Crystal Report

[HomeGrowth]

I have five years in developing MS Access with some VBA programming. I am thinking about taking training in Crystal Report version XI (My boss recommended). My questions,

1. Is anything Crystal Report can do but MS Access can't?
2. Who offers excellent training class on Crystal Report XI?

 

[dhookom]

CR has a fairly common run-time allowing users to run CR reports without having to install the CR full application.

Personally I like Access reports much better since you have full access to VBA. Access 2007 adds some greater functionality to earlier versions Access reports such as drill down etc.

Duane MS Access MVP

 

[boblarson]

Personally, if I am creating reports I would much rather work in Crystal Reports. And, yes there are things that CR can do that Access can't. One example is that in CR you can define your own custom groupings (easily) where the groupings don't naturally occur within the data.

Also, the concatenation of fields is way easier (drag and drop) and doing up conditional display of sections (you can have multiple detail sections and conditionally display them much easier than Access. Also, I've found charting to be much more customizable in CR than in Access.

CR is a full blown reporting tool whereas Access is not. Access is not built to be a major reporting tool; it does a decent job, but it is not designed specifically as a report writer. CR is designed for just that - reports.

Now, the parts that aren't so good. CR requires training. It is not an intuitive tool and there is a lot of nuances to learn about how to do things. Once you've had training, it opens up a world of previously unimaginable possibilities, but without it you will struggle.

There are good CR courses around, but they are really regional so it is hard to tell you what would be good for you. A great book, however is:

http://www.amazon.com/Crystal-Repor...bs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203923820&sr=1-1

Bob Larson
A2K,A2K3,A2K7,SQL Server 2000/2005,Crystal Reports 10/XI,VB6, WinXP, and Vista
Free Quick Tutorials and Samples:

http://www.btabdevelopment.com

 

[boblarson]

Oh, one of the other drawbacks to CR, compared to Access, is that you do have to have some way of the user viewing the reports, or you can send them to a pdf file, or some other format.


Bob Larson
A2K,A2K3,A2K7,SQL Server 2000/2005,Crystal Reports 10/XI,VB6, WinXP, and Vista
Free Quick Tutorials and Samples:

http://www.btabdevelopment.com

 

[fneily]

Any community college should offer CR courses. Also see:

http://www.crystaluser.com/directory.htm

If you don't want any social life, you can go to their headquarters in INDIANAPOLIS, IN.

 

[HomeGrowth]

Thank you everyone. Looks like CR is a skill that I will be better to have. I am out for hunting a training course starting with the ones that you have suggested. Thanks again.