Crystal Reports: Levels 1 + 2

Scheduled Dates (sort by: location | date)

Course Overview

Throughout all industries, organisations gather and store an immense amount of vital data. With Crystal Reports, power users and developers can integrate their organisation's data into sophisticated reports and front-end applications for widespread distribution. This powerful advantage provides an important, competitive edge in business.

In this hands-on course, you gain extensive experience using Crystal Reports to connect to databases, retrieve raw data, format the data, create reports and present the reports to Internet and intranet users.

Audience

This course is valuable for anyone involved in creating reports from stored data. Experience using Windows and working with a spreadsheet or word processor is assumed.

Skills Gained

• 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

Course Outline

Overview of Crystal Reports

• Formatting and summarising data
• Filtering, sorting and grouping data
• Customising reports with program logic
• Accessing reports via a Web browser
• Adding a report to a custom application

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 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
• Achieving reusability with the Repository and 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
• Building custom 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

• Building Push and Pull techniques
• Migrating to production by switching databases

Publishing reports to a Web site

• Exporting reports to HTML
• Deploying Crystal Reports to Crystal Reports Server
• Scheduling a Report

Integrating into custom applications

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

Crystal Reports: Levels 1 + 2 / 126