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Crystal Reports Basics: Working with data sources

This is based on the book, Crystal Reports: A Beginner’s Guide. For more detail and explanation, plus practice exercises, order the book here.

A compelling aspect of Crystal Reports is it can report from nearly any database. It doesn’t matter if you run a desktop application or a data warehouse. It doesn’t matter if you run a simple file-type database (e.g., Excel), a relational database (e.g., Access), and OLAP database (e.g., HOLOS HDC), or an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system (e.g., SAP).

Crystal Reports uses two data access methods:

A native driver or connection. This is a driver written for a specific program.
The ODBC layer. Open DataBase Connectivity is a common interface for running queries on relational databases. It also is what allows you to paste data from one MS-Office application into another.

You can access data sources through the Data Explorer, which pops up automatically when you create a new report. It also pops up when you are adding a new database or table to and existing report. You really need to know the data type. These are:

PC/Client. Crystal Reports uses a direct driver for these. The applications are:

Btrieve (ddf)
Clipper (ntx)
Dbase/Xbase (dbf, ndx,mdx, bde)
Foxpro (idx, cdx)
MS-Acccess (mdb)
MS-Outlook (wab)
Paradox (db)

OLAP

HOLOS HDC
Hyperion Esssbase
IBM DB/2

Baan
JD Edwards
PeopleSoft
SAP

MetaData

Crystal Dictionaries (dc5)
Seagate Infoviews (civ)

Miscellaneous

Act! (SalesLogix)
MS-Exchange
MS-IIS
MS-SMS
MS Windows NT/2000 Event Logs
Web server activity logs (NCSA format)

You can see Crystal Reports solves the big Achilles Heel of data systems by largely rendering the platform a non-issue. It also resolves some database structural problems by allowing you to use database aliases. For even more functionality, you can use third-party programs, such as the ones available here.

Here's a tip for when you're working with data sources. It's called the atomic principle.

Early physicists and chemists discovered it is much easier to join atoms together than to split them apart. Remember this when designing your database.

Use several individual fields rather than a single field that combines several together. It can be difficult, and sometimes impossible, to extract the required data element from a combined field. However if you have individual fields, you can always find ways to join them together.

An example of this would be to create fields for firstname and lastname rather than have a combined field for name. With separate fields, you can sort by lastname, and select data based on firstname.

A combined field would make one, the other, or both difficult to do. While you are at it, include fields for title and initials, a common name (or nick-name), and maiden name. You may even want to include fields such as alias1, alias 2, dba1, and dba2.

This article is copyrighted by Crystalkeen, Mindconnection, and Chelsea Technologies Ltd. It may be freely copied and distributed as long as the original copyright is displayed and no modifications are made to this material. Extracts are permitted. The names Crystal Reports and Seagate Info are trademarks owned by Business Objects.