Report Design: creating dynamic reports / reports on the fly

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creating dynamic reports / reports on the fly

Printed From: Crystal Reports Book
Category: Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2005 and Newer
Forum Name: Report Design
Forum Discription: The best way to design a report and problems you have encountered
URL: http://www.crystalreportsbook.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4390
Printed Date: 01 May 2024 at 11:35pm

Topic: creating dynamic reports / reports on the fly

Posted By: roland12345
Subject: creating dynamic reports / reports on the fly
Date Posted: 28 Sep 2008 at 9:59am

Hello,

I need to create dynamic reports using Crystal 2008 inside of C# for a project I am working on. So the reports need to be created on the fly during runtime - The user is presented with all the fields from the table and they select two or three fields in the browser and the crystal report is created with only the selected fields displayed.

How do I go about doing this? I am trying to read documentation and it looks like I will be using the CrystalReportViewer object. Any samples / chunks of code would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
- Roland

Replies:

Posted By: BrianBischof
Date Posted: 28 Sep 2008 at 11:57pm

This is actually a pretty complex chunk of code (and too much to answer in a forum post). I just finished my CR.NET 2008 book and I talk about this in it. But it won't be in the bookstores till November 1st. If you want to check out the online version, it's Chapter 20. But this is membership only for access all my books online. However, I give members first priority when I have time to answer questions and people seem to appreciate this.

You can find out more about my books at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0974953601/bischofsystem-20 - Amazon.com or reading the http://members.crystalreportsbook.com - Crystal Reports eBooks online.

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Posted By: roland12345
Date Posted: 29 Sep 2008 at 10:42am

I have looked at the book you offer, I will probably need a big reference document for crystal anyways so I will eventually have to decide on one.

For now, is there anything specifically I can look into that will lead me to the right direction, I think I should be using the crystal API to add fields dynamically onto the report? Is it done with CrystalReportViewer object or some other mechanism.

Thanks
Thanks

Posted By: BrianBischof
Date Posted: 29 Sep 2008 at 11:53am

Hi Roland,

It's not the viewer, that just displays the report. You have to work with the specific report objects. First, add these references to your project:

CrystalDecisions.ReportAppServer.ClientDoc
CrystalDecisions.ReportAppServer.DataDefModel
CrystalDecisions.ReportAppServer.Controllers
CrystalDecisions.ReportAppServer.ReportDefModel

Next, you have to do is create an instance of the report using the ReportDocument class. Then get a reference to the ReportClientDocument property and assign it to an object variable of the same type. This object variable is what controls dynamic report creation and modification. You can look at all the properties and methods of the ReportClientDocument class to see what is available.

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Posted By: roland12345
Date Posted: 29 Sep 2008 at 12:12pm

ok, very good, I can work with that, that should be enough to give me a good starting point.

Right now we are using crystal 11 (I have posted a link to another solution below) which looks to work in Crystal 11 hopefully it must also work in crystal 2008 because we will be upgrading to 2008 shortly.

Here is the Other solution - http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/uditsingh/CR1111022006055359AM/CR11.aspx

I'm wondering if it works, it seems like it does. I'm wondering if there are any disadvantages to using that approach as apposed to the more modern way you suggest?

Thanks again

Posted By: BrianBischof
Date Posted: 29 Sep 2008 at 6:46pm

This way is fine. The problem is that you have to define everything in advance and have the report built with all the fields. And you have to create a zillion formulas and manage them. With RAS you can just put what you want into the report. But this is fine and what most people do who don't want to work with RAS. If you do decide to go with RAS in the future, you need the XI R2 update. If you're using CR 2008, you will need the R0 release to make it compatible with .NET 2008.

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Posted By: BernieHunt
Date Posted: 14 Oct 2008 at 5:44am

Roland,

As a programmer, I think you'll be much better off creating your reports in code rather than the other method.

The advantages of creating your reports in code is in the similarity between them. You will be able to create alot of multi use code for layout and such. If you use the other method, you'll be doing alot of work by hand. Depending on the number of possible fields the user can select, this could get out of hand quickly!

I would get Brians book or learn it on your own and then create the reports in code. Find the similarities between the method of using the various fields. I bet you could write the whole Crystal portion without the UI in less than 200 lines of code.

The other side benifit of coding the report is consistancy in look and feel. If I write code to put a column at x,y, then it's always there no mater what data I put in it. If I lay out the reports by hand, it's a pain to make sure everything lines up the same each and every time.

Just my experience from messing with this a while.

Bernie

Posted By: roland12345
Date Posted: 16 Oct 2008 at 8:49am

I got the core of it working now, (the samples in the business objects website were helpful, i.e. the one that is called adding a field dynamically into the report).

Anyways, I am trying to find out how to limit the number of records displayed in the crystal report, (because if I have a table that is selected that returns a million records, i want to limit it to 1000) isn't there a method for doing this like one line of code, I am having trouble finding it.

Thanks,

Posted By: roland12345
Date Posted: 21 Oct 2008 at 7:54am

Hi guys,

I am still having that one last issue where I need to restrict the results in the Crystal Report dynamically. I know I can place restrictions in the view, i.e. SELECT TOP 1000 FROM TABLE. but this poses two problems, one is that when I link tables together results will be cut off, the 2nd is that in our system we have 300 tables to report on and I don't want to create views for each one, right now I am reporting directly on the tables themselves but like I said if there are a million records the system freezes.

I think there is a technique for creating a group dynamically and using the GroupSort to filter (not sure if this works), but I'm pretty sure it won't work when I have linked tables.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

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