Track changes affecting CR reports

[DBAFrog]

We are getting ready to deploy CR ent 9.0 on a test server.
1 Question that is being asked is: If we change a Database field, HOW Will we know if that change affects a report in Crystal report.
Say we add a status code for something, how can we find all reports that have that db.field name so that we can make sure the change will be correctly calculated in a pre-existing report.

We can't be the only company with 200+ CR reports accross multiple depts that need to co-ord dataset changes...I hope.

thanks,

p.s. if this isn't correct forum, I apologize, but I figured Ent. edition would be a good starting point for my question.

------------------
Curious by Nature,
Linux by Design

 

[synapsevampire]

This is a very interesting topic in general.

I know that Dave has posted VB code to display the fields used in reports, however your dilema is more broad in that you wish to search.

One fugly means would be to export all reports to a common directory using the report definition file, and then use a GREP like search to display the reports that have that field in them. I've done this in the past and it worked fine using a freeware GREP for Windows tool.

Of course there's the even uglier means of running them and watching them blow

As a heads up, I suggest basing reports off of Views, and then CAST/CONVERT/RENAME within the View to resolve the database changes and then most of the reports never require changing.

-k

 

[DBAFrog]

Ahhh... I've found the Million $$$$ s\w idea

thanks ~ Do you have a link for the windoze GREP tool?


Thanks again



------------------
Curious by Nature,
Linux by Design

 

[synapsevampire]

There are plenty out there, but I just searched and found:

http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/...UNIX_Ports_and_Commands/GREP_for_Windows.html

-k

 

[DBAFrog]

Sorry to beat a dead horse...

If I have a field db.field1, and I want to change that field to db.field.moredescriptive, there is no way to search all of my CR Reports (assuming they are in a single dir) to find all occurances of db.field1 in my CR reports. So that I can have an idea of which reports maybe impacted by a change.

------------------
Curious by Nature,
Linux by Design

 

[synapsevampire]

You might try using the grep tool against the reports themselves, but I'm not sure if you'll get everything that way.

-k

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
There are 3rd party tools that can do that, it seems ( not an endorsement, have not used any of them):

http://www.reportminer.com/Products/Products.htm

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

 

[DBAFrog]

Thanks you for the link...It is very promising for what we want to do.

------------------
Curious by Nature,
Linux by Design

 

[cmmrfrds]

Check out Software Forces product called rpt inspector. It does what you ask. It allows you to manage across multiple reports and instances including schedules.

 

[synapsevampire]

I wasn't aware of any product thatsearches groups of reports for a field, please post if you find any that do.

-k

 

[splitthird]

I think the APOS KPI tool will also catalogue the content of your published reports

 

[cmmrfrds]

With rpt inspector you can search across multiple reports for a database field name. I that the question?

 

[DBAFrog]

Now that we have found a few leads on products thanks to this thread.

I have a fellow SA that wants to know if any of these products are able to search thru Stored Procedures as well as the db tbls to build the list of fields used in rpts

------------------
Curious by Nature,
Linux by Design

 

[cmmrfrds]

Just to clarify. A search in "rpt inspector" will look for a field referenced in a report. This is not looking on the database side. So, if a field is never used in a report the search will not find the field. If a stored procedure returns a resultset to the report and the field is referenced on the report, then the search will find the field. I hope this clarifies.

 

[synapsevampire]

Searching through SPs is fairly simple on the database side, I wouldn't look to Crystal products for this. Check with your dba, they should have code to do this.

I think that for your purposes, you want to list of reports which contain fields which have been modified.

Of the products I've seen, none has this batch capability, nor a common repository.

you could code it though, including grabbing the SELECT line and parsing it.

Reading the SP code is quite different as it isn't local to Crystal, Crystal just executes it.

Since I use the report definition file as my technical documentation, it was simple for me to get a list of reports which referenced fields that were changed by using a GREP like tool.

-k