CR XI observations and tips 4

[teknogeek9]

Here is my two cents worth.

My biggest and greatest pet peeve is if you have a subreport and you have to return values from it via a variable, the subreport must be in a section of the main report and that section cannot be hidden or supressed. The best one can do is hide in the subreport and make it as small as possible, in the main report. That, at best, would leave a .04 gap in between rows on the main report.

It would be nice if you can hide a row in the main report but still allow the subreport to trigger. OR, perhaps add a row sidebar that would allow for "off-report" processing.

 

[kenhamady]

Actually you can eliminate that gap by underlaying the section that contains the 'invisible' subreport. I call this the stealth subreport.

Ken Hamady, On-site Custom Crystal Reports Training & Consulting
Public classes and individual training.
Expert's Guide to Formulas / Tips and Tricks / Guide to Crystal in VB

http://www.kenhamady.com/

- TEK2(AT)kenhamady.com

 

[synapsevampire]

Great trick, *Ken*.

I would suggest that since you have the ability to use real SQL in Crystal now (since cr9), there's no need to use subreports that are in groups or detail sections, use subqueries.

-k

 

[nitroedge]

Gary - Oracle should be there if you're using Pro or Dev editions. It is not in Standard.

Synapse - After the semantic layers (Universes and Business Views) are merged, we will produce a public SDK that will open up the semantic layer to other applications. This is coming in a future release.

I hear you on putting security close to the db - that's how I did it in a previous life. BusinessViews does allow for some things that is just impossible in db layer security - like view time security where a single scheduled instance can reveal only those data records that a specific user has rights to see.

Improving the calendar picker and conditional formatting on lines and boxes are both high priorities for future releases. I track the enhancement requests, and with XI we nailed the #1, 2, and 3 enhancement requests - dynamic prompts, editable rtf export, and dynamic images. We'll keep working our way down the list for coming releases.

Cheers, Blair

 

[synapsevampire]

Thanks, Blair. I'd heard that they would merge.

You probably understand that from a Managers standpoint, proprietary layers are never optimal, but then again, despite your logical argument of why would anyone ever use anything but BO products?

As for security in a client and proprietary layers, I understand your selling points, I would just prefer to have a single point of administration for security.

As opposed to an SDK, an oledb/odbc/jdbc type of connectivity would serve a greater audience, allowing companies to leverage your abstracts within other products without coding, which is always my preference.

Hats off to your efforts overall, the dynamic cascading parameters are a HUGE improvement, along with the overall look and feel of the product, they both lend a good deal of professionalism.

Thanks again for your responses here.

-k

 

[RoknRole]

Reply to GJParker and nitroedge: I'm having the same problem as GJ. I had CR10 with Oracle 8.1.7 client installed, and had no problems creating connections to Oracle servers. I downloaded and installed the 30 day Dev evaluation version of CRXI (on a different drive), and the option to select "Oracle Server" was gone. When I tried one of my former Oracle connections in "Favorites", I received the error "Failed to load database info - The database connecter 'crdb_oracle.dll' could not be loaded". A subsequent search of my drives found two versions - one for the CR10 install, and one for the CRXI install. I tried to register the new .DLL, but that failed ("specified module could not be found"). A little research in BO's knowledge base suggested crdb_oracle.dll could not be loaded because CR is unable to find the file Oci.dll. I followed the recomended solution by uninstalling and then reinstalling the Oracle client. However, the results are the same - no connection option to an Oracle Server in CRXI. Any ideas?

 

[bdreed35]

I don't know if I ended up with a different version or not, but I checked my install of CR XI and I do have Oracle Server as an option. I work for a partner so I installed mine from a link that I was provided. I am running Developer v11.0.0.895 What version is provided off of the download from the BOBJ website?

~Brian

 

[GJParker]

RoknRole

It's not just us having this problem, I was beginning to think I hadn't installed correctly. there are reports of this behaviour on other forums including one fr5om Ken Turner who has reported this to CR Support.

The download version on the BO website is Developer v11.0.0.895 the same as Brians.

Gary

Gary Parker
MIS Data Analyst
Manchester, England

 

[GJParker]

Here's the latest from BO's tech support:

"While researching this issue, I came across the platforms.txt for Crystal
Reports XI, and noticed that even against Oracle 8.1.7 the suggested and
supported version of the Oracle client to use is version 9.2, have you
tried upgrading your client to see if that takes care of the problem?"

The bit of the platforms.txt file he is referring to says:

Crystal Reports Data Sources
====================================

Report Data Source Database Client
----------------------------------------------------------------
Oracle 8.1.7 Oracle Net client 9.2 (Native)

Is he telling me that I cannot use Oracle 8.1.7 Client with CRXI, even though I'm using an 8.1.7 database?

Watch this space ...


Gary Parker
MIS Data Analyst
Manchester, England

 

[RoknRole]

That worked! I uninstalled Oracle Client 8.17 and installed version 9.2.0.1.0, and "Oracle Server" was once again a connection option in Crystal Reports. The new report seems to be working fine. Thanks!

 

[GJParker]

Here's the final word from BO tech support:

"The only version of the Oracle client that is known to work with Crystal
Reports XI is version 9.2. It may be possible to get other versions to
work, but we can't guarantee that as other versions either didn't work for
us, or weren't tested at all."


Gary Parker
MIS Data Analyst
Manchester, England

 

[chelseatech]

Hi everyone,

Having the trial download available while I'm waiting for a real copy to ship to us down in New Zealand has been a real plus.

I like the new interface and screen layout. Dynamic Parameters are great.

Parameter input is terrible. They have gone to a web page layout, so if you have lots of parameters (one of clients has reports with 10 or more parameters on some reports) there is a big long form you have to scroll down. I see some novice users missing the parameters past the visible area. I like the tabbed form for parameter input from CR7.

Also, the date calendar control is someones bad idea of a joke java interface. Let's get back the calendar control we've been using in windows for many years.

Final Gripe is about date parameter input. Okay it's better that the "Date(2005,2,26)" format from Seagate Info 7 days, but why "2005-02-26"? While the US uses m/d/y format and the rest of the world the superior d/m/y format, why require a format no-one is familiar with? What are our regional settings for if not to do this the way the user wants.

To finish on a plus note, the new special field for Time Zone is a great idea. Can't think why I'd use it, but it has possibilities.

Editor and Publisher of Crystal Clear

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

 

[synapsevampire]

Interesting that you'd mention the timezone, as one problem I had in the past was supporting timstamp with timezone in Oracle (newer data type).

If you publish reports for users in other lands, and need to demonstrate the timezone, this should prove useful, of course Ido Millet has a UFL for this that worked well...

-k

 

[TheEntertainer]

Hello All,

I've download the evaluation version, but before I install it can someone let me know if it can sit on the same PC as Crystal V9 or does it replace/remove it?

Thanks

 

[lupins46]

It will co-exist with other versions.(Well... it's OK with V8 and v9 - I never got v10 so can't comment)

 

[Jacque]

Since my reports are in multiple languages, a new document property that I particularly like is that you can retrieve the locale from the regional settings of your pc. The function is called ContentLocale.
Jacque