General question about data sources

[Katy44]

Whenever I create a report I base it directly on tables or views, which may come from different databases. I've noticed from reading these posts that people seem to have lots of different data sources - SQL queries, stored procedures etc.
Are there any reasons to use one over the other? Are there situations where using a stored procedure, say provides many more benefits than another method? What are the factors involved? Security? Speed?
If anyone knows any general articles on this, then please just point me to them. Thanks.

 

[pgtek]

Hi
Here's my point of view on the diffrent datasource.

NEVER used Crystal query Designer NEVER NEVER please
If you create a report using query designer you can not modified the report or remove the query. If you want to change the datasource you need to create a new report :-(

Storeprocedure: i like this one since when you run a storeprocedure it populated the tables and u have update data. NOTE: you cant link a stoprocedure to a table or other storeprocedure

Tables: if u have lots of table in the report and data has been updated you need to check database to get latest changes made, better yet used storeprocedure since you need only to run than one only.

views: are fine if you have lots of tables and u need only specific data to be report on the report. saves time and faster result return.

hope this gives you a outlook on some features.

cheers



pgtek

 

[Katy44]

Yes, it does thank you.

 

[pgtek]

your welcome

pgtek

 

[jontvr]

If you find that you are creating complex table joins and including complex criteria within Crystal, you should investigate using a stored procedure or view within the datasource itself. Doing that will keep the data compilation within the datasource, which will be much faster, and it will not bring potentially unnecessary data across the network to your machine (assuming server/client).