• Crystal Reports: SQL introduction

• Crystal Reports: Generate SQL to Change Selected Records in Crystal Reports

• Crystal Reports: Useful SQL Utility: Crystal SQL Designer

• Crystal Reports: SQL Left Join

• Crystal Reports: SQL Commands for Creating Audit Records in Crystal Reports

• Crystal Reports: SQL Expressions and Sub Selects

Use SQL commands to retrieve your data.

A great feature introduced in Crystal Reports 9.0 is the SQL command, which you can use to retrieve your data.

Sometimes we need to manipulate our data with SQL prior to processing a report.

For example, we combine a SELECT DISTINCT, UNION join and Sub SELECT to retrieve some data from our SQL server.

The SQL command can be added to the repository, so you can share it between several reports. If you wish to change your SQL, you need to detach the SQL from the repository, make your changes and then place it back in the repository.

The SQL Command feature is why Crystal Reports 9 does not include the Crystal SQL designer. You can do far more with Crystal Reports SQL commands. 

SQL command parameters

Use SQL command parameters. Using SQL commands as the source of data for your report has several benefits. This SQL command feature also includes the ability to include a parameter in the SQL command.

For example, we have created a parameter {?Region} and use that to select a single region 
from our table.

The SQL command now says Select * from Customer where Region = '{?Region}' 

The parameter editor in the SQL command dialog box lets you enter only a single default value. So if you wish to load more default values, return to the Field Explorer and add more default values to the parameter there.

This feature supports string, date and numeric parameters, but they must be a single value. Multi value parameters are not supported.

The real benefit of this feature is where you need to extract a few records from a large table. Doing the selection in an SQL command will have a major improvement in report performance. 

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