Crystal Reports Tips


The tips below come from the Flexible Solutions GP Reports Viewer newsletter. GP Reports Viewer is an add-on for Dynamics GP that allows running Crystal and SSRS reports directly from GP.

28 Responses to “Crystal Reports Tips”

  1. ralphm4810 Reply July 10, 2016 at 7:11 pm

    Hi Victoria,

    I need to put together a bid for a client. What reporting solution would you recommend I go with? I am very well versed in Crystal and Crystal Server. I recently started using SSRS and I see its potential. Long term which solution would be a better fit? Or should I quote both for the project?

    Thanks,

    Ralph

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    • Victoria Yudin Reply July 11, 2016 at 7:59 am

      Hi Ralph,

      This is impossible to answer without knowing a lot more detail and it’s not always the same answer in every situation. I know both Crystal and SSRS pretty well and usually the choice of reporting tool depends on a number of things, not necessarily in order of importance:

      • Report design and usage – some reports lend themselves more easily to Crystal vs SSRS. For example, a report with 25 columns with drill-downs that the users will want to export to Excel might be better suited for SSRS. A report that needs to be presented to others (customers, board, bank, etc.) and always needs to be formatted a certain way may be better in Crystal.
      • Licensing – if Crystal licenses need to be purchased, that might be a lot more expensive than using SSRS which is included with SQL.
      • Resources/knowledge – if you know Crystal very well and know that it can do what the report spec requests, but you’re just starting with SSRS, that may be a big factor in your decision. I have found a number of things that are a piece of cake in Crystal, that are very difficult to accomplish in SSRS.

      There are probably a few other considerations, but I think those are the most important.

      Hope that helps,
      -Victoria

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  2. Joseph Reply July 18, 2015 at 1:18 am

    Victoria,

    Yes. You are right. The latest post of mine documents how to remove blank lines from a repeating block of information using both Text Objects (and suppression as you mention) as well as using separate Detail sections for each Text Object.

    Cheers and thanks for this terrific forum.

    Joe

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  3. Joseph Reply July 16, 2015 at 7:31 pm

    Victoria,

    For the benefit of those in this forum, I wanted to provide what I found to be an effective way to remove blank lines (or lines that meet a criteria) in a repeating section. Based on your example, let’s say we have a customer name/address file that repeats as follows:

    Customer_Name
    Customer_Number
    Customer_Addr_line_1
    Customer_Addr_line_2
    City, State, Zip_code

    In order to have any one of these lines suppressed using the Text Object as you mentioned, one would need to put each line (field) in a separate Text Object, and also would put each text object in a separate Detail section as shown below:

    Detail a Customer_Name (which is a text object)
    Detail b Customer_Number (in text object)
    Detail c Customer_Addr_line_1 (in text object)
    Detail d Customer_Addr_line_2 (in text object)
    Detail e City, State, Zip_code (all in a text object)

    [note: to create a new Detail section, right-click on the Detail section in the report Design tab and select “Insert section below”.]

    Now, in the report Design tab, right-click on each text object and open the Format Editor. Check the “suppress embedded field blank lines” and the “can grow” boxes as Victoria indicated.

    You can also check the suppress box and add an X-2 formula to suppress the field if it is NULL or based on any other criteria.

    Now, and lastly, to suppress any one of the separate Detail sections (each of which contains a text object field) so there are no blank lines in the report, open the Detail section expert and click on each Detail section a through e and check the “suppress blank section” box. Voila. You have power to suppress a field and the power to suppress each line in the report.

    Using these 2 powerful elements (text object and separate detail sections), you can suppress each field as needed and remove the blank lines which are controlled by the Detail section expert “suppress blank section” check box.

    Thank you for priming this solution and for your terrific Crystal Reports forum.

    -Joe

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  4. Joseph Reply July 16, 2015 at 5:48 pm

    Victoria,
    I found your “Suppressing blank lines in Crystal Reports” helpful however, I have a text object that repeats (see below) and when a field is missing the text object does not shrink so there is still a blank line at the end of the text object which puts me back to square 1 : ).

    Example (each field is a formula field and the numbers are the field numbers that are needed in the output file.
    1,*
    5,”first name”
    10,”last name”
    15,customer_id
    20,address

    I tried creating these fields using the text object example however when 1 is missing the text object is fixed and there is still a blank line. I did check the “suppress embedded field blank lines” and the “can grow” boxes in the Format Editor.

    Thank you.

    -Joe

    Like

  5. sathya Reply July 16, 2014 at 5:32 am

    Hi Victoria Yudin,

    I am extremely beginner on Crystal Report.
    I have some questions regarding Crystal Report and Microsoft Dynamics GP2013R2 (Dex 12.0)
    I have Microsoft Dynamics GP sample code for how to run Crystal Report from GP. Unfortunately, I couldn’t able to run this code successfully.
    Below is the sample code:

    local reference Report,crxApplication;
    crxApplication = COM_CreateObject(“CrystalRuntime.Application.11”);

    I am getting an EXCEPTION_CLASS_OBJECT_EXCEPTION error on –>crxApplication
    I am using Crystal Report version 13.0.

    Which version of Crystal Report needed for Dexterity 12.0? what is the solution for solving the issue.?

    Thanks in advance..
    Regards,
    Sathiya

    Like

    • Victoria Yudin Reply July 16, 2014 at 5:47 am

      Hi Sathiya,

      I am not a developer, so I cannot help with specific Dexterity questions, but I am not sure if you can run Crystal Reports through Dexterity without a lot of additional work. As an alternative, you can use a product like our GP Reports Viewer to run Crystal Reports from Dynamics GP. All the work is already done for you and GP Reports Viewer includes a ton of user-friendly additional features.

      -Victoria

      -Victoria

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  6. Patrick Reply February 12, 2013 at 6:45 pm

    Victoria

    It’s me again looking for help. I am trying to format my report to eliminate blanks from suppressed sub reports. I have five detail sections and I always want the first and the last section to show in their places. The three middle sections I want to suppress (while still running the variables). I have done this with suppressing the blank reports. This leaves a gap where the report would of been. I have used underlay following button but they underlay whether they are blank or not. I haven’t been able to find a way to get them to underlay only when blank. Any ideas?

    Patrick

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    • Victoria Yudin Reply February 13, 2013 at 11:19 am

      Hi Patrick,

      Have you tried supressing the whole section (from the Section Expert) based on a formula?

      -Victoria

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      • Patrick Reply February 14, 2013 at 10:49 am

        I can suppress the content but it leaves a blank space in the report for each subreport that I suppress. That is why I want to underlay the reports when they are empty so that I don’t end up with one line….several inches of blank… the last line. The underlay has a formula box but I can’t seem to get to work only when there is no data in the subreport.

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        • Victoria Yudin Reply February 14, 2013 at 10:57 am

          Patrick,

          If each subreport is in a separate section of the report, can you go to the Section Expert and choose Suppress Blank Section?

          -Victoria

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          • Patrick Reply February 14, 2013 at 11:09 am

            I have the section expert suppress blank clicked and it leaves a blank space on the report where the subreport would have been. As this report is many pages long and each item reported against can have any and or all the reports filled or empty. I need away to control just how much blank space is showing and that is why I want to underlay blank reports so that they appear to not be there when they are not needed. If I am being dense let me know but It seems it should work. Also, I have variables in each subreport that need to work for calculations no matter if the data is blank so I have to be careful on how completely I suppress the reports.

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            • Victoria Yudin Reply February 14, 2013 at 11:32 am

              Patrick,

              Underlay is typically used to make something shown on top of something else, like for a watermark, so I am not sure that is what you want. Maybe it will work, but I have never used it that way and am not sure how to help you with that. You might want to try a Crystal Reports forum to see if you can get some other opinions or help for using Underlay.

              Suppress Blank Section should work – I just tested it with a report I have and it works perfectly. However, you must also suppress the actual subreport field, that’s the only way the section will be considered blank. I don’t think this will be an issue with the variables on the subreport – I believe the suppression is simply on the printing, not the calculations.

              Another option I am fond of is making the subreport field tiny in height and selecting ‘Can Grow’ for it – that way you can put it anywhere you want and it takes a tiny amount of space if blank, but will grow if needed. You will still need a suppress formula on the subreport field itself for this option to work.

              -Victoria

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  7. Rhon Reply May 21, 2012 at 11:53 pm

    Hi victoria,

    Can you help me how to insert my customized crystal report in GP dynamics 10.0?
    I’ve downloaded and installed a GP report viewer, but I don’t have any idea how to use it.

    I just wanted to use my customized report in GP dynamics 10.0

    Thanks a lot!

    – Rhon

    Like

    • Victoria Yudin Reply May 22, 2012 at 4:16 am

      Hi Rhon,

      Thanks for your interest in GP Reports Viewer. There is a User Guide included in the GP Reports Viewer installation (it will install into the GP directory) that will walk you through the steps of setting up and using GP Reports Viewer. However, if you are looking to try GP Reports Viewer with your live GP company, you would need to get trial registration keys, because the download will only work with the Fabrikam company without registration keys. To request trial registration keys, please email a screenshot of your About Microsoft Dynamics GP window to sales@flex-solutions.com. There are also some demo videos that may help: http://www.GPReportsViewer.com/demos.html.

      -Victoria

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  8. Subhas Reply March 26, 2012 at 9:12 am

    Hello Ms Victoria,

    How To Print Multiple copy (Customer’s Copy,Office ‘s Copy) in the Same A4 page for a Sale Invoice by Crystal Report

    Like

  9. Saras Reply March 19, 2012 at 12:56 am

    Hi Victoria,

    My customers have been using GP Report Viewer with GP 2010 to view Crystal Reports. Today they have been getting the following error message – Database connector error:'[Database Vendor Code: 1105]’
    How do I resolve this?

    Like

  10. Yassir Reply April 5, 2011 at 12:23 pm

    Hi Vic
    I’m using CR V.10
    I’ve created a customer Statement report related to(the Sales Person ID) which is required to be enter by the user.
    But I need to print a separate statement for each customer in the report.. can you help me please? where I’m just a beginner in CR..I read something about page break after/before but I didn’t know how/where to use..!
    I really need your help.

    Like

    • Victoria Yudin Reply April 5, 2011 at 2:31 pm

      Yassir,

      In the Section Expert you should be able to select a checkbox for ‘new page after’ on the group footer for the customer. It’s been many years since I have used Crystal Reports version 10, so I am not 100% sure of the exact steps to give you, as some of this may have changed…

      -Victoria

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  11. Cindy Wyman Reply December 2, 2010 at 4:13 pm

    Hello Ms Victoria,

    I am using Crystal Reports version: 11.5.12.1838 with Dynamics GP. I have set up a sales report using the following tables: IV00101, SOP10100, SOP10106, SOP10200, and SOP60300. On the report I have our product number and our product description..I also have the customer product number and customer product name. The problem I can’t figure out is when in Dynamics an order is entered if there is no customer product number or name that line is not showing up in the Crystal Reports.

    The tables are linked as such:
    SOP10200.ITEMNMBR → IV00101.ITEMNMBR
    SOP10200.SOPNUMBE → SOP10100.SOPNUMBE
    SOP10200.SOPNUMBE → SOP10106.SOPNUMBE
    SOP10200.ITEMNMBR → SOP60300.ITEMNMBR
    SOP10100.CUSTNMBR→ SOP60300.CUSTNMBR

    I would really appreciate any help you can give me with this.
    Thank you,
    Cindy W

    Like

    • Victoria Yudin Reply December 3, 2010 at 5:22 am

      Hi Cindy,

      It’s a bit tough to diagnose without looking at the report, but I would suspect this is being caused by the type of link you have set up between one or both of the following:
      SOP10200.ITEMNMBR → SOP60300.ITEMNMBR
      SOP10100.CUSTNMBR → SOP60300.CUSTNMBR

      These should both be Left Outer Joins.

      -Victoria

      Like

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