ODBC problem with CRXI and Dctionary created with 8.5

[IanWaterman]

We have ben using CR8.5 and CR9 with a data dictionary created with the Crystal Dictionaries ustility supplied with CR8 or CR8.5 no one can remember and it ws before my time.

We recently purchased CRXI and this works intermittently, when it fails we get an ODBC error.

Is there anything special we need to do to either CRXI or the dictionary. The dictionary still works fine with all other existing CR9 installations.

Thank you

Ian

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
There are probably data sources in the Dictionary that use ODBC DSNs that are not defined on the current Workstation.

As to how to find out what they are, I do not know - never used them - but if you have an older copy of CR around, you could examine them..





To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."

 

[synapsevampire]

As you know, the dictionaries are no longer supported, and were a bad idea from the onset.

Consider rewriting these and avoiding proprietary technologies in the future.

-k

 

[IanWaterman]

Thanks for your input.

I have never used Dictionaries before, I guess they made life easier for novice users.

The underlying tables do not have user friendly names or field names. What can we do to replace the Crystal Dictionary and still make it user friendly.

Thanks

Ian

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
Depending on your database, you could create views that have friendly names for the unfriendly ones..





To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."

 

[synapsevampire]

I agree with Turkbear, Views are simple way to implement them, but regardless, you might use synonymns, again depending upon your database.

Try posting your database type.

-k

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
Yes, synonyms will handle the Table names but only views can change the field names..







To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."

 

[synapsevampire]

Good point, Turk.

I don't really use synonymns for exactly that reason, although I've seen approaches wherein they use both to allow for changing the View names depending upon the audience as they might call the same object different things.

-k

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
Great point..Using synonyms referencing various views to control what data is shown can be much simpler to design then trying to use Oracle's Fine Grained Access Control -( Or Virtual Private Database, in some docs)

Of course, that requires using specific Oracle usernames to connect to the database , and that reduces the flexibility of published Crystal Reports.





To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."

 

[IanWaterman]

Thanks for you input, its an Oracle database. It looks like I am going to be busy building views of tables giving them sensible and user friendly names.

Thanks again

Ian