How can you show sales by country or region, from what’s in your database? Crystal Reports has an integrated mapping function that allows you to do this—in a variety of formats. The four map layouts in Crystal Reports are similar to the four graph types:

• Advanced. These rely on a geographic field in your database—you just need to specify a field to be plotted and a field containing a value to be shown.
• Group. A map of this type relies on a group you have inserted into your report for the points to plot, and on a summary field for the values to show. This method provides drill-down capability.
• Cross-Tab. Works like groups, but uses cross-tabs as the data source.
• OLAP. Works like groups, but uses OLAP grids as the data source.

Here are the main map and chart types available in Crystal Reports:

• Ranges. A ranges map separates values from your report into separate bands and assigns a color code to each. Ways to break these out include equal count, equal ranges, natural break, and standard deviation.
• Dot density. Just think of a paper map with push-pin tacks in it.
• Graduated. This uses symbols that vary in size according to the value of the data. Great for showing the relative sizes of cities and airports, or where relative concentrations of X are. You could, for example, show dollar signs that vary in size according to the amount of money saved by Crystal Reports users in each location.
• Pie chart. It requires a field to plot and a subfield.
• Bar chart. It requires a field to plot and a subfield.

A nice feature to the map function is you can move the map around in your Crystal Report just by dragging it with your mouse. To make life even easier for you, the mapping function includes a resource similar to that of the graphing function. The Map Analyzer allows you to put all the right touches on your map—it even resolves mismatched data.