The Crystal Reports Underground News - Volume 2005.09 (Sep 2005)
an independent source for Crystal Reports Information by Ken Hamady
Contents for September, 2005:
** Crystal Reports Plug-In for Eclipse
** Expert Crystal Reports Training
** BO Loses Patent Lawsuit against Microstrategy
** Updates on the "Don't Pay Twice" campaign:
** BO Conference in November
** My Library of Crystal Reports Guides
** Using Formulas that rely on Subtotals in your Cross-tabs
** Chart on a Parameter Value
** Read back issues at <http://www.kenhamady.com/news.html>
Crystal Reports Plug-In for Eclipse:
Have you heard of Eclipse. I hadn't until a week or so ago and yet one estimate says that one third of all Java developers are using Eclipse. Now I hear that both Business Objects and Actuate plan to offer reporting support for Eclipse. Expect to hear more about it in the future. Reporting is currently the weak area in the open-source environment.
Eclipse is, roughly speaking, the open-source equivalent of Microsoft Visual Studio. Programmers use Eclipse to create Java based applications. The Eclipse workspace or "Workbench" is made up of tools called "plug-ins" that assist the programmer in completing common programming tasks. The Eclipse plug-ins are Java programs designed to connect to other plug-ins within the Eclipse framework. And, like an extension cord, most are designed so that other plug-ins can be added to extend them further.
Because Eclipse is open source, plug-ins are being written by other Eclipse users. Some simply contribute there plug-ins to the Eclipse framework. Others write plug-ins and sell them as commercial applications. The only requirement is that they fit the plug-in model that Eclipse uses.
Actuate went so far as to join the board of the Eclipse Foundation and then suggested an open-source, Java based reporting tool. They even dedicated several engineers to the project. The resulting product is called "Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools" or BIRT. Actuate sells support services for BIRT and hopes to create commercial products that work with BIRT. With Actuate's support and contributions from the Open Source community, you may see BIRT take off.
So now Crystal wants to be represented in the Eclipse framework as well. They are working on a plug-in that will allow Eclipse applications to integrate with Crystal Reports. However this plug-ins will not be open source. It will be sold as a commercial product, at least for now. If BIRT matures and becomes popular it might provide another challenge to Crystal's dominance of the market. See the Library page on my web site for a list of good articles on BIRT.
Expert On-site Training / November Classes in Frederick:
My specialty is teaching Crystal Reports at your office, with your data. And I charge by day, not by student. So, if you have 4 or more students you may find the cost of an on-site class less than the cost of sending the same students to a public class. Even if you have fewer students you might find the benefits of working with your own data worthwhile.
If you only have one or two students you can come to my public classes in Frederick, MD. See the "Public Classes" page above for dates and details.
How good are my classes? I have personally taught over 2,000 satisfied students. Here are some comments from students in September:
"Excellent communication skills! Superb teacher!" - (Library of Congress)
"Great presentation of very complex information" - (IBM)
For more information you can call me at (540) 338-0194.
BO Loses Patent Lawsuit against Microstrategy:
I have seen a troubling trend developing among large technology companies. They have started to file patents for intangible "business methods" for things that are already common and obvious practices. If a company is awarded one of these patents it then looks for others who are using their "patented" method and asks them to pay a fee. The hope is that they will pay rather than challenge the patent in court. A few initial settlements from companies who can't afford to fight often lends credibility to their patent. It also gives them more resources with which to defend the patent.
BO was granted a patents several years ago for using "semantically dynamic objects" to query a database. Now I am not a patent lawyer but this sounds broad enough to cover just about any metadata layer. BO then sued Cognos, Brio and Microstrategy for patent infringement. Brio settled first for 10 Million and Cognos settled shortly after for $24 million. Cognos claimed, even after settlement, that the patent was invalid. And yet they settled because $24 million was worth less than the costs and risks of a legal challenge. That amazes me.
Of the three only Microstrategy decided to fight the patent suit in court. They just won the battle this summer as BO's last claim was dismissed. Microstrategy is now countersuing BO for patent infringement and a few other items. Hopefully this will inspire other companies to fight, and these patents will become less profitable.
Updates on the "Don't Pay Twice" campaign:
If you are a new reader you may be unaware of my campaign. My primary goal is to educate users on BO's attempt to scare people into paying money for permission to do things they are already allowed to do for free. You can read the detail on the link below.
But my secondary goal is to get users to communicate with BO. Otherwise I expect the version 12 license to limit your choices and resources even further. Any comments, questions, complaints will let them know that users are paying attention. Even if you only own one license of Crystal. Here is what we have accomplished so far:
1) Business Objects has been forced to clarify, in writing, that the Crystal EULA doesn't really forbid using the software to teach a public class. They have yet to clarify the contradiction between Dan Klein's letter and their more recent statements.
2) Discussions have sprouted in the regional user groups, and I am told this topic will also come up at the national conference in November. Even the Keynote speakers of the conference are now aware of the issue.
3) Users are now paying more attention to Crystal's fine print. That is important because BO is already working on the next version of Crystal. I am sure that some of BO's management team want to simply use the restrictions currently in the Enterprise license. That would make all independent consulting and training a violation of the license. You should let them know if you think that is a bad idea.
For details on this topic see:
<http://www.kenhamady.com/licensingissues.html>
Business Objects conference in November:
I was tempted to go this year just to stir things up a bit, but my wife's due date is within a week of the conference and I am going to be staying close to home. Those of you who are attending can see the list of breakout sessions here:
http://www.businessobjectsevents.com/userconference05/controller.cfm?view=content.tracks <http://www.businessobjectsevents.com/userconference05/controller.cfm>
Last month I mentioned that the conference would be light on Crystal content and that some popular CDUGNA speakers weren't included. Last week I heard that Ido Millet (creator of Data Link Viewer and Visual Cut) has been asked to do his session on "Advanced Reporting Insights and Techniques". Ido has presented at CDUGNA and always has very popular sessions. This is good news for Crystal users who attend the conference.
My complete Library of Crystal Reports Materials:
Have a special area of Crystal explained to you by a master teacher:
Expert's Guide to Formulas ($36)
Expert's Guide to Subreports, Parameters and Alerts ($28)
Expert's Guide to Totals ($24)
Expert Techniques Vol. I ($19)
Expert Techniques Vol. II ($19)
Quick Reference to Crystal Reports in Visual Basic ($16)
Quick Reference to Crystal Reports in .NET ($14)
http:/www.kenhamady.com/tools.html
Using Formulas that rely on Subtotals in your Cross-tabs:
When you have done something for a long time you start to take things for granted. Recently I was helping someone with a report in XI and it used a cross-tab. One of the cross-tab fields was a formula and I was surprised to find a subtotal inside the formula. Historically, you couldn't use a formula in a cross-tab, if that formula included any totals. Apparently this was not true in XI. So I started testing previous versions and discovered that this became available all the way back in version 9. You still can't do a summary of this field on the report but you CAN do the summary inside a cross-tab. So take the following formula using the Extreme database:
Maximum ({Orders.Order Date}, {Customer.Customer Name}) -
Minimum ({Orders.Order Date}, {Customer.Customer Name})
It calculates the time period between the first and last order for each customer. If I wanted to find the 5 longest periods I could not apply a TopN on the groups. I could, however, use a cross-tab to do the TopN. The steps would be:
1) Create the formula
2) Add a cross-tab with the row by Customer and the formula as the summarized field.
3) Change the summary to Maximum.
4) Apply the TopN to the cross-tab (not to the groups).
These formulas are also available for charts, even back in v8.5. Since a Chart can also do it's own TopN, we can find the Top 5 periods using a chart in v8.5, but not with a Cross-tab.
Chart on a parameter value:
Did you know that your users can manually enter a parameter value that then becomes a bar or slice in a chart? For instance, you want to add a bar chart that compares a grand total of the report to another number that isn't in your database. You could create a parameter and then enter that number manually at runtime. All you need to do is to write a formula that uses the parameter. In CRv9 and later you can simply use the parameter as the entire formula like this:
{?InventoryValue}
But in versions prior to v9 you would have to add the evaluation time like this:
WhileReadingRecords;
{?InventoryValue}
You can now use this formula in the chart expert.
Two cautions on this technique. The chart will most likely need to be an "Advanced" Chart since Group charts can only use Group values. Also, note that the Chart Expert may try to do a Sum of of your formula which would greatly inflate the value. Using Maximum instead of Sum means the chart will not inflate the value.
Contact Information:
Ken Hamady, MS
525K East Market St.
PMB 299
Leesburg, VA 20176
(540) 338-0194
ken@kenhamady.com
http://www.kenhamady.com
Copyright 2005 by Ken Hamady
All rights reserved - Republishing this material requires written permission