as simple and flexible as possible. The acknowledged market share leader among desktop query and report writers, Seagate Crystal Reports has won every major industry award, and is bundled with more than 160 independent software vendors, including Microsoft, PeopleSoft and Informix.
The Getting Started Guide contains enough information to help get you up and running with Seagate Crystal Reports 7 and perform some basic reporting tasks. Once you have completed this guide you may want to continue to experiment on your own.
Seagate Crystal Reports 7 also provides many other very powerful reporting capabilities for more both application development and web-based reporting. You may want to consult one of the other Getting Started Guides included on this CD or the comprehensive Userยs Guide to better appreciate how Seagate Crystal Reports can help address all of your reporting needs.
How Should I Use This Guide?
New to Reporting or Seagate Crystal Reports
If youยre new to Seagate Crystal Reports, youยll find that it uses a ยbandedย report structure to design reports. This is simply a logical way of breaking up the report into headers, footers, summary groups and detailed data. Seagate Crystal Reports is a very powerful reporting tool, but has a number of features which make it easy to design both simple and fairly complex reports. It also can inter-face to virtually any data source and has a large number of formatting features for producing presentation-quality reports.
You should read the section and complete some of the exercises to get a feel for reporting with this release. You should have no trouble working through the examples in this guide, but for more information on Seagate Crystal Reports and report design in general, you should consult the online help. You may also want to open some of the supplied sample reports to get a better idea of the different types of reports and how they look in the designer.
Existing Seagate Crystal Reports Users
If you already use a previous version of Seagate Crystal Reports, you will already be familiar with a lot of the reporting concepts and terminology used in this guide. This guide will help you understand how the Report Designer inte-grates the reporting environment into your applications and how to take advan-tage of some of the event oriented features.
Version 5 or 6
If youยre a version 5 or 6 user, youยll notice that the Crystal Report Designer and most menus look fairly similar to what youยre using now. The major visible dif-ferences are the addition of several new menu items and buttons, the Analyzer view for charts and maps, and several new report experts. Youยll also notice a new look for parts of the user interface including the formula editor and report gallery.
Other Versions
If youยre a user of earlier versions of Seagate Crystal Reports, youยll notice a new look and feel in the designer interface with easier ways of adding and manipulating fields, sections and other report objects. If you look through the various menus, youยll see that there a lot more formatting and data manipulation choices and several new report experts.
Reading the section will give you an idea of the major changes between the ver-sion you are using now and this release. The section will give you more details about the most recent changes and the exercises will give you hands-on experi-ence with most of them. You may also want to open some existing reports to see how they look in this release and become more familiar with the various menus and options.
To Find Out More
P
RODUCT
I
NSTALLATION
Before You Begin
Seagate Crystal Reports has been designed for be installation on the Microsoft Windows platform. You can use either Windows 3.1, 95/98 or Windows NT as your operating system.
Installation Requirements
Seagate Crystal Reports 7 and associated support files have the following instal-lation and run time requirements:
Microsoft Windows 3.1, 95, 98 or Windows NT 3.51 (Intel) or higher System RAM: 16 MB (32 MB Windows 98 and NT)
Hard drive free space (16-bit): approximately 172 MB for Full install, 24 MB for Compact install
Hard drive free space (32-bit): approximately 120 MB for Full install, 10 MB for Compact install
CD-ROM drive
If your system does not meet these requirements, the program may not install or run correctly.
Installing Seagate Crystal Reports
Seagate Crystal Reports has been designed for installation on several Microsoft Windows platforms. You can use Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows NT 3.51 and higher as your operating system.
Windows 3.1 or NT 3.51
To install Seagate Crystal Reports, complete the following steps: 1 Insert the Seagate Crystal Reports CD into the appropriate drive. 2 Make sure that the Windows Program Manager is active. 3 Select Run from the File menu. The Run dialog box appears. 4 Type the following text in the Run dialog box:
where x represents the appropriate drive letter. For example, if your CD is in drive d:, type
d:\setup
5 When the Seagate Crystal Reports splash screen appears, select 16- or 32-bit as the installation type according to your operating system. The End User License Agreement appears.
6 If you agree to the terms of the license agreement, click I Agree to continue installing the product. The Enter the Installation Key dialog box appears. 7 Enter the product key code in the dialog box (the 12-digit key code is
print-ed on the CD sleeve).
8 Click OK. The Installation dialog box appears.
9 Follow the directions on the screen to set up the program. During the instal-lation procedure, you will be given the choice to have Setup complete an automatic installation or a custom installation. If you select Automatic Installation, Setup installs all of the Seagate Crystal Reports files to the drive you specify. If you select Custom Installation, you will be given the opportu-nity to select which components of the Seagate Crystal Reports application files are installed on your system.
Windows 95/98 or NT 4.0 or higher
To install Seagate Crystal Reports, complete the following steps: 1 Select Run from the Start menu. The Run dialog box appears. 2 Complete steps 4ย8 above.
I
NTRODUCTION TO
S
EAGATE
C
RYSTAL
R
EPORTS
The amount of data being generated in worldwide business activities is growing at a staggering rate. Making business decisions based on this data can be extremely valuable, but the data must first be filtered into meaningful informa-tionยa daunting task. Without powerful query and reporting tools, itยs difficult to organize, analyze, or present this information effectively. Seagate Crystal Reports was designed to address these challenges.
Seagate Crystal Reports is a desktop query and reporting tool; it accesses more than 30 different data sources, has powerful data analysis capabilities, and pro-duces a virtually unlimited variety of presentation-quality reports with an ease that its users rave about. Because of its modular design, the Crystal Report Engine can be used to integrate reporting into database applications with free runtime licensing. Users can also perform ad-hoc query and report viewing over the Web using the advanced web reporting capabilities of Seagate Crystal Reports 7.
Seagate Crystal Reports is used by business professionals who need of easy-to-create reports, IT professionals who easy-to-create reports for their users, and software developers integrating powerful reporting into their database applications.
The Reporting Tool of Choice
Seagate Crystal Reports has been chosen by over 160 of the industryยs leading software vendors including Microsoftยฎ, Informixยฎ, and PeopleSoftยฎfor inclusion
in their shrink-wrapped applications. It is also the worldยs most widely used reporting tool, available in seven languages, with over 3 million licenses shipped around the world (IDC, 1997). The Seagate Crystal Reports file format (*.RPT) has become an industry standard for reportingยmany Global 2000 companies rely on the *.RPT format for their reports. Implemented extensively in both hori-zontal and vertical markets, Seagate Crystal Reports has been adopted by many major accounting and help desk vendors in their respective industries.
Technology Leadership
ย First Report Engine DLL, complete with a free runtime ย First report writer to include integrated e-mail
ย First report writer with VBX / OCX / ActiveX controls
ย First report writer with compiled reportsยexecutable versions of reports ย First 32-bit Windows-based report writer
ย First report writer with HTML exporting and web-based ActiveX Viewer Control
ย First report writer to report from special data sources such as Microsoft Internet Information Server Web Logs, Microsoft Exchange Folders, and Windows NT Event Logs
ย First OLAP-aware report writer
True to form, Seagate Crystal Reports 7 continues this tradition of innovation by offering new ways to analyze data including the ability to perform ad-hoc report-ing over the Web, new visualization tools and the most requested improvements to existing features. For more information, refer to the Product Overview section.
Product Overview
If youยre not familiar with Seagate Crystal Reports, or just want an overall sum-mary, this section will give you an overview of the key features and capabilities of this product.
Powerful, Flexible Reporting
You donยt have to adapt your report to the limitations of your reporting tool. Although database programs often include their own report writers, they typically require extensive knowledge of the database with which they are bundled. With Seagate Crystal Reports, however, even inexperienced users can quickly create stunning reports with Report Experts that guide them through the report creation process.
Access Data Easily
Native database drivers for Oracle, Informix, ACT!, the IBM DB2 family and others, make Seagate Crystal Reports the only tool you need to transform data from over 30 different relational databases to information-rich reports. And with a native driver for Arbor Essbase, you can also report off multidimensional (OLAP) databases.
Design Reports Quickly
Report Experts make it easy to produce informative, visually appealing reports. A drag-and-drop interface, the option to edit reports while viewing live data, and an interface designed to make common reporting tasks highly efficient all help you design reports more productively.
Distribute Reports Widely
When your report is complete, Seagate Crystal Reports makes it easy to send it just about anywhere, in practically any format. Export your report to a wide vari-ety of popular formats including Microsoft Word and Excel, HTML or even e-mail. Compile reports into standalone applications for interactive viewing. Distribute reports via the Web using advanced web reporting technology. Build Any Report You Can Imagine
Place the data in your report wherever you want and customize it to look any way you choose; reports can be as simple or as complex as your needs demand. You donยt need to adjust your projects around what Seagate Crystal Reports can do. In this version, you have a variety of report types from which to choose:
ย Subreports: Replace several reports by creating one main report that contains embedded subreports. Each subreport can access a different data source.
ย Web Reports: Publish new and existing reports to the Web by exporting directly to HTML format, or use the Crystal Web Report Server to deploy reports in *.RPT format to the Web.
ย Form-style Reports: Print precisely onto pre-printed forms using guide-lines, text objects, and free-form object placement.
ย Cross-tab Reports: Use cross-tab reports to present summary informa-tion clearly and replace numerous columnar reports.
In-Depth Analysis
Seagate Crystal Reports gives you the tools to examine trends, expose relation-ships or zero in on important facts. An analyzer view lets you interactively zoom in, drill down or modify graphs and maps to examine items of interest.
Customizable cross-tabs help uncover relationships and allow you to compare two perspectives on the same data. A powerful formula editor, with over 160 functions, lets you create important summary data that might not be present in your database, and easy to use field highlighting visually alerts you to key values in your report.
Powerful Processing
Server-side processing lets you design reports which perform grouping, sorting and SQL expressions on the database server, conserving precious network resources. Use on-demand subreports to speed up initial report display and defer optional report processing until requested by your user.
Manage Your Reports
R
EPORTING
T
ECHNOLOGY
D
ESIGNED FOR THE
W
EB
Access the most advanced web reporting capabilities available in the industry and transfer the reporting skills you already have to web projects. Many reporting tools claim to be web-enabled, but a reporting tool truly designed for the Web needs to do more than just export to HTML. Seagate Crystal Reports 7 goes far beyond the HTML export capabilities that we introduced in April 1996; weยve created a reporting tool designed for the Web that maintains Seagate Softwareยs technological leadership through superior web reporting functionality. Itยs also designed to build on your existing development skills. Seagate Crystal Reports offers the following technological advantages:ย The ability to leverage existing reporting skills and knowledge ย Smart Navigation for the Web
ย Smart Viewers
ย A thin-client, thin-wire architecture ย Hassle-free cross-platform deployment ย Ad-hoc query and analysis over the Web ย Web application deployment
Leverage Existing Reports
Smart Navigation
Now itยs fast and easy to find information, whether itยs on the desktop or in a browser. Rather than having to page through an entire report, you can quickly navigate to specific details via a new page-on-demand interface that presents a summary of the report. Pull reports from the web server to the browser, one page at a time, then drill down for more detail on graphs, group totals, and embedded hyperlinks. Automatically generated group trees provide an index to reports so you can quickly jump, with a single mouse click, to the section of the report you need to analyze.
Smart Viewers
Smart Viewers are lightweight add-ins (less than 300KB) for ActiveX and Java that let you view reports in their native *.RPT format. Distributing reports via the Web doesnยt mean you need to compromise when it comes to the presentation quality of your reports. Seagate Crystal Reports 7 has Smart Viewersยthin-client add-ins that enable you to add functionality to web reports without the hassles of application setup on client desktops. With the ActiveX and Java-based viewers, you can view reports in native Seagate Crystal Reports format or export reports to your client system using web browsers supporting ActiveX or Java. In addi-tion, Smart Viewers for HTML Frames or plain HTML provide platform inde-pendence by letting users view any Crystal Report on any web browser, running on any operating system.
Thin-wire Architecture
Even if youยre deploying large reports to your intranet, the ยthin-wireย architec-ture of the Crystal Web Report Server ensures superior response times and reduces web traffic. Page-on-demand access to reports lets users download only the specific pages of a report which they need to see. An ISAPI/NSAPI/CGI-compliant component, the Crystal Web Report Server is compatible with popular Windows-based web servers including Microsoft Internet Information Server, Netscape Enterprise Server, Apache and Lotus Domino.
Cross-Platform Support
Ad hoc Query and Analysis
Crystal Query is a new query generation tool which allows you to go beyond simply viewing existing reports over the web. Java applets allow you to create ad hoc queries remotely using compatible web browsers. Simply select a database from a list of available sources, choose fields and specify sorting, grouping, and selection options. The results appear in a Query Results Grid which you can use to analyze the data, change sort order, column orders, etc. The results of the query can then be saved as a simple report (in RPT format) which can be viewed using one of the standard Smart Viewers.
Web Application Deployment
Get the same flexible reporting power in your web-deployed applications that you enjoy on the desktop. Seagate Crystal Reports 7 includes the Crystal Active Server Component, which lets you integrate the Crystal Report Engine directly into Active Server Pages (ASPs). A Design-time ActiveX Control for Microsoft Visual InterDev is also included to make integrating reports into ASPs as simple as pointing and clicking.
Two Component Architecture
Seagate Crystal Reports is a combination of two components: the Crystal Report Designer, which builds, manipulates, and formats reports, and the Crystal Report Engine, which processes reports and then prints or exports them to a specified destination.
Crystal Report Designer
Crystal Report Engine
The printing and exporting heart of Seagate Crystal Reports is the Crystal Report Engine, a true Dynamic Link Library (DLL) that you can integrate dependably into Windows-based and web-based applications with a royalty-free runtime license. As a developer using Visual Basic, Visual C++, Visual InterDev, Delphi, INFORMIX-NewEra, Visual dBASE, C, C++, or any other programming lan-guage that can access a DLL, you can add sophisticated reporting capabilities to your applications without the time-consuming task of writing your own code from scratch. Available in both 16- and 32-bit versions, Seagate Crystal Reports runs on Windows 3.1, Windows for Workgroups, Windows 95/98, and Windows NT 3.51+. All reports created with Seagate Crystal Reports are compatible across 16- and 32-bit environments.
Advanced Developer Features
Adding superior reporting functionality to your applications faster and easier than ever. Seagate Crystal Reports is well-known among Windows developers. When your application runs, it links to the Crystal Report Engine to access report processing, printing, and exporting functionality. Reporting can be simple, pro-ducing only a single report that is sent to a printer or preview window with no options available to the user. Or, it can be complex, letting the user change record selections, sorting, grouping, and export options.
Seagate Crystal Report 7 contains many innovative features that continue to make it the premier choice for developers who need to integrate sophisticated reporting into their applications.
Supported Environments
Integrate the powerful functionality of the Crystal Report Engine with any of the controls or class libraries included in Seagate Crystal Reports 7:
ย ActiveX (OCX) Control (16- and 32-bit) ย Visual Basic Custom Control (VBX)
ย Microsoft Foundation Class Library with AppWizard for Visual C++ ย Delphi Visual Component Library (VCL)
Interactive Reporting
Reports donยt have to be static objects within your application. Your reports can come alive with the smart Preview Window; it provides unprecedented interactiv-ity by offering more control to users. The result? Live reports and superior con-trol over your application design.
Use Event and Call-back support to create truly interactive reporting applications. When a user clicks on an element in the Preview Window, your application can present additional report details, launch another report, execute application code, or do whatever you choose. Customizable Preview Window controls include fea-tures such as a printer setup button, a variable zoom control, a refresh button, and search capabilities in your application. Enable any or all of these new features, or use the default settingsยthe choice is yours.
Report From Application Data
Connect to data sources on the fly using the Active Data Driver in Seagate Crystal Reports 7. Create a report template that you can use within your Visual Basic application. Then, at runtime, use Active Data Objects (ADO), Remote Data Objects (RDO), or Data Access Objects (DAO) to bind your report to any runtime data source, including grid data. Or use the Crystal Data Object (CDO) to report off memory blocks by binding to application memory. Your application is more tightly integrated with data so it only needs to connect to the data once. Report Designer Component
Now you can create reports from directly within the Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 or 6.0 Integrated Design Environment using this ActiveX-based designer. Import or use familiar Report Experts to create you report and then add formatting, data-base selection and other customization to your report using familiar Visual basic code. Reports created in the Visual Basic 6.0 Data Reporter can also be migrated to Seagate Crystal Reports as your reporting needs become more complex. JavaBean Viewer
V
ERSION
7 T
EST
D
RIVE
This Test Drive section is designed to give you some hands-on exposure to the Seagate Crystal Reports 7. These exercises step you through designing a new report and adding formatting and other enhancements to an existing report. Even if youยre an experienced Seagate Crystal Reports user, you may want to follow through these exercises to better understand how this release may be different from the version you use now.
The Hands On exercises include:
ย Creating a Report - connecting to a database and creating a simple report
ย Modifying a Report - adding some additional formatting and enhance-ments to a report
ย Importing a Report - converting an ASCII legacy report to a Crystal Report
After you have completed these exercises, you may want to create some simple reports using a database you are familiar with, or try modifying some of the sam-ple reports included with this version. There other specific test drives you can complete for both Web Reporting and the Report Designer Component for Microsoft Visual Basic. These are included in the corresponding Getting Started Guides which can also be found on the Seagate Crystal Reports CD.
Hands On: Creating a New Report
Step by step
1 Open Seagate Crystal Reports 7, if it is not already running.
2 To create a new report, select New... from the File menu. The Report Gallery window will appear.
4 You will be connecting to an existing Access database file so click on the Data File button. The Choose Database File window will appear. Select the file named ยxtremeย from the list of files and click Add.
6 Click on the Fields tab and select the ยCustomer Nameย database field in the Database Fields text box. Click and drag the field into the Report Fields text box. Do the same for the ยLast Yearยs Salesย, ยCityย and ยRegionย fields.
The Report Expert creates column headers for you using the field names as a default. If you want to rename a column, simply type the new name in the corresponding column header field.
7 Click on the Preview Report button to view the report so far. Passing your mouse pointer over the various report objects will display information about that object in a ToolTip which is the small yellow box which pops up next to your mouse pointer. You can see the actual database field names displayed when you pass the pointer over some of the report fields.
Manipulating Data
Now that youยve created a basic report, you can manipulate the data to modify the report any way you want. You may want to filter data to include only those customers in a certain country, for example, or you may need to present subtotals in a certain order, list companies by region, or highlight certain totals according to their amounts.
To use the Report Expert to help make these changes, select Report Expert... from the Report menu. A Confirm Command dialog box will pop up, click Yes and the Report Expert will appear.
9 We want to show the total sales for each group on our report so click on the Total tab. Because The ยLast Years Salesย field is the only numeric field in the report, the expert automatically selected it for totaling.