Crystal Reports Intermediate Training

This course is designed for students who have mastered the basics of Crystal Reports and now want to enhance their reports using running totals, subreports, advanced formulas, and cross-tab reports.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Create running totals — both automatic and manual — with more control over which data is included than a standard subtotal allows
• Build cross-tab reports to summarize large datasets across two dimensions at once
• Add subreports to bring together data from otherwise unrelated tables in a single report
• Build drill-downs so a report can show a summary view first and reveal detail on demand
• Write SQL statements directly inside a report, including joins, subqueries, and SQL expression fields
• Build more advanced formulas using loops and arrays
• Add charts to a report, including cross-tab and top-N charts, and reusable chart templates
• Extend report functionality with dynamic images, report alerts, and geographic maps

Creating Running Totals

Creating a running total field · Modifying a running total field · Creating a manual running total

Hands-on exercise: Students build a running total to isolate sales on a specific day of the week, modify it to reset at the start of each calendar quarter, and build a manual running total from scratch to double-check the results of an existing running total field.

Working with Cross-Tabs

Creating a cross-tab report · Formatting a cross-tab report · Creating groups within a cross-tab report

Hands-on exercise: Students build a cross-tab report showing product quantities sold by employee, format it to highlight quantities above a threshold, group near-duplicate product entries into a single category, and adjust the report layout so the full cross-tab fits on one printed page.

Adding Subreports

Inserting a subreport · Editing a subreport · Sharing variables between a primary report and a subreport

Hands-on exercise: Students combine customer and supplier data from two unrelated tables into a single report using a subreport, set that subreport to appear only when relevant data exists, link a second subreport so it only displays when opened on demand, and share a variable between the primary report and subreport to produce a combined summary total.

Creating Drill-Downs in a Report

Creating a drill-down · Creating headings for drill-down data

Hands-on exercise: Students build a drill-down into a sales report so viewers can expand from a customer's total down to individual sales, then add headings so each level of drill-down detail is clearly labeled.

Using SQL Statements in Report Processing

Creating a report using SQL queries · Summarizing report data with SQL · Creating joins using SQL · Creating subqueries · Creating an SQL expression field

Hands-on exercise: Students write a report directly from an SQL query, summarize customer counts by region using SQL, join two related tables to pull employee and address data together, build a subquery to include records that don't have a matching entry in a second table, and create an SQL expression field to speed up the processing of a large, growing report.

Creating Complex Formulas

Working with loops · Working with arrays

Hands-on exercise: Students build a formula using a loop to validate a list of customer email addresses, and use an array-based formula to calculate a running sales total without relying on a built-in running total field.

Adding Charts to Reports

Creating charts · Drilling down to chart data · Creating a Top N chart · Creating a cross-tab chart · Creating charts for grouped data · Formatting a chart · Creating a chart template

Hands-on exercise: Students build a bar chart and a pie chart to present sales figures more clearly, create a Top N chart to isolate top-performing regions, build a cross-tab chart to compare product sales by type, add a chart to each group in a report, combine two data series into a single chart, and save a finished chart's formatting as a reusable template.

Enhancing Report Functionality

Organizing data based on a hierarchy · Creating a dynamic image · Creating a report alert · Creating a geographic map

Hands-on exercise: Students organize an employee list by reporting hierarchy, connect a report to an external data source to display dynamic, changing product images, set up a report alert to flag sales that fall outside an expected range, and build a geographic map showing customer density by country using a color scale.

Students should have experience navigating in a Windows environment. Some experience with Microsoft Access or an understanding of database concepts is also helpful. Students should also have attended, or have experience with the concepts in, our Crystal Reports Introduction Training course.

The topics in this course — SQL joins, subreports linking unrelated tables, loops and arrays in formulas — are exactly where self-paced training tends to break down, since the correct approach usually depends on the specific structure of the student's own data and database. A recorded video can show a working example, but it cannot troubleshoot why your particular subreport is not returning the right records.

In this course, an instructor works through these issues live, using the report the student is actually building. Students also retain access to a recording of the session and post-class instructor support, which is particularly valuable when applying these more advanced techniques to a real, organization-specific reporting need after the course ends.