Crystal Reports Basics

1
Crystal Reports Basics

• Session 601

2
Agenda

• Introductions
• Data Warehouse
• Data Model
• Metadata
• Planning your report
• Report Wizard
• Crystal Reports

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Introductions

• Name
• Area of responsibility
• Experience with a Data Warehouse
• Experience with Crystal Reports
• What Office products do you use on a regular
  basis?

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What is a Data Warehouse (DW) ?

• A compilation of data obtained from a variety of
  sources
• Made available to end users in a way they can
  understand and use in a business context

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What are the benefits of using a DW?

• Get the data closer to the User !!
• Adhoc query and reporting
• Immediate answers to questions
• Reduce demands on IS resources
• Make better use of your analytical resources
• Reduce time it takes to get vital information
• Graphical reporting
• Data integration from disparate sources

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How is the DW Loaded?
Mainframe
Server
D o w n l o a d t o S e r v e r
Transform / Translate
Load / Balance
User
Data Warehouse
User
Extract Files
User
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What is a Data Model?

• A pictorial representation of the tables,
  columns, and relationships that comprise the DW
• It is used to generate code (DDL) which defines
  the database objects

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Data Model
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What is Metadata?

• Data about data
• Lists definitions, data types, and sizes of the
  data elements
• Plays a very important role in the DW
• Acts as a directory to help locate items in
  the DW

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Metadata Tables

• Meta Table Definitions
• Gives definitions of the different tables
• Meta Support Columns
• Describes the columns within the tables

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Report Writers Planning your report

• What databases tables are needed?
• Which fields should be included?
• What items may need to be calculated?
• Is only a particular time period or location
  necessary?
• How should the data be displayed? In what order?
• Are subtotal and grand totals needed?
• Are headers and / or footers required?

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Building Basic Reports

• 3 various ways to create a report
• From scratch in design view
• Insert, position and size fields and titles
  manually
• Report expert
• Walks you through the process
• Create a copy of another report

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Report Wizard

• Report expert will walk you through the process
  of creating a report
• Various Report Experts
• Standard
• Cross-Tab
• Mail Label
• OLAP

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Report Wizard

• Data
• Link
• Fields
• Grouping
• Summaries
• Group Sorting
• Chart
• Record Selection
• Template

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Data

• Select an existing database
• Add a new database
• Select tables to be used in report
• May select table from multiple databases

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Linking

• Allows you to create a report using fields from
  more than one table
• Tables are joined on common fields
• The From table or left table is the primary
  table
• The To table or right table acts as a lookup
• For each row in the From table, Crystal finds
  all matching rows in the To table

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Types of Joins
Customers
Orders
From Table
To Table
Right Outer All orders related customers
Left Outer All customers related orders
Equal Customers who placed orders
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Fields

• Select fields to be included in report
• Change order of fields in report
• Browse data
• Find fields

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Grouping

• Grouping
• Another way to organize data in the report
• Can create both single and multi-level groups

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Summarizing

• Summarizing
• Allows you to insert subtotals and grand totals
• Can be counts, sum, average, largest, smallest,
  maximum, minimum, etc.

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Sorting Data

• Sorting
• Controls the order in which data prints
• Can sort on both database and report fields
• Can apply primary and secondary sort options

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Selecting Data

• Selecting
• Limits records based on set criteria
• Allows you to do selections that are
• Equal to, one of, less than, greater than,
  between, starts with, and more

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Template

• A pre-existing format
• 13 templates to choose from

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Report Wizard

• Data
• Link
• Fields
• Grouping
• Summaries
• Group Sorting
• Chart
• Record Selection
• Template

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• Questions?

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Thank you!