Crystal Reports

Crystal Reports Training Tutorial

ESRI's ArcUser magazine (January–March 2004) featured a four-page training tutorial on how to use Crystal Reports with ArcGIS products. A full version of this report writer comes with ArcGIS at no additional cost to ESRI customers.

• Taking Advantage of Crystal Reports [PDF]
• Get data for tutorial [ZIP]
• Crystal Reports FAQ [PDF]

Crystal Reports 9 Shipping in ArcView, ArcEditor, and ArcInfo

ESRI includes this popular report writer as the default report writer for its ArcGIS software. Crystal Reports 9 offers several new features including

• Creating Reports on the Web
• New Design Choices
• The Crystal Repository

Creating Reports on the Web

Use Crystal Reports to create reports across the Internet using

• Page-On-Demand Technology
  Page-on-demand report access lets users download only the specific report pages they need to see, improving response times and reducing Web traffic. Placeholders and partial page technology allow users to view report pages and data on the Web immediately, without having to wait for the processing of large objects.

• Optimized, Multithreaded Report Engine
  The Report Engine's multithreading capabilities and thread-safe database drivers allow users to continue working on important tasks while many other operations are processed simultaneously in the background. The Report Engine minimizes the number of passes made through the data; speeds up processing with improved memory management; and handles bit map images, subreports, and parameters as efficiently as possible.

New Design Choices

Using Crystal Reports, users can design optimized, high-performance reports using the basics of report design. The choices users make can range from simple, such as updating older reports to the latest file format, to more involved decisions, such as whether to use live or saved data, and how to use summaries efficiently.

To update the format of an older report, just open it in Crystal Reports and select Save from the File menu. The older version of the report will be replaced with a version 9 report.

The Crystal Repository

The Crystal Repository allows users to increase productivity and usability when designing reports by offering a single location to house reusable report objects.

The Crystal Repository is the central location to store and manage report objects. Data definitions, such as custom functions and SQL commands, can also be stored and maintained in the Crystal Repository. The Crystal Repository can store bit maps such as map images from ArcView, ArcEditor, or ArcInfo. The objects are then accessible to users and report developers for use in new reports that can be distributed throughout the company. By storing objects such as map images in the Crystal Repository, users will dramatically increase their report creation and design productivity by pulling existing images into a new report or automatically updating map images in one central location.

By maintaining a shared repository of report objects, users can modify a particular object and update all reports containing that object as they are opened for use. A central location for report objects also helps with the task of managing data—an important benefit in maximizing productivity and minimizing business costs.