The alert feature in Crystal Reports allows you to define a trigger condition in your report.  Then when you run the report Crystal will check for that condition throughout the report.  If that condition occurs, Crystal will pop up a message box with text that you define, telling you that your trigger condition has been met.  It will even allow you to generate a list of the records or groups that triggered the alert.

Normally you can create two types of conditions. One is at the record level using a database field:

{Orders.Amount} > 8000

and the other is at the group level using a subtotal:

Sum({Orders.Amount}, {Customer.Name}) > 8000

You can also create more complex alerts that combine both record and group level conditions, but this is where the bug pops up. If you create a condition that combines 3 or more record level rules and one or more group level rules Crystal will accept that condition formula, but only on a new alert.  If you try to modify that alert logic Crystal will give you one of the following error messages:

One of the previous fields is not constant over group level of this field

or

This field is not constant over the group that the Alert applies to

But if you take that same modified condition and use it in a NEW alert, it will work just fine. So if you have to maintain alerts that are triggered by complex conditions, you might want to keep this in mind.

And if you want to see how you can use Alerts to have your reports “self-report” triggered conditions, give me a call to schedule an appointment.