Exporting Drill down from Crystal to Excel

[MadSnooka]

We are using Crystal Ent. 8 with crystal reports 8.5.
Our clients access their reports via an asp page which prompts them for the parameters then runs the report. It also gives them a view to old instances. Apparently it's imperative for them to be given the access to export the results of the reports into excel so they can perform further calculations on the data. On the surface this seemed like no big deal because crystal provides an export button on all its viewers. Well guess what? It's for show. It allows you to export reports only at the first level i.e.drill-downs cannot be exported. We have spoken w/ crystal tek support on this matter on several occasions and everyone gives us a different answer. From "known bug" to "the fix is in the latest patch". I've been told that one way around this issue is to make all drill-downs sub-reports. While this may be a possible option I don't want to be the one to convert our forty or fifty reports w/ multiple drill-downs to sub-reports. I feel like we've been duped because this error is not known till you drill down so if you were testing crystal on the surface it seems fine.

Please tell me one of you have also had this problem and know of a better solution than converting drill-downs to sub-reports. We are getting beat down over here and any help would be nice.

And for those of you reaserching reporting tools, make sure you ask the client before hand as to weather they will be exporting the report into excell. In a production environment like here at Home Shopping Network it is imperative and I would assume most places would feel the same way..

 

[Naith]

MadSnooka,

Unfortunately, this is an area in Crystal Reports where bad news is virtually guaranteed. Drill down exports are not supported.

That subreport idea is something I've not heard before - and I'd be interested to see how it was sold to you. Wouldn't a subreport drill only be able to effectually go down to one level, being as the nature of subreports don't allow for nests?

Well, I can't offer you a solution. But I can offer a frig, as we say in England. And, even then, it's a bit of an intensive workaround at that. If you have web reporting, and CR8, then by all means, come with me to the next paragraph. Otherwise, don't let me waste any more of your time.

With web functionality, you're able to apply hyperlink values to fields which would otherwise activate drilldowns. The hyperlink would refer to the same report, passing the relevant values to display the equivalent of drilldown information. Once the hyperlink opens - preferably in a new window - both the original report, and the 'drilldown', can be exported separately to your prefered format.

It's not an ideal solution - but, as far as exporting layered reports are concerned, your options are very limited, I'm afraid.

All the best,

Naith

 

[chelseatech]

Another solution would be to export the report as a rpt to your user, use the free viewer that is available with CE, and then do the drill down on the local PC, and I'm sure you would be able to export the drill down from there.

The solution works because you are now running a windows program rather than a browser/server app.

If the export isn't available in the free viewer, I know the 3rd party viewers like my cView will be able to do this.

best wishes. Editor and Publisher of Crystal Clear

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

 

[manoma]

Hi MadSnooka,

Did you find any solution for exporting drill down reports?We also face the same problem now.We are using cr8.
Could you please throw some light.

Thanks
Mano

 

[GJParker]

Upgrade to version 9 this allows drill downs to be exported to excel via the web browser.

Good Luck Gary Parker
Systems Support Analyst