This Test Drive section guides you through basic report creation using Seagate Crystal Reports 8. In these exercises, you will design a new report, add formatting and other enhancements to an existing report, and create a report from Microsoft Excel using the Crystal Reports Add-in for Excel . If you’re an experienced Seagate Crystal Reports user, these exercises will demonstrate how this release differs from the version you use now.

The Hands On exercises include:

Creating a Report - connecting to a database and creating a simple report

Modifying a Report - adding some additional formatting and enhancements to a report

Using the Crystal Reports Add-ins for Microsoft Excel and Access – creating a report from within Microsoft Excel

After you have completed these exercises, try creating some simple reports using a database you are familiar with, or modify some of the sample reports in x:\Program Files\Seagate Software\Crystal  Reports\Samples\Reports (x being the install drive).

Hands On: Creating a 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 “paint-by-number” 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 necessary for the reporting task at hand. When the final tab is completed, the Report Expert generates the report. In this example, you will create a simple report that shows total sales by region for a fictitious bicycle company called Xtreme.

Step by step

1.  Open Seagate Crystal Reports 8. 

4. Choose the Standard Report Expert and click OK.

5. Click the Database button from the Data tab. The new Data Explorer appears. This is where you choose your data connection method and data source.

Select File Data Sources and double-click Find Database File. The Data Explorer’s integrated tree-like interface makes connecting to data faster and easier. You can choose from available drivers sorted by connection type, or choose connections you have previously used under a new folder called History. We have also added a Favorites folder, which maintains a list of links to frequently used data source locations.  Advanced users can also create new connections via ODBC or OLE DB.

6. Browse to the sample Microsoft Access database file called Xtreme.mdb and click Open. You can find this in x:\Program Files\Seagate Software\Crystal Reports\Samples\Databases (x being the install drive). 

7. Now that you’ve specified the source of the data, you need to select the database table. The Data Explorer displays the tables below the file name. Highlight Customer, click the Add button, then click Close to return to the Report Expert.

8. Now that you’ve selected the database and table for your report, you’ll need to specify the fields you want to include in the report. Click the Fields tab. Click and drag the Customer Name field into the Report Fields box. Do the same for the Last Year’s Sales, City and Region fields. The Report Expert creates column headers using the field names by default. To rename a column, type the new name in the Column Heading box. 

Notice the new Help button on each tab of the Report Expert.

9. Click the Preview Sample button.

10. Click OK to accept the defaults in the Preview Sample dialog.

You've now created a basic report, which contains the core sales information for all customers. Now we'll alter the report so that it provides more focused data and is easier to read.

Manipulating data

Now that you’ve created a basic report, you can manipulate the data in the report any way you want. For example, you can filter data to include only customers in a certain country, present subtotals in a certain order, list companies by region, or highlight certain totals depending on their amounts.

13. Let’s group the report data geographically. Click the Group tab and drag the Region field into the Group By box.  Select in ascending order in the Sort Order drop-down list.

14.  To show the total sales for each group on our report, click the Total tab. The Report Expert automatically selects the Last Year’s Sales field for totaling because it is the only numeric field in the report.

15.  For this report, we will only display the overall top sales performers. Click the Top N tab. Select Top N based on Sum of Customer.Last Year’s Sales, where N is 5.  

16.  We'll focus the report further by including only customers in the USA for this report. Click the Select tab, highlight the Country field and drag it into the Filtered Fields box. Select equal to in the second drop-down list and USA in the third drop-down list. This excludes all records from the report where the country field does not match USA.  

Adding a Chart

Seagate Crystal Reports contains a powerful tool that converts data into a chart that you can customize and include almost anywhere in the report. Select the chart style and the Report Export automatically creates it for you. 

18.  Click the Data tab. The Report Expert automatically creates the chart based on the sum of Last Year’s Sales.

Adding a Style

To make your report more visually stimulating, you can add a variety of elements such as borders, underlines and logos. By using the Style features in the Standard Report Expert, you can easily add these attributes to any report.

19.  Click the Style tab and add the Title “Sales by Region”. 

20.  Select the Shading Style.

21. Click the Add a picture  button to add a picture.  Browse to the x:\Program Files\Seagate Software\Crystal Reports\Samples\Databases (x being the install drive) and select the Xtreme company logo (Xtreme.bmp).

22.  Click Preview Sample. The modified report appears, complete with chart and Xtreme Logo.

23.  Double-click the pie chart segments to “drill-down” into the sales data the report contains for that region.  You can also right-click the chart and select Chart Analyzer to change the pie slice colors, move the legend or make other modifications. 

24.  To add a hyperlink to the Xtreme logo, click the logo to select it, then click the Insert Hyperlink  button.

25.  Select Create a hyperlink to a web site on the Internet.  In the Internet Address text box, type http://community.seagatesoftware.com.

Now click the Common tab. Here we can insert Tool Tip Text. Click the  formula button next to Tool Tip Text. The Format Formula Editor opens. 

27.  In the bottom frame, type “This is a hyperlinked object” (including the quotations). Then click the  save and close button and click OK. 

29.   Before we save this report we can add some information about it. Click to the Design tab. Then, from the menu, click File and select Summary Info.   

This exercise has shown the basic steps in creating a new report. Although you don’t always have to use the Report Experts, they make connecting to your data source and creating the initial report fast and easy. You can change the look and feel of the report later using the Design window or edit the elements in a chart in the Analyzer window. Common tasks like field formatting, adding text and modifying field positions can be accomplished by dragging fields or inserting new ones.