Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Crystal Reports

This is actually a delayed post. Somehow it skipped me to post it earlier. Here goes the story and the details....

In early 2011 had to work on Crystal reports for 2-3 applications that we were converting from Excel to Web apps. 

Being afresh to Crystal reports, we wanted to learn the tool but did not have the time to go to a class room. Hence taking Google as our teacher we researched and learned the tool in a couple of weeks, while simultaneously working on a project.

Sharing our findings below(which i think are pretty neat) in case it is helpful to anyone else with a similar need and situation. 

There are links and videos, arranged in order, to give a newbie good jump start to using the tool.
         
Articles:
1.    Crystal reports articles

http://www.beansoftware.com/ASP.NET-Tutorials/Using-Crystal-Reports.aspx : Gives a good introduction to the tool (though not really convinced of PUSH and PULL model).

http://www.aspfree.com/c/a/ASP.NET/Programming-Crystal-Reports-with-ASP-NET-2-0/ :  Similar to above link, though not as good.

http://csharpdotnetfreak.blogspot.com/2009/07/creating-crystal-reports-in-aspnet.html   : More on the database aspect in Crystal

http://csharpdotnetfreak.blogspot.com/2009/07/subreports-in-crystal-reports-in-aspnet.html: About SubReports in Crystal Reports

http://www.code-magazine.com/articleprint.aspx?quickid=0501071&page=1&printmode=true: 13 Productivity Tips for Crystal Reports and .NET

http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/articles/articlelisting.aspx?sectionid=1&subsectionid=61 : Good repository of various Crystal articles based on your situation e.g: How to pass parameters programmatically to Crystal reports; Crystal reports with Dynamic columns

http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/uditsingh/CR1111022006055359AM/CR11.aspx : Really NEAT on how the author uses Import pick list and simple formula fields to create dynamic columns on a Standard report


          Videos:
          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CsgT4kVHPU:
         Use the design view in Crystal Reports by Business Objects at www.teachUcomp.com

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=_CsgT4kVHPU:    
          Crystal reports tutorial data

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX_BZfhlROI&feature=view_all&list=PL9A1A04C5CAEC695C&index=1 
         Crystal Reports XI Using the Section Expert (27 videos in sequel)

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-6Whh0jwHE&feature=view_all&list=PL9A1A04C5CAEC695C&index=2 
         Crystal Reports XI On-Demand Sub-reports (27 videos in sequel)

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLvModCDx9A&feature=view_all&list=PL9A1A04C5CAEC695C&index=6 
          Formula Field tutorial

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDhAUtbj4xM&feature=view_all&list=PL9A1A04C5CAEC695C&index=14 
          How to create a C# Asp.Net Crystal Report (Part 1)



Precaution:
2.    The link below gives you view of all the CR products, their  assemblies version and supported VS.Net.
It is interesting and an important chart, as the successive CR products do support similar to their predecessors e.g. Crystal 10.5 supports .Net 2008 while CR 11.5 does not.

To be on a safer side, You should ASSUME that Crystal Reports is NOT compatible with new versions of Visual Studio


3.    The 3 links below from a blog give a good idea of using Crystal reports in embedded format versus using them via Servers.
Using Crystal report engine in embedded state, restricts it to 3 simultaneous threads, with the 4th thread kept waiting. (though for certain vendors and OEMs the thread count is higher, as per comments by the author in response to questions)

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