Running reports outside of ePortfolio

[moxie249]

I hope this hasn't been asked too many times, but I didn't seem to find an answer to my question when I searched.

I'd like to run some crystal reports connecting to a MS SQL 2000 Server, without making the users go through ePortfolio.

I have them running right now on a separate server on CR8.5, but we don't have enough licenses on that server, and we're getting concurrent user errors.

I'm using .asp pages to pass the parameters, etc., and when I try to run the reports the same way on the CE server, I get the error message "Server has not yet been opened". The "testconnectivity" function on my .asp page returns "false", although I am actually able to run the report in Crystal on that server with no problems. I can even run it from ePortfolio. But I don't want to do that.

I've seen that it is possible to run reports outside of ePortfolio using .csp pages. I'm very comfortable with .asp pages, so I don't mind the learning curve for .csp, but I just don't know where to start. Is there a site, or someone here who could get me started on this?

I won't bother posting the code to the .asp page unless someone wants to see it.

Thanks in advance,
Brenda

 

[lyanch]

Your best bet is to use the eportfolio pages as a reference, ie how they open reports etc.

Lisa

 

[moxie249]

Unfortunately, I can't find any examples of opening reports with parameters. I've got a bunch of .csp files here that someone gave me, but they don't show anything about opening a report and assigning values to the parameters.

I've got one that will open the report with default values for the parameters, and export it as a .pdf, which is how I want the end result, but I need the parameters set.

Any ideas?

All help greatly appreciated ;-)

 

[Turkbear]

Hi
Go to

http://support.businessobjects.com

and search for a file using
ASP as the key word in the Advanced search page..Limit it to CE 8.5 - there will be a downloadable file that contains many samples of using ASP/CSP to call reports with or without parameters..

 

[moxie249]

Hi Turkbear,

Thanks for that, but I already have the samples from Crystal. They have one that exports a report in .pdf, which is great. But the only one they have that discusses parameters is one displaying the default values for parameters. I can't find anything about how to assign values to the parameters when running a report.

I had *no* idea this was going to be so difficult to find!

Thanks anyway.

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
CE 9 and up have samples showing how to use a Report Factory object to build these, but I see nothing like that for 8.5.
We, for our 8.5 system, build a URL to pass the paramter name and value to the report.
For instance:
If the parameter is named EmpNbr, we create a URL like:

[URL unfurl="true"]http://CESERVER/viewrpt.cwr?id=127165&apsname=Guest&apsauthtype=secEnterprise&promptex-EmpNbr=00015959[/URL]

The way the URL string gets built varies depending on the user interface we build ( plain text boxes, drop-down option lists, etc) but, ultimately, we have to build the appropriate URL
( For full info on what can be placed in the command line, download the document called ce8_urlcommands.pdf from the BO support site.. )