There are environments where the only way to test a report is to run it from within an application. The steps to deploy a modified report vary, but they usually involve placing the modified report into a specific folder and/or publishing the report into the application. Sometimes the users aren’t clear on the steps. So when a user reports that a modified report returns the exact same result as the original, I have to wonder if they are actually still running the original. It may be that they missed a step when deploying the new report. Or it may be that the application still has a cached copy of the original report in memory and needs to be restarted to see the modified report.

The most reliable way to confirm that the report being run is the latest version is to mark the report with something obvious. For instance I often take a text object from the page header and underline it. If they run the report from the app and don’t see the underlined object then they know that they are not deploying the updated version correctly. Most people start out thinking this test is a waste of time. But more often than not we find that there is some key step that they forgot. This simple step has saved hours of troubleshooting time.

And if you have to work regularly on reports like this, you should read my previous article on exporting to RPT format.  That might allow you to bring data from the application back to the Crystal Reports designer so that you can immediately see the results of your design changes.