The Repository comes out every six to eight
weeks. It features Crystal tools tips and tricks, news about Crystal
Reports, Crystal Enterprise and Crystal Info. Check our Promotions section
for education and solutions offerings. This month's highlights:
- CE Discussions
- Brian Norris explains this
new Crystal Enterprise version 10 feature. See article in this
section.
- Crystal Enterprise
Licensing Demystified - Can't quite figure out how CE is licensed? Visit our News
section for an explanation.
- Crystal: The Complete
Toolset - Visit this
popular site to download, test-drive and buy cutting-edge Crystal
Reports and Crystal Enterprise utilities. See our Promotions
section.
- I Didn't
Know... - our Crystal
knowledge techniques toolbox. Sophisticated and elegant tips and tricks
come from George Peck's Crystal Reports Professional Results and
from you, our subscribers.
From Brian Norris, The
Ablaze Group
Crystal Enterprise v10 Discussions
One of
the exciting new features of CE v10 is CE Discussions, which essentially
provides a separate threaded message board for each report. The message
board appears in a separate frame, above or below the report. A user can
post a message about the report, and that message will be seen by everyone
who views the report later. And so on, and so on… just like a traditional
message board. And the entire message system is handled within CE, so you
are able to take advantage of CE’s built-in security to manage the system.
Using CE Discussions is easy within the Web Desktop. But how do you
take advantage of the feature in your own custom application? It’s
actually pretty easy.
First, create a custom viewer page with two frames: one will contain
the report viewer, one will contain the discussion viewer. In the report
viewer frame, use the code you normally would use to display the report
instance. In the discussion viewer frame, use the code below. (This code
assumes that the report instance ID is sent on the query string as “id”,
and that the CE logon token is stored as a Session variable “LogonToken”.
You can make changes as necessary.)
Dim InstanceID
InstanceID =
Request.QueryString("id")
Dim objNotesContainer
Set objNotesContainer =
Server.CreateObject("CrystalDiscussions.DiscussionsPanel")
objNotesContainer.ObjectId = InstanceID
objNotesContainer.LogonToken = Session("LogonToken")
Dim noteID
noteID = ""
objNotesContainer.SelectedNoteId = “”
Response.Write("[DIV id=""notesContainer""
STYLE=""visibility:
visible; width: 100%; height: 100%; border: 0px; z-index: 60; ""]")
objNotesContainer.Render Request, Response, Session
Response.Write("[/DIV]")
Note: replace [ ] with < > in actual code!
That’s it! The rest of the code used to handle the Discussions is part
of the normal installation. All interaction will be handled within the
Discussions frame.
Newsletter suggestions? Crystal questions? email
us - we'd like to hear from you.
Visit our newsletter archive page to
read past
issues.
... how to easily
change the type of summary.
What if you
initially add a subtotal and want later to change it to an average? Or, is
it possible to copy a sum function from the group footer to the report
footer, and then quickly change the sum to a count in the report footer?
If you have to do this even a few times, it will be helpful to employ a
more streamlined option than going through the entire "Insert Summary"
operation again. Just follow these easy steps!
- Open or create a report that contains at least one group and a
summary function that you'd like to change to use a different summary
operation.
- Select the summary that you wish to change. Right click.
- Choose Change Summary from the pop-up menu (the pop-up menu will
show an Edit Summary Choice in CR 9).
- The Change Summary Dialog box will appear. It looks very similar to
the dialog box you encountered then you first created the summary.
- Choose the new desired summary operation from the drop-down list
captioned 'The summary field calculates the'. If you wish to make any
other changes (such as making the summary a percentage summary field),
make the necessary choice.
- Click OK to close the Change Summary dialog box.
- Preview the report and notice that the summary function has changed.
Tips and
tricks are brought to you by Crystal
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email
your favorite Crystal tip, trick or technique.
Crystal
Enterprise Licensing Explained
It seems that one of the most
common discussions we have with clients revolves around Crystal Enterprise licensing. If the
different "editions" of CE aren't enough to confuse organizations, CE
licensing confusion fills any gap.
Setting aside the various versions of CE for the moment, let's just
concentrate on the three licensing options for Crystal Enterprise
Professional and Premium Editions. The key codes you use when initially
installing CE (or add later to the Crystal Management Console) determine
the number and type of licenses you may use.
- Named User License (NUL) This license belongs to a single
individual and can only be used by that individual. However, the user
may log on to CE any time they want, regardless of how many other users
are currently logged on. You may only create as many NUL user IDs as you
have licenses--any attempt to create an additional NUL user ID will
result in a "not enough licenses" error.
- Concurrent Access License (CAL) This license allows a certain
number of users to be logged on at the same time (concurrently). While
you may create as many CAL user IDs as you want, any time more than the
current number of licensed CAL attempt to log on, a "not enough
licenses" error will result.
NUL and CAL licenses can be mixed on the same CE system, allowing a
combination of "always available" NUL and "only this many logged on at
once" CAL. And, both of these licensing scenarios allow the ability to
scale Crystal Enterprise across multiple hardware platforms (for example,
installing CE components on a multi-processor computer or more than one
computer to spread the load). Contrast these with the Processor License,
which is exclusive (it can't be used with NUL or CAL).
- Processor License This is based on the actual number of CPUs
(Central Processing Units) the computers on which you host CE components
contain (with the exception of the Web Connector on your web server,
which doesn't require a Processor license). While you may create as many
user IDs as you wish and as many of them as the system can handle may be
logged on at a time, you're required to purchase a Processor License for
each physical CPU used to host CE. For example, if you host most CE
components on a dual-processor server, but decide to add two additional
single-processor computers to handle Page Server and Job Server tasks,
you'll be required to purchase four Processor Licenses.
Business Objects would do its customers right by simplifying
this. However, it seems that each subsequent version of CE introduces new
twists just when the user community is figuring out licensing in the past
version. In any event, we can help you determine the best CE license
complement based on your user and processing load. Give us a call.
Learn more.
Crystal: The Complete Toolset
- creativity and technology. Looking for a Crystal tool to simplify report maintenance? How
about increasing Crystal Enterprise productivity? Crystal: The Complete
Toolset is the solution source. Lots of utilities organized by type
and vendor. Simply pull down, point and click!
Visit the Toolset site.
Call or email
for details.
Our
Books
Crystal Reports 10:
The Complete Reference - on sale now!
George Peck's 5th Complete
Reference book is available in stores and online . Look for Crystal Reports 10: The Complete Reference in the
tech section of your favorite book store. Chapters include: administering
Crystal Enterprise, creating and using Business Views, the Repository, as
well as integrating your reports with Visual Basic, Visual Studio .NET and
Java. Buy it! CrystalBook.com.
Sample chapters and downloads.
Call or email
for details.
Crystal Reports
Professional Results is the complete collection of methods and
techniques. Power users,
report writers, and developers rely on this little book for quick and
thoroughly explained solutions. Use it to solve a pesky problem or as a
'tip for today' resource.
Take a look at the book.
Call or email
for details.
Ablaze Group
Consulting & Support
Crystal Enterprise IS in your
future! Call on The
Ablaze Group Crystal Enterprise team to migrate you seamlessly from
Crystal Info to Crystal Enterprise. Is Crystal Enterprise new to you? Our
CE professionals will install and fine-tune, conduct training and return
for further customization. Telephone and email support are available. Do
you need assistance in planning and strategizing? The Ablaze Group will
advise and guide you in the acquisition of this powerful tool. Would you
like to see what Crystal Enterprise can really do? We'll design a custom
demo based on your organization's interests and requirements. Call or email
for details.
Ablaze Group Support - Buy It
By The Block! Concerned
about buying an entire year's worth of support and not using it? Worried
about calling for help and being put on hold so long that you just give
up? Ablaze Group Support is now sold in hourly blocks based on your
needs. Buy hours of our technical support and use it for: report design
and/or modification, workshops, contact via our (800) number or email. Use
the time for project management, strategizing or as an additional
knowledge resource. Ablaze Group Support: as much as you want, when you
want it! Call or email
for details.
Ablaze
Group Education
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