Auto Export Reports 1

[NiallSOS]

I'm a complete newbie when it comes to Crystal reports so please bear with me.

What I have is a report that we use for billing purposes. I wish to export the bill to either excell or as a pdf. We have several hundred customers and wish to have a seperate file for each of those customers. We have been exporting each individual customers data by hand every month and it is just too tediuos and time consuming to continue this practice. Ideally what I would like is to provide a range of customer numbers (non-incremental, although I could provide an incremental field in the database if necessary) and the report would run and export for each of these customers. I have been using Crystal Reports 7, but have recently purchased version 9 Professional in the hope of easing this problem.

Is there a solution that does not require me to learn ActiveX and VB? If not could someone point me in the direction of some useful tutorials?

Thank you very much for any help you can give,

Niall

 

[crystalreporting]

Niall,

Sounds like a job for Ido Millet's Visual Cut program. Check out

http://www.milletsoftware.com

for more information. Ido's program is a bargain priced (for the functionality it provides) tool that allows you to burst a report into separate reports that can be exported and optionally emailed. We've had great success with it, and if I understand your requirement correctly, it should help you out.

 

[chelseatech]

What youa re asking for is Report Bursting, and Ido and I both have UFL's that can do this for you.

Ido's utility is general purpose, while I have several with each for a specific purpose - text output, SMTP email, Outlook Email, or XML output.

Editor and Publisher of Crystal Clear

http://www.chelseatech.co.nz/pubs.htm

 

[IdoMillet]

Thanks for the kind words... )

Bruce, while my "CUT" UFL can indeed do electronic bursting and e-mailing, "Visual CUT" may be a better choice if Niall needs scheduling, pdf bookmarks, or any of the other added features in that tool.

Niall, you mention PDF _or_ Excel as the desired output. Consider including both. You can go through one cycle of bursting to one format (without e-mailing) and then, on the second cycle of bursting to the 2nd format e-mail both files to each customer.
That way each customer gets a nice looking pdf file as a "formal" invoice and an Excel file for access to the data or to make a comment directly in the excel file itself and e-mail it back as an easy way to discuss issues.

Cheers,
- Ido

CUT, Visual CUT, and DataLink Viewer:
view, e-mail, export, burst, distribute, and schedule Crystal Reports.

http://www.MilletSoftware.com

 

[NiallSOS]

Thanx guys,
Ido, I've already been in touch with you and am currently trying out your software. I have to slightly modify my reports in order for them to work properly but that shouldn't take too long.
chelseatech, I'll try out your s/w as well. Thank you very much guys, I think I've finally found a technical forum where I can get prompt and helpful replies. Thank you very much,

Niall

 

[lynchg]

I have a similar issue. I have created a report (I have CR 9.2.2.693 full developer edition), which operates fine. I can manually export it to a PDF file to a disc location. How do I automate this? Is there a place within Crystal where I can insert some code to direct this operation when the report is completed?

My job in this project is to create the report and "hand it off" to others on the team who will use Visual Cut to separate the report into it's individual pages and send them off in faxes.

Do I need to convert the report to a PDF file or is that something that Visual Cut performs?

TIA

 

[IdoMillet]

If the other team members can' make any changes to the report than just be sure to:

1. Place the field/formula you are grouping on (at level 1) manually (The automatic Group #1 Name field is not enough) in the Group header/footer at level 1. The field and even the section can be suppressed, but it needs to be there to support bursting.

2. Place any other useful fields/formulas, for dynamically naming the exported file name and/or folder(s), specifying the e-mailing options, and so on, in the report header/footer or Group #1 header/footer. Again, these fields and even the section can be suppressed.
Your Visual CUT user would then be able to drag & drop these fields/formulas into dynamic export file naming and e-mailing options.

You don't need to convert the report to PDF. VC takes care of that.

Cheers,
- Ido

CUT, Visual CUT, and DataLink Viewer:
view, e-mail, export, burst, distribute, and schedule Crystal Reports.

http://www.MilletSoftware.com

 

[lynchg]

Thank you very much Ido but I still have the question, is there a development environment within Crystal (CR 9.2.2.693 full developer edition), where I can insert some code to direct operations on a report? Or does that only come with Crystal Enterprise.

I have been nosing my way around and I can't seem to find a place to write code other than creating formulas and placing conditions on things.

TIA

 

[IdoMillet]

Crystal developer includes the Crystal runtime components, allowing you to write applications that interact with Crystal reports.

Other than that, there is no other place to code operations on Crystal reports.

Cheers,
- Ido

CUT, Visual CUT, and DataLink Viewer:
view, e-mail, export, burst, distribute, and schedule Crystal Reports.

http://www.MilletSoftware.com