Hiding a parameter in Crystal, while still populating it from the User ID in 3rd Party front end.

[BeeBear2]

Hi,

Ok, this is a bit of a curly question.
We're working on a project to convert some reports from an old system to crystal Reports (using version 2016). The reports will sit in a Crystal Server (2013), and will be called by a 3rd party front end selecting the report through a URL to the Crystal Server.

Anyway, the issue is, that the data returned will be different depending on the user role (different rights).

So 2 issues:

1. They want to pass the User ID/Role etc of the user logged into the front of the 3rd party software, to the Crystal Report sitting on the Crystal Server. Crystal then uses in the Select statement to determine the data to display.

EG User ID ""ABC" is full access, so gets all locations information
User ID "DEF" is at Sydney location, so only gets Sydney information.

2. In order for Crystal Reports to use this information passed from the front end, we have to put a parameter in crystal Reports to call this information. BUT we don't want the end user whos running the report to be able to see or edit this parameter value.

PS - Not sure if this is relevant, but the reports are built using OracleSQL Stored Procs to source the main data.

Help!!!

Please ask if I need to provide any information.

 

[IdoMillet]

At least one of the 3rd-party Crystal Reports viewers listed here already provides such functionality.
A parameter named in a certain way doesn't prompt the user; instead its value gets set to the Windows User Id of the person running the report.

view, export, burst, email, and schedule Crystal Reports.

http://www.MilletSoftware.com

 

[hilfy]

It's been a while since I've done this, but I think you might be able to do it this way:

1. Make the parameter optional (even though it's not really).
2. Set a default value that will not bring back any data.
3. Set the "Show on (Viewer) Panel" property to false.

-Dell

DecisionFirst Technologies - Seven-time SAP BusinessObjects Solution Partner of the Year

http://www.decisionfirst.com

 

[PeterDimitrov]

It might be a little bit late, but check also our viewer:

http://r-tagsoftware.com/Pages/Viewers

You can set a default value for the parameter, for example the current user, and tell the system to use the value without showing the parameter. Here is a video demonstrating the case:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADXiP24N6Fw&t=4s

Keep in mind that if your reports are placed in a shared folder your users will be able to change them, remove the filtering by the parameter and see all the data. To avoid that you need to have a safe repository, which the user will be not able to access and tamper.
For scenarios like that we provide a "server mode", which will not allow the user to access the report outside the viewer.

http://www.R-Tag.com

Viewer and Scheduler for Crystal reports, SSRS and Dynamic Dashboards.