Crystal Parameter Fields is not User Friendly at all !!

[krist]

Hi Crystal guys,

I am still evaluating Crystal Report product to speed up our report development time,
I have problem, the way Crystal Asking for Parameter fields is very ugly, different from what we create our usual development tool (e.g VB etc). Or may be I am still missing something here ??

From what I saw, We cannot display all Prompts alltogether once, always one prompt at a time, and I think the end user will not be very happy about this.
Is there aniway that we can make Parameter screen like this, all parameter prompt displayed together :

Customer Code : xxxxx to xxxxx
Report Date : xx/xx/xx to xx/xx/xx
Sort By : (x)hasj sajjha
Include summary : Yes/No
bla.. bla.. bla..

Thanks for anyhelp,
Krist

 

[casman2]

I know for me, I prompt for the parameters in VB the way I want it then pass it to Crystal.

 

[balves]

I don't believe that you can change the Crystal parameter interface. If you have three parameters, it's going to set up a dialog box with a tab for each parameter.

Certainly you can do more data input and error handling by using a VB front-end. On the other hand, when I've quickly had to roll out a report using the Crystal dialog box with tabs, the users haven't seemed too upset by it. The most common user error is just filling the first parameter on the first tab and then running the report. Brian J. Alves
Terrier Consulting, Inc.
Email: brian.alves@worldnet.att.net
VB / Crystal / SQLServer
(Currently available for consulting in Chicago)

 

[bburnell]

Hi,
If you use VB, you can show a form and input all parameters at once and pass the parameters to CR one at a time through a for loop. I do agree that the parameter interface is ugly though.
Brett Please visit my websites!

http://www.smsforce.com

http://www.goodguyz.com

 

[VE]

I don't use VB at all on my reports. There are about ten people who use my reports, ranging from data entry clerks to management. The biggest problem I have is when users call me and say "the report doesn't work, all it does is ask for 'discrete value'"

I've found that if you write the prompting text like "enter order number in the discrete value box" it helps a little. But then, I think that the people who repeatedly have trouble with this would have trouble with a well designed interface as well. If you train them and they understand, they should be fine. (I still need to learn VB though...)

VE

 

[DonMc67]

I had to write a front end to convert calendar date params into serial dates, so I ended up passing multiple params... this is VERY simple code, using an option button to select the report, and passes dates in on the print

Private Sub cmdPrint_Click()
If optAE = True Then
crAE.ReportFileName = App.Path & "\\csae.rpt"
crAE.ParameterFields(0) = "Start Date;" & txtSStart & ";true"
crAE.ParameterFields(1) = "End Date;" & txtSEnd & ";true"
crAE.Action = 1
Else
crSpot.ReportFileName = App.Path & "\\csspot.rpt"
crSpot.ParameterFields(0) = "Start Date;" & txtSStart & ";true"
crSpot.ParameterFields(1) = "End Date;" & txtSEnd & ";true"
crSpot.Action = 1
End If