Using the Default Report Wizards in Crystal Reports 9
- Understanding the Crystal Reports Gallery
- Using the Standard Report Creation Wizard
- Working with the Report Design Explorers
- Summary
- Workshop
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Now that you have been introduced to the Crystal Reports 9 development environment and reviewed different strategies for accessing your data, you are ready to begin creating reports using the default report wizards. The report wizards are provided to expedite the report design process for report designers of all skill levels, but they are especially useful for new users of Crystal Reports.
The report wizards, also commonly referred to as report experts, provide a simplified interface and guided path to constructing the fundamental elements found within most reports. As a result, designing interactive, professional looking reports can be achieved in a matter of minutes.
In this hour, we will cover the following topics:
Understanding the Crystal Reports Gallery
Using the Standard Report Creation Wizard
Working with the Report Design Explorers
NOTE
Using the default report wizards as a starting point for most reports is a good idea. The report wizards offer a shortcut to establishing the core elements required for most reports. Hour 5, "Creating and Designing Basic Reports," builds on many of the principles covered in this hour.
Understanding the Crystal Reports Gallery
The Report Gallery is a special dialog that is presented when you select to create a new report file. The Report Gallery acts as a shortcut to various report creation wizards, which then provide the guided, visual creation of reports.
As Figure 4.1 illustrates, the Crystal Reports Gallery is a dialog that serves as the gateway to accessing and using the various report creation wizards. From the Report Gallery dialog, you can select from one of the four provided report wizards:
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Standard—Used to create traditional columnar-styled reports.
Cross-Tab—Used to create summary styled cross-tab reports.
Mail Labels—Used to create reports with multiple columns, such as address labels.
OLAP—Used to create summary styled cross-tab reports that are based on an OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) data source.
Figure 4.1 The Crystal Reports Gallery dialog provides quick access to the various report creation wizards.
The remainder of this hour focuses on exploring and using the Standard Report Creation Wizard. In general, this is the most commonly used report wizard, and it provides a good introduction to the components of the report design process. However, if you are interested in learning more about the other wizards, an exercise on creating a cross-tab report using the Cross-Tab Wizard is provided in Hour 14, "Using Cross-Tabs for Summarized Reporting."
NOTE
Crystal Reports 9 provides enhanced Cross-Tab and OLAP reporting capabilities as compared to the previous version. Crystal Reports 9 developers can perform more advanced summary-styled reporting against a variety of OLAP sources, including Microsoft's OLE DB provider for OLAP (such as SQL Server), IBM DB2 OLAP server, and Hyperion Essbase server. See Hour 14, and Hour 20, "Multidimensional Reporting Against OLAP Data," for further information.