Crystal Reports 2008 Official Guide

Description

CRYSTAL REPORTS® 2008

OFFICIAL GUIDE

Whether you’re a DBA, data warehousing or business intelligence professional,
reporting specialist, or developer, this book has the answers you need. Through
hands-on examples, you’ll systematically master Crystal Reports and Xcelsius
2008’s most powerful features for creating, distributing, and delivering content.
One step at a time, long-time Crystal Reports insiders take you from the basics
through advanced content creation and delivery using Xcelsius, Crystal Reports
Server, crystalreports.com, and the offline Crystal Reports Viewer.

Every significant enhancement introduced in Crystal Reports 2008 is covered, including its new visualization options and more robust Web services capabilities. The book concludes by showing how to use Crystal Reports’ powerful .NET and Java SDKs to customize and extend enterprise reporting in virtually unlimited ways.

• Learn hands-on, through step-by-step examples and exercises–and discover tips and tricks proven in real-world enterprise environments

  •   Master new Crystal Reports 2008 features, including interactive report viewing, Xcelsius dashboarding, Flex, and Flash integration, Report Designer improvements, report bursting, and more

  •   Publish professional-quality reports against virtually any data source, including relational and OLAP databases, Universes, SAP, PeopleSoft, JavaBeans, .NET/COM objects, XML, and more

  •   Discover advanced visualization techniques using Xcelsius, charts, and maps

  •   Learn methods for distributing reports and integrating content into other applications

            •           Learn about the latest reporting addition to the Business Objects family–Xcelsius and begin creating dynamic and interactive dashboards

NEIL FITZGERALD has spent several years working at Business Objects and with one of Business Objects’ largest providers of custom BI and enterprise reporting solutions.

BOB COATES currently works as a Sales Consultant for Business Objects, an SAP company, where he has been employed for more than eleven years.

RYAN GOODMAN is the founder of Centigon Solutions, Inc., and remains one of the top Xcelsius experts and evangelists in the world.

MICHAEL VOLOSHKO is a senior presales consultant for the financial services team at Business Objects.

ON THE WEB

Find all this and more at informit.com/sams:

     •    Java and .NET sample reports and code samples for all examples in the book

     •    Bonus chapters, tips, tricks, and links to great reporting resources

CATEGORY: Database

COVERS: Crystal Reports 2008, Crystal Reports Server 2008,

Crystal Reports Viewer, crystalreports.com, Xcelsius 2008

USER LEVEL: Beginning–Intermediate

informit.com/sams

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Downloads

Downloads

Download the example files

Sample Content

Sample Pages

Download the sample pages (includes Chapter 16 and Index)

Table of Contents

Introduction

Introduction to Information Delivery

Spectrum of Business Objects Product Usage

Custom Information Delivery Applications

Enterprise BI Initiatives

Spectrum of BI Tool Users

Content Creators (Information Designers)

Information Analysts

Information Consumers

The Product Family from Business Objects

What Is in This Book

Part I: Crystal Reports Design

Part II: Formatting Crystal Reports

Part III: Advanced Crystal Reports Design

Part IV: Report Distribution and Advanced Report Design with Crystal Xcelsius

Equipment Used for This Book

Web Resources

Intended Audience

Requirements for This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

I Crystal Report Design

1 Creating and Designing Basic Reports

Introducing the Crystal Reports Designer

Crystal Report Sections

Using Toolbars and Menus

Report Design Explorers

Locating and Using the Report Design Explorers

The Workbench and Dependency Checker

Understanding Data and Data Sources

Understanding Direct Access Drivers

Understanding Indirect Access Drivers

Introducing the Database Expert

Creating a New Connection

Using My Connections

Adding Database Objects to Your Report

Reporting on Tables

Reporting on Views

Reporting on Stored Procedures

Reporting on SQL Commands

Joining Database Objects

Understanding the Different Join Types

Using the Report Creation Wizards

Getting Started with the Report Wizards

Using the Standard Report Creation Wizard

Creating a Report Without Wizards

Troubleshooting

Crystal Reports in the Real World–HTML Preview

Crystal Reports in the Real World–SQL Commands

2 Selecting and Grouping Data

Introduction

Understanding Field Objects

Accessing Database Fields

Accessing Formula Fields

Access

Updates

Errata

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