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Open Seagate
Crystal Reports 7, if it is not already running. |
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To create a new
report, select New... from the File menu.
The Report Gallery window will appear. |
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Click on the Standard
button. The Create Report Expert window will appear with a series of tabs. This initial
Data tab allows you to select the method used to connect to your source of data. |
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You will be
connecting to an existing Access database file so click on the Data File
button. The Choose Database File window will appear. Select the file named
"xtreme" from the list of files and click Add. |
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Now that
you’ve specified the source of the data, the Select Tables dialog box appears. We're
only interested in using one table for this simple report, so select "Customer"
from the list and click OK. Click Done to close the
Choose Database File dialog box. You’ll return to the Create Report Expert window.
Now that you’ve selected the database and the table for your report, you’ll need
to specify the fields you want to include in the report. |
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Click on the Fields
tab and select the "Customer Name" database field in the Database Fields
text box. Click and drag the field into the Report Fields text box. Do
the same for the "Last Year’s Sales", "City" and
"Region" fields. The Report Expert creates column headers for you using the field names as a
default. If you want to rename a column, simply type the new name in the corresponding
column header field. |
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Click
on the Preview Report button to view the report so far. Passing your
mouse pointer over the various report objects will display information about that object
in a ToolTip which is the small yellow box which pops up next to your mouse pointer. You
can see the actual database field names displayed when you pass the pointer over some of
the report fields.
You've now quickly created a basic report which has the core sales
information for all customers. Now we'll alter the report to make it more specific and
easier to read. |
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Manipulating Data |
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Now that
you’ve created a basic report, you can manipulate the data to modify the report any
way you want. You may want to filter data to include only those customers in a certain
country, for example, or you may need to present subtotals in a certain order, list
companies by region, or highlight certain totals according to their amounts.
To use the Report Expert to help make these changes, select Report
Expert... from the Report menu. A Confirm Command dialog box
will pop up, click Yes and the Report Expert will appear. |
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Let's sort the
report data geographically. Click on the Sort tab and drag the
"Region" and "City" fields into the Sort Fields text
box. Select in ascending order if not already visible in the Order
drop-down box. |
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We want to show the
total sales for each group on our report so click on the Total tab.
Because The "Last Years Sales" field is the only numeric field in the report,
the expert automatically selected it for totaling. |
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For this report, we
will only show the overall top sales performers so click on the TopN tab.
The Report Expert automatically selects sum of "Last Year’s Sales" and Top
5. We'll accept the defaults as shown. |
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We'll focus the
report further by choosing only customers in the USA for this report. Click on the Select
tab, highlight the "Country" field and drag it into the Select Fields
text box. Select "equal to" in the second drop-down box and "USA" in
the third drop-down box. This will exclude all records from the report where the country
field does not match USA. |
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Adding a Graph |
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Seagate Crystal
Reports contains a powerful graphing tool that converts data into graphs so you can
include intuitive, presentation-quality graphs in any report. These graphs can be
completely customized and they can be inserted almost anywhere in your report. Simply
select the style of graph you want and the Report Export automatically creates it for you. |
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We'll now add a
graph that represents the regional subtotals of the sales figures as a percentage of the
total sales in the USA. Click on the Graph tab and click on the Pie
button in the Graph Gallery. Select the Regular pie with 3D visual effect
and click on the Data tab. The Report Expert automatically creates the
graph based on the sum of "Last Year’s Sales". |
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Adding a Style |
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To make your report
more appealing, you can add a variety of elements such as borders, underlines, and logos.
By using the style features in the Create Report Expert, you can add style attributes to
any report. |
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To add a style to
this report, click on the Style tab and select the Red/Blue
Border style. We'll take this opportunity to add a title as well by typing
"Sales by Region" in the Title field. |
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Click Preview
Report and you will see the modified report complete with graph. Double clicking
on one of the pie graph segments will "drill-down" into the sales data display
the matching report details for that region. You can also right-click on the graph and
select Launch Analyzer to change pie slice colors or make other
modifications to the graph. To use this report for the next exercise, you may want to save
the report on your system. |