Unfortunately, you'll need to contact the folks at ShopTech to get assistance with this. We have no way of knowing how their reports are set up or how they're using the SDK to display reports, which might affect what you're trying to do.

-Dell

Ok, let me see what I can do here...

What tables are you using and are your tables linked together? Right-click on the links and let me know what the settings are in the Join Options.

-Dell

This didn't format very well. It looks like all of these are inner joins, so if you'll give it to me in the following format, I'll be able to read it better (in the Database Expert, pay attention to which direction the arrow is pointing - the arrow points to the "To" table.)

Table1.Field1 to Table2.Field2

Thanks!

-Dell

Ok, based on the join types, you'll never have data in your report where QuoteMain.ContactName is null. An inner join means that both tables have to have data in the field in order for the row to be included in the result set. So, you should be able to just use {Contacts.Cell_Phone} on the report without checking for null in {QuoteMain.ContactName}.

If that doesn't work for you, what are you trying to accomplish with this formula?

-Dell

I think I may know part of what is going on. Are you creating a new report or have you just added a table to an existing report? Either way, when you install Crystal, something called "Automatic SmartLinking" is turned on. However, despite the name, it isn't very smart. What it does is try to match up fields between two tables based on the field name - if the names are the same they're automatically added to the link even though it might not make sense.

I would do a couple of things:

1. Go to the File menu and then to Options. Go to the Database tab and uncheck "Automatic SmartLinking" at the bottom.

2. Once again, on the File menu, turn off "Save Data With Report". Generally, you don't want this on as it makes your .rpt file bigger and all of the data has to be discarded when you run the report.

3. In the Database Expert, click on each of the links between the tables and delete them.

4. Add the correct link between the two tables.

From long-time experience with databases, the links between tables are usually based on either string "code" fields or numeric "id" fields. One way to help with this is to right-click on one of the fields in the Field Explorer and turn on "Show Field Type". You need to link fields of the same type. So, if the "Contact" field is a number, you're looking for a number field in QuoteMain. Another thing you can do is right-click on the field in the Field Explorer and select "Browse Data" to see what's actually in the field.

So, I would look in your QuoteMain table and see if you can find a fields named something like "ContactID" or "ContactCode". Then join from that to the "Contact" field in the Contact table or there may be some other ID field in the Contact table that you need to link to. Without knowing the structure of your tables, I can't tell you specifically what to look for.

5. Once you have the correct link set up, you may or may not want to right-click on it and change the join type. If you're not familiar with databases, here's how the joins work:

Inner Join - There must be matching data in BOTH tables.

Outer Join - Only one table has to have matching data. This works by direction - left or right. For a left outer join, the table that you're linking FROM has data but the table that you're linking TO may or may not. If it doesn't, the query will automatically include "null" values for fields in the TO table when there is no record that matches the FROM table.

So, you need to decide what type of join you need. I would probably link FROM QuoteMain TO Contact, but that really depends on what data you want to see in your report.

-Dell

-Dell